One day last week, Teddy drove his ‘new’ pickup home. It was painted, it was put back together (mostly), and it was running. It was his first paint job, and he didn’t get quite enough paint on it, so he’s a bit disappointed. I assured him that it looked quite fine--and it really does.
Hannah happened to be here when he came home, and was just explaining how a certain fabric looked one color at Wal-Mart, but another color entirely, at home; and Teddy allowed as how he well knew what she meant, because his pickup looked one way at night, in the dark (quite good), but another way entirely in the daytime (not so good, because of not putting enough paint on it).
We’ve been keeping the fireplace crackling away for the last couple of weeks. It’s cold outside. One day it was blue and sunny, but all of a sudden the weather alert signal went off on the scanner, and the dispatcher announced that there was to be a big snowstorm the following night. (drum roll; Jacksons small and large are heard cheering)
The glass doors on the fireplace were open, and Caleb had left a little Matchbox loader and dump truck on the hearth directly in front of the open doors. Victoria found them. She picked up the loader.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, holding it out for me to see, “Look what Caleb left here! That’s not so good!” she said. She ran a finger along the side of it. “It’s hot,” she told me. She opened her eyes wide and looked at me. “It could’ve caught on fire!” she exclaimed. She looked the hearth over carefully, glanced down at the floor, and then continued, “And his firetruck is not anywhere near!”
Dorcas and Teddy had instrument practice again Tuesday evening. When they came home, Larry, Dorcas, and Victoria went off to the store to get us ice cream and donuts. Mmmmm… Later, I went with Larry out to the new shop south of town. It’s quite a lot bigger than the old one--almost twice as big, but some of it isn’t finished, and still needs Sheetrock on the walls and ceiling. The owners may give Larry the materials to finish it, and then give him a break on the rent, too. It would certainly make it easier for a person to see what he was doing, if the walls were Sheetrocked and painted. It was only 15º that night, and the radiating heaters on the ceiling still need to be joined by pipe to a big propane tank nearby. The line is already in place inside the shop, but Larry will have to buy copper tubing to run from the tank to the line. Meanwhile, he had scattered a few small ceramic heaters about the place, and built a fire in the big wood burning stove in the main room.
And in that main room I found an exciting piece of transportation: a burgundy 1995 Buick Riviera.
Forget about Porsche Boxsters and 911 Caterras. We’ve got a Riviera!!!!!!!!
Larry traded a 1988 Trooper for it last summer sometime, and I didn’t even know it, because he’d kept it in a storage garage near the shop. It has damaged fenders and a smashed windshield, and the airbags detonated, but other than that, she’s cherry! Now, if Somebody can just find the time -- and money -- to repair that beautiful car.
’Course, there’s only room for five passengers (six, if they’re small enough) (we’ll just use bungy straps, in lieu of seat belts), but with the big kids working and dating and sometimes wanting to stay home when we travel with the littles, it’ll be just the ticket--and it gets 30-32 miles to the gallon on the highway, 20 or so in town. That’s in contrast to the Suburban’s 18-19 miles to the gallon on highway driving, and only about 10 in town. (Aarrgghh!)
Well, the car will probably not be worked on any time soon, but there is always hope, springing eternal…
Larry’s phone was finally reconnected at the ‘new’ shop Saturday. The phone company had disconnected the one at the old shop Tuesday, and they were supposed to disconnect the old and reconnect the new at the same time, so there would be no lapse in service. But when Larry called to find out why there was no phone at either place, they blithely explained that they were just too busy to do any reconnecting for a while, sorry, call again any time, your business is of utmost importance to us.
Wednesday afternoon I was sitting at my sewing machine doing the everlasting mending (oh, I don’t mind it; really, I don’t) when Victoria came running to tell me, “Tad is up on the table, and he’s eating the butter!”
I dashed out to the kitchen, and, as I came around the corner, I said, “Tad! You get down!”
