Tag Archives: psychology

Dear Hearts and Gentle People – [Bullet Holes in the Ceiling]

Posted on February 28, 2012 by | 11 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

It must have been an Eve, Christmas or New Year, 1996 or 1997.  Keith and I, or Mel and I were partnered that trip and the cold, or the mud drove us into town.  We got a room in the motel you see just beyond the cafe with the chuckwagon on the roof.  Quemado was dead, every business in town shut down except the bar underneath the yellow sign on the right side of the picture.

Sometime after dark we wandered across the highway to the bar.  A couple of pickups were parked in front and we hoped there’d be a hamburger and beer to be had.  At least we figured it would be warmer than the motel room.

We stepped up to the bar and examined the half-dozen other customers through the smoke as we pulled off our coats.  Behind the bar a guy probably named Bad Teeth was grinning, looking us over.  Same as everyone else in there, all of whom appeared to be ten-generations of first cousins inter-married to Bad Teeth’s ancestors. 

“Any chance of getting something to eat?”  The faint odor of hamburgers lingered in the background.

Bad Teeth just grinned and looked past me at the badasses huddled over one of the tables.  “You won’t be here that long.”

“Long enough for a beer, anyway.”  My partner was showing signs of irritation.

“Only certain kinds of people come in here.”  My eyes followed where Bad Teeth was pointing at the cluster of bullet holes in the ceiling.  “Nobody else stays long.”

But my partner, Mister Wiseass, wasn’t looking at the ceiling.  He was letting his gaze size up all the drinkers, them doing the same to us.   “Gay bar in Quemado?”  He poked me in the ribs with his elbow, laughing.  “He’s right.  If anyplace else was open we ought to go there.”

The door was only a few steps away.  I grabbed his arm and headed for it.  “Let’s go there anyway.  The smoke’s stuffing up my sinuses.”  I suppose we’d have just been too much trouble.  Nobody followed us out to the street. 

Or maybe it really was a gay bar.  I’m happy enough not knowing. 

Bad judgement was driving to Quemado instead of another  80 miles to Springerville, AZ, if we wanted something as complicated as a hamburger.  Just saying.

When Ned Sublette used to sing the song linked below at a honkytonk out on the West Mesa in Albuquerque he always got out alive.  Maybe all those cowboys were just glad someone finally said it.

Old Jules

Ned Sublette:  Cowboys are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other:

 

Dinah Shore 1949 – Dear Hearts and Gentle People

 

11 Comments

Posted in 1990's, Adventure, America, Communication, Country Life, Human Behavior, New Mexico, NM, Prospecting, Relationships, Survival

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‘Squirrelly’ Armijo Survives his own Funeral

Posted on February 28, 2012 by | 13 comments

A legendary man in the Quemado/Reserve area nicknamed ‘Squirrelly’ Armijo had a good working claim down near Queen’s Head in the Gallos near Apache Creek in the 1940s  through the 1960s. Maybe that’s where he came across a skeleton, and probably just figured he might as well take it home, so he put it in his truck.
Driving up those winding mountain roads he lost control of the truck and rolled it. Squirrelly was thrown clear and the truck caught fire. He must have been out of his head, maybe with a concussion, because he evidently wandered into the mountains in a daze.

The police arrived and found the burned out truck with a skeleton inside and assumed because the truck belonged to him the remains were Squirrelly’s. He was pronounced dead, an expensive funeral held, and he was buried.

Twelve days later Squirrelly wandered out of the woods several miles away, which was a source of, first joy and awe, then suspicion. Initially it was thought he’d killed the person the skeleton belonged to. Then the lawsuits began, the Armijo family and the Funeral home arguing heatedly about who owed money to whom for burying some anonymous skeleton.

The story is so well-known it was used in a book about forensic pathology in New Mexico during the 1990s, the forensic pathologist explaining such a thing could never happen these more enlightened times.  Journey in Forensic Anthropology, Stanley Rhine, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1998.  Author Rhine elected to change Squirrelly’s surname to Aramando to avoid any sort of civil action.   The Armijo family’s been herding sheep in that country since the time there was nobody out there but them and Mimbres Apaches.  A lot of them are still there.

“A Premature Funeral

“Bones and Fire
“On June 4, 1959, Forest Service lookouts reported smoke rising from what was assumed to be a small forest fire just east of the Arizona state line, among the 8,000-feet peaks of the San Francisco Mountains of southwestern New Mexico. A firefighting crew dispatched to the scene discovered no forest fire, but an automobile burning furiously on the side of a gravel forest road. Dousing the flames, they found a mass of burned flesh, a skull, some other bones, and some teeth resting inside the burned-out hulk.

“The car was found to belong to a Mr. Armando, well known in the
lightly populated region. His fiery demise prompted the organization of a six-person coroner’s inquest in Catron County. According to former Catron County Sheriff and now Washoe County ( Nevada) Coroner Vernon McCarty, the “six responsible citizens” required by 1950s New Mexico law were most easily found by the justices of the peace at a local bar.

“McCarty observed that an insufficiency of able-bodied citizens could be remedied either by visiting several such spots or by prolonging the official quest at one of them for as long as it took to empanel the necessary six people.

“The resulting coroner’s jury in this case was made up of ranchers, Forest Service firefighters, two bartenders, and a service station attendant. It concluded that the remains were “badly burned and charred beyond positive identification,” according to the Albuquerque Journal for June 17, 1960. Nonetheless, an identification was made by Armando’s two brothers-in-law and the district attorney, apparently functioning in his multiple roles of death investigator and skeletal “expert.” That it was Armando was attested to the by the fact that the human skull was accompanied by some impressively large upper incisors. These prominent choppers had . . .”

Probably Squirrelly never paused to wonder about any moral or ethical issues when he put that skeleton into his truck. He just did it absent-mindedly the way any of us might.  Probably somewhat as Mel did on Gobblers Knob:

Exploring Alley Oop’s Home Circa 1947.

I suppose the Squirrelly story came to mind because it’s a synopsis of the possibilities carried to the ultimate extreme, accompanied by the fact I recently had an email from his great-nephew wanting to ask some questions about my mention of his Queenshead claim in my lost gold mine book.

Old Jules

Previous posts:  Skulls, skeletons and homicides:

The Ruin Skull – A Long Day Ago

Cold Mystery, Fevered Romance and Lost Gold

The Strangeness – Background Context of Unsolved Homicides

Meanwhile, today on Ask Old Jules:  Mirror Holds Information From the Past? –

Old Jules, if someone had a mirror from 40+ years ago, could something be gathered from its backing?

Old Jules replies:  The pastametric pressure of all that stored history would almost certainly explode backward opening a hole into a parallel universe carrying with it the identities and souls of everyone who ever looked into the mirror.  Read more …..

 

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Posted in 1950's, 1960's, 1990's, Adventure, America, New Mexico, NM, Prospecting, Science, Senior Citizens, YouTube

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Sunday Morning Coming Up, Down and Sideways

Posted on February 26, 2012 by | 12 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for stopping by for a read this morning.

Those of you who haven’t been getting enough magnetism in your areas will be glad to know we’ll be having a nice little geomagnetic storm today. 

CME TARGETS EARTH, MARS: A coronal mass ejection (CME) launched from the sun on Feb