Tad, at the far edge of the table, pulled his ears back toward me and rolled his eyes around in my direction. And then, if that crazy cat didn’t get three feet off the table, stepping down onto a chair behind the table, keeping just one foot and his head in the butter dish, licking as fast as his little pink tongue could go. That cat.
By the time church was over Wednesday night, it was snowing, although not quite the blizzard we had been warned to expect, and the sidewalks were slippery. The stiff wind made it feel a lot colder than the 29º it really was.
Kidney stones are not nice. I try them out on occasion, just to confirm the fact. And Thursday I once again came to the conclusion that it is indeed true: kidney stones are not nice. Sometimes it comes on really fast, and I don’t realize anything is wrong until I leap to my feet to fly off somewhere in my usual fashion, and kablooey!--I sit back down again, fast. But sometimes, as today, it starts as a dull sideache that I pay no attention to until, gradually increasing in volume, it finally occurs to me, “Hey! My side hurts!” and then, several hours later, “Oh, my side still hurts.” And eventually, “Uh, oh; I think this might be kidney stones.” And lastly, “AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! I’ve got kidney stones!!!” Nope; kidney stones are not nice. When they finally go away and leave me alone, I feel as if I have run a marathon with no training and preparation ahead of time. Anyway, at least they rarely hang around longer than a day.
Teddy sometimes goes into the kitchen, opens the refrigerator, and gets out a jug of juice (or milk) (or water). Now, if he does what he ought to do, I should next hear him open either the cupboard or the dishwasher, and get out a glass. I hear neither. However, he soon opens the refrigerator back up and puts the jug away.
So, what do you think happened?
I think I know, and I say reprovingly from the living room or bedroom, “Teddy.”
“Huh?” he says in as innocent a voice as he can muster.
“Don’t do that, you unmannerly hooligan,” I tell him.
He comes and peers around the corner at me, raising his eyebrows high in Woodstock’s Best Innocent Look. I scowl at him, and he grins sheepishly. I grin back; one cannot help grinning at Teddy when he grins that off-centered hangdog grin of his.
Sometimes when I hear him open the refrigerator, I sneak down the hall and wait just around the corner until I hear the telltale sound of the sides of the jug collapsing, thok thok thok thok thok.
Then I pop suddenly around the corner and yell, “STOP THAT!!!”
And he, a son of his father for sure, says, just as his father would, “MMMMphphmmmmphphAaaaaAAAAaaaaaaa!”, usually managing to keep from spilling all the juice or milk down his chin and onto his shirt.
Well, guess what. His littlest sister, having observed Admirable Big Brother doing it, decided to try it herself…with a full milk jug. A full gallon milk jug. Unbeknownst to her, Joseph was standing in the little bathroom just off the kitchen, watching the show. She picked up the jug and tilted it toward her lips--a little too fast. It sloshed, and some of it spilt down the front of her just before she got it to her mouth and drank. She set the jug back on the table with difficulty--it was heavy--and retrieved a towel to mop off mouth and dress. She made a rueful face.
“Boy, I sure shouldn’t’ve done that!” she said in an excellent imitation of Dave Hood, from the There Goes a Something-Or-Other videos.
Joseph very quietly closed the bathroom door, so as not to let his little sister see how hard he was laughing.
One night, Victoria was looking at a big picture of a ladybug in one of her books. “How do they know whether it’s a ladybug, or a manbug, or a girlbug, or a boybug?” she queried.
“Oh,” I told her, “that’s easy. The ladybugs stay home and wash the dishes; the manbugs work on construction sites, the girlbugs play with dollbugs, and the boybugs play with Matchbug cars.”
Victoria wrinkled her nose. “Oh, Mama,” she said, giggling.
Well, I believe in always answering a child. I never ignore their questions, even when I don’t know the explanation. After all!--as Frank A. Clark once said, “There’s nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child.”
Thursday evening Dorcas and Joseph went to Wal-Mart to get a new mouse for the other computer, because the old one was altogetherly too cantankerous for words. Joseph bought it, himself. It has a scroll button in the middle, like mine does, but the part that is under one’s palm is made of soft fabric over gel. You see, we got that new Gateway computer at the pawn shop--and the pawn shop owner had given the Gateway mouse to his daughter, who was in dire need of a mouse for her own computer. So when Larry bought the computer, the man gave him a decrepit old mouse that was on an old computer of his, and the ball doesn’t roll worth a hoot. It was forever hanging up, so the cursor jerked around the screen, and a person had a real devil of a time trying to rest the arrow on whatever it was he wished to rest it upon. Aarrgghh!
Even Victoria complained, “This mouse is sure disgusting!” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I actually don’t even think Tad would want it!”
Joseph brought the mouse home, plugged it in---and then told his little sisters and brother, “Now, when you want to use the computer, you have to plug the old mouse back in; this one is mine!”
Hester and Lydia knew that brother of theirs was teasing, but you should’ve seen how fast Caleb’s head spun around to look at me, to see if it was true, and to see what I thought of such a thing. I assured him that Joseph was full of baloney; the new mouse was for everyone.
I am feeling ever so pleased, because I shanghaied the Encarta Encyclopedia 2000 from the Gateway computer, deleted Encarta 1999 off mine, and loaded the 2000 version. I downloaded sixteen months of updates and new information, too.
“I’m going to be so smart and well-informed, nobody will be able to stand me,” I smugly told the children--and then it happened.
The fifth time I pulled up Encarta, a preprogrammed advertisement popped up on my screen: “The New Encarta 2001 Encyclopedia is now available. Click here to order yours. Have the world at your fingertips!” And at the bottom of the ad was the Web address. Aauugghh. So much for smugness and superiority. I am already outdated.
Larry rented a tire groover from Bill’s Tire Company, and put grooves into the new tires on his pickup--those tires that were practically worthless in the snow and ice. Now they work much better. He also put grooves into the tires on his forklift, because it didn’t go at all well in the snow, either. The tool heats the rubber and makes it easier for the little knives to cut. He left the tires on the pickup and forklift while grooving them. It took him only a little over an hour, but he did get to feeling that those tires were an awfully long way around.
The mending is all done (well, for the next couple of hours, it is, at which time I am sure somebody will have torn out their hem or skidded on their knees until kneecap and ground are making direct contact), and after finishing that, I sewed Victoria a purple-flowered corduroy jumper and a purple blouse to go with it. Then I sewed a green and rose-flowered corduroy jumper for her, and I need to get some mint green fabric for a blouse. If I manage to get it done before Thanksgiving, I think I will have her wear that, instead of the dark blue, green, and gold plaid dress I made earlier.
Have I told you that my brother Loren retired at the end of September? Then NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business) rehired him (he used to work there, some years ago); he will work part time, or as many hours as he wishes. Having a reputation for being the best salesman in the country can get you all sorts of places! He almost has the ten-page sales pitch learned; he is on page nine. He must learn it word for word.
Time out---I’m trying to dress Victoria’s doll. And she refuses to put her hand into the sleeve. (the doll, not Victoria) Okay, one hand is in.... now for the other one. She needs her ponytail holder put back in, too... Okay! I’m back! The doll is now in excellent shape.
Well…at least, I thought so…but now Victoria is telling me, “My doll is really thirsty,” meaning, of course, that Victoria is really thirsty.
I got her a glass of water from the tap at the sink---and she said, “BLEAH!!! SOMETHING’S WRONG WITH MY WATER!!!”
We are used to drinking distilled water, but the distiller is out in the garage, and it is freezing cold out there. Nevertheless, I let Victoria go out to the distiller for a glass of water, since she had shoes on, and I didn’t. She came shivering back in with her glass of water in one quick hurry, telling me, “I got all freezed, but the water is lots better.”
AAAuuuggghhhh!!! Now my coffee is cold! Refilling...
Okay! I’m back again!
This afternoon, Victoria got up from her nap and came wandering sleepily out to find me. As I combed her hair, she explained to me, “I was very tired while I was sleeping!” She tipped her head consideringly. “But after a while,” she continued, “I got better, so I woke up.”
She sat down to play with her colors, scissors, glue, tape, and paper… Victoria needs Scotch tape for Christmas, in case anybody wants to know.
Friday evening, Hannah brought us a raspberry funnel cake. Mmmmmm, yummy! That young lady is a sure enough good cook! Teddy, after making certain to collect his share of funnel cake, went off on a date with Amy, taking Lydia with him. Joseph was playing a car race game on the other computer, and Dorcas was sitting in the big chair behind me reading a Janette Oke book--or at least, she was trying to, but the video Milo and Otis that the littles were watching kept interrupting her.
Keith and Esther came visiting, and then Teddy, Amy, and Lydia came home, and soon they were all watching Brighty of the Grand Canyon. My fourth-grade teacher read that book to our class, and there wasn’t a soul in the classroom who didn’t want a smart little burro for a pet when the story was over. Furthermore, we were all seized with an unquenchable yearning to go hiking in the Grand Canyon. I have never seen the Grand Canyon…but I still want to. Someday, maybe I will.
Friday night this ol’ Planet Earth went through the Leonid Meteor Shower. We go through it once a year, but every 33 years we get a spectacular show. Late every autumn around November 17th or 18th, in the still, silent hours before dawn, dedicated meteor watchers have long kept a vigil. In the cold early morning darkness, the sky glimmers with streaks of space dust burning up in earth’s high atmosphere. In the east is the Constellation Leo, with its familiar backwards question-mark shape. Meanwhile, invisible in the wastes of the outer solar system, a cloud of meteoroids has been preparing itself for a dash around the sun. This swarm has been narrowing, lengthening, and falling with ever increasing speed toward the spot the earth occupies every November 17-18. In 1966, when it last swept by, the earth plowed through it head-on. For an hour the upper atmosphere on the forward-facing side of our planet blazed with meteors storming like a fiery rain from the Sickle of Leo.
Many years ago, on the night of November 12, 1833, the Western Hemisphere unexpectedly came under attack. A firestorm of shooting stars, silent but overwhelming, filled the sky. Here is part of a Victorian astronomy writer’s classic description of that incredible scene:
“That night, a tempest of falling stars broke over the earth. The sky was scored in every direction with shining tracks and illuminated with majestic fireballs. At Boston, the frequency of meteors was estimated to be about half that of flakes of snow in an average snowstorm. Their numbers were quite beyond counting; but as it waned, a reckoning was attempted, from which it was computed, on the basis of that much-diminished rate, that 240,000 must have been visible during the nine hours they continued to fall.”
Apparently the night was clear and starry from Halifax to the Gulf of Mexico and, judging by Plains Indian records of the shower, farther west as well. By midnight some people may have noted an unusual number of meteors streaking from the east. But it was the early morning hours of the 13th that made the greatest impression. A reliable observer at West Point, New York, estimated that at the height of the storm at least 10,000 bright meteors were visible per hour. Another observer, believing that the meteors were stars, thought there would be no stars left in the sky the next night. Some of the meteors were said to be as bright as streaking full moons.
“During the three hours of its continuance,” wrote one chronicler, “the day of judgment was believed to be only waiting for sunrise, and, long after the shower had ceased, the morbid and superstitious still were impressed with the idea that the final day was at least only a week ahead. Impromptu meetings for prayer were held in many places, and many other scenes of religious devotion, or terror, or abandonment of worldly affairs, transpired, under the influence of fear occasioned by so sudden and awful a display.”
Sudden religion as a consequence of extreme fright is rarely enduring. I’ll bet it was no more than a week or two before some of those abrupt aficionados returned to ‘normal’.
The side of the Earth facing into the stream of a meteor shower gets peppered with meteoroids, which vaporize in the upper atmosphere at altitudes of about 40 to 80 miles. The meteoroids themselves are tiny, generally ranging from the size of large sand grains to small pebbles.
The source of a meteor stream was first identified in 1866: their orbits closely match the orbits of comets traveling before them. Today, even though not all prominent meteor showers have been matched to known comets, the relationship is clear: meteor streams are the debris of crumbling comets.
This is how someone described the meteor shower of 1966: “We saw a rain of meteors turn into a hail of meteors and finally a storm of meteors too numerous to count. The meteors were so intense that we were guessing how many could be seen in a one-second sweep of the observer’s head. A rate of about 150,000 per hour was seen for about twenty minutes.”
Like other comets, P/Tempel-Tuttle, the comet from which streams the Leonid Meteors, is a cosmic litterbug, spreading a long river of rubble in front of and behind itself along its orbit. Each particle in this stream orbits the Sun independently in a roughly 33-year period. Many Leonid meteoroids have become widely scattered along and away from the comet’s orbit (a narrow ellipse that reaches all the way out to the orbit of Uranus). These stray particles are the ones that produce the ordinary, weak annual Leonid shower, which lasts for several days. But the narrow, densest part of the swarm apparently remains within a few astronomical units of the comet itself, following it around. This narrow ribbon must be several astronomical units long, long enough to intersect the orbit of the Earth for several years running.
Since, like their parent comet, the meteoroids orbit the Sun backward, they collide with the Earth nearly head-on. They rip into our atmosphere at 44 miles per second, faster than particles from any other major shower, producing bright, swift streaks of white, green, and blue. Many leave long-enduring trains.
It’s in the years just before and after P/Tempel-Tuttle passes by that we stand a chance of getting hit by the full onslaught. But predictions can be inaccurate, and often are. In the end, all that can be said is this: those who see a meteor storm will be those who are outdoors looking up when and if it happens!
Well, this meteor shower was supposed to peak at 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning. So, at 1:58 a.m. I donned an extra pair of socks, my warm-as-toast Sorel boots, a thick sweater, my less-warm-every-year coat, a fleece scarf, and dark green furry earmuffs. I walked outside--and in the first thirty seconds, I saw three ‘falling stars’. The unique thing about them was the long tails they sported that kept on glowing in the night sky even after the meteor had burned itself out. I shivered and pulled up my hood.
This hood happens to be the one whose fur didn’t fare so well, when Dorcas very kindly put it into the dryer for me after I washed it, in spite of the fact that I had told everyone emphatically to leave that coat out of the dryer. I went downstairs to put the load of clothes--sans that coat--into the dryer--and was horrified to discover that some Helpful Hattie had already taken the clothes from the wash machine and transferred them to the dryer--and a damp navy coat with soft black fur on the hood was nowhere to be seen. It was neither in the wash machine, nor hanging anywhere in the washroom.
It was in the dryer.
I pulled it out in trepidation…and, just as I had feared, that fur closely resembled a small animal that had had a nasty encounter with a fire-breathing dragon.
And the dragon had won.
Now, I was not about to be caught in a coat that sported a fried skunk around the neck, so I trotted myself straight off to Wal-Mart’s faux fur department. I bought a piece of ever-so-soft fur, and rushed home to sew it onto my hood. I attached it right over the top of the old fur, using it as a sort of stuffing, so that the new fur looked soft and full. And I left the fur wide, thinking it would be warmer that way. Well, it is; but the trouble is, when I pull up my hood, it comes so far over my face, I can hardly see out. Genuine tunnel vision, ’tis. So I have a choice: I can be warm while running into walls and trees and such like, or I can have a cold head while navigating around obstacles properly.
Discovering that I couldn’t see so well with that hood up, I pushed it back off. After standing and shivering in the arctic wind for another five minutes, during which time no more meteors fell, I determined that my earmuffs were no longer muffing, so I took them to the woodpile with me to collect some wood, and then I brought them back inside with me to stoke the fire--and sit in front of it.
One day Bobby got home from work while Hannah was at the store. When she walked in, she came upon Bobby on his hands and knees, facing her, backing along as he mopped the floor. It seems he’d come into the house with his boots on, and gotten the floor all muddy. Now, that seems like a fine thing to be doing--mopping up after himself--but there was a problem: his boots were still on.
Larry’s cousin, Arthur, was taken to the hospital in Omaha by ambulance Friday night. He has been suffering from cancer for a couple of years. He has lived longer than was expected, but he is very sick now.
Saturday night, Caleb was in the other desk chair on his knees. Somebody was putting logs on the fire, and Caleb turned around backwards, to look into the fireplace. And then, suddenly, he yeowled, “AAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAaaa!!!!”
There was a deafening CRAAASHSHSHSH!!!, and then -- silence.
He’d dumped his chair over.
His eyes were huge...and Victoria, who was perched on the piano bench right beside him, had eyes as big as saucers.
After seeing that her brother was not injured, she remarked ever so seriously, “That was just like in the Airport game.” haha (The Airport game is a CD-ROM, where the baggage agent sometimes dumps his chair over backwards when you click on him, and down he goes, howling all the way.)
Saturday, Hester, with Victoria’s ‘help’, was hanging up clothes in Victoria’s room; Dorcas was sewing herself another dress for Thanksgiving because the dress she originally made doesn’t fit quite right; Lydia and Caleb were doing the dishes; and Teddy and Joseph were with Larry at the new shop. I was sewing Victoria’s jumper, and things seemed altogetherly too quiet…there was no football game to listen to.
Or was there?
I turned on the radio and searched for a station where I could listen to the game between either Oklahoma and Texas A&M, or Florida State versus Florida. Perhaps because of the weather, everything I found was drowned out with static or another station…but finally I came upon one with decent reception and what promised to be a first-rate announcer.
I zeroed in on the station and listened. It was the Huskers (which Huskers, I wondered?) and Baylor University (a Baptist college in Texas). Since I was sewing, with periodic bouts of loud humming of the sewing machine drowning out the announcer, it was some time before I finally figured out what I was listening to: it was ladies’ volleyball. Ladies volleyball!
One must be extraordinarily rabid and radical about volleyball in order to find Radio Volleyball entertaining, I think. I soon returned to scanning the dial for something better to listen to. Oh, if only my tape player worked!
That night we heard quite an upheaval on our police scanner: Seven teenagers--18 or 19 years old--stole liquor from UnSmart Foods. The police came after them; they ran. The police were catching them, one after the other…
Keith happened to be in the carwash just down the street, washing his pickup. He saw the kids coming toward him in a dark field, and he saw the police on the highway, looking for them, so he obligingly did his boyscout deed for the day and turned his bright lights on them. The police promptly collared two more of them.
And then, over our scanner, all out of breath and voice trembling, we heard one of the policemen who’d caught a couple of the brigands say, “Need to go to the hospital reference broken finger.”
The policewoman who seems to be in charge of everybody, possibly because she’s bigger than everybody else, said in surprise, “On you?!”
The policeman confirmed that, yes, the broken finger was indeed on him. Poor man! After he’d worked his head off to catch those brats… We could tell he was in a lot of pain, from his voice. Poor man.
Loren and Janice stopped to see us after church. Listening to Larry tell others the experiences and happenings on his trailering trips is sometimes the only way I learn about them. So…I listened carefully, and then wrote it down.
He still ignores the weigh scales. Once, as he was traveling along Interstate 80, a scale boy pulled alongside, giving his rig a real lookover. Spotting the lettering on the side of the pickup--“Jackson Trans Co”--the man paused to read it, then sped back up and pulled away from him, evidently satisfied that everything was in order.
A little later, Larry thought, “I believe this pickup is missing.” (As in, missing on a cylinder or two; not as in, missing/gone/absent/lost/not there.) He groaned to himself. What’s wrong now?!
Pulling onto an off ramp, he stopped on the shoulder, got out, and lifted the hood. The motor and under side of the hood were coated with fuel. He imagined fuel line breaks--but then he saw it: the screw over an injector was loose. He tightened it, and that was that. Fixed. If only all difficulties and dilemmas, predicaments and impasses were so easily resolved!
My nephew Robert preached Sunday night about the Levites being numbered, and their particular chores around the Tabernacle, which is a type of Christ. One family had only to care for the pins that held the animal-skin curtains around the Tabernacle! We all have things to do for the Lord. Some people’s responsibilities may seem much less significant than others, but all things are necessary for the good of the whole, and none of us should desire another’s position. As Robert gets less nervous about preaching in front of a congregation, his sermons improve…and they were good to start with! I wish you could hear him.
Teddy’s pickup wasn’t working so great after church last night, and it kept dying every time he stopped. So he and Amy came back and exchanged it for the Toyota. Today Larry looked at it to see what was the trouble, and discovered that the intake manifold gasket hadn’t been tightened, so the gasket leaked and was damaged. It will have to be replaced--and hopefully, after that, everything will work fine and dandy.
* * *
I’ve just spent a good long while trying to get the fire restarted. Teddy tried, before he left for the shop, but he didn’t put nearly enough wood in it, and a fire can’t start unless the wood is piled up just right, sort of like a pyramid, so the air can circulate well. I crammed a bunch of newspapers under the grate and lit it, bound and determined to get that fire going. Burn, you recalcitrant logs, burn!
I’ve put almost all the Sunday newspaper into the fireplace... wadded paper under and in and around and atop the logs.... Surely, this time it will light!
(going to wash the newspaper ink off my hands)
* * *
AAAAAAAAArrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh… The fire went out again! What shall I do, rub flintstones together?
Speaking of Flintstones, when I was out at Larry’s new shop, I saw a ‘pickup’--if one could call it that--really, it’s no more than a frame with a rattletrap box, and a dilapidated engine sticking up from the frame. This particular pickup had burned--frame, box, engine and all. The rubber of the tires was burnt entirely off; all that was left around the wheels were the steel belts that had been between the plies and the tread of the radial tires. I asked Larry how he’d gotten that ‘pickup’ out to the new shop.
“It was easy,” he replied. “I just sat on the frame and paddled with my feet. I got to peddling so fast,” he continued, putting in a few descriptive motions, “the terrific friction caught the thing on fire!”
One time when Larry was young, albeit old enough to know better (that’s about age 39, I think) (no, actually, he was 14), he was conducting an important scientific experiment. (At least, I think that’s what it was.) He threw a lit firecracker into a can of gasoline, and then slapped the lid back on with haste.
“ka-BOOM!!!” said the gas can, and the lid blew to the moon and back again.
Hey! he thought, that’s nifty. Where’s Kenny, I wonder?
He called his younger brother.
“Watch this!” said Larry, “This is really neat!”
Kenny watched while Larry lit the firecracker.
“You put the lid on quick,” Larry instructed his brother, “after I throw the firecracker in.”
In went the firecracker. Down came the lid...and they waited with anticipation.
And they waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Finally, Larry said, “Take the lid off.”
Kenny did so - - -
ka-BLOOEY!!
said the gas can.
And there stood Larry and Kenny, squinting at each other through eyebrows and eyelashes and hair singed into dark, melted ringlets.
Kenny scowled at his older brother. “I don’t think that’s so neat,” he informed Larry, and stalked off in high dudgeon.
So much for that experiment.
* * *
Hey! The fire is burning! Ahhhh…it’s getting all warm and cozy in here…
When the Schwan man was here a few minutes ago, Tad was walking around his big truck, checking it out. He sniffed the tires, stood up on the ledges at the sides, and peered into the cubbyholes wherein was stored all the frozen food. He’s such a funny little cat, curious and friendly. I just wish he wasn’t quite so unafraid of people--a little more caution would stand him in good stead.
As I write this, Florida is still trying to decide who won the election. I declare! It’s enough to make one throw up one’s hands in hopelessness and despair that the outcome will ever be known. But I must remember! -- my vote counts! -- and recounts…and recounts…and recounts…and recounts…and recounts… Aarrgghh. I think I am becoming nautically nauseated.
Are you as concerned as I am, that instead of Bush winning the election, they will award it to the bushpig? Yi.
Well…it is past my bedtime, and I still need to wash another load of clozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……….
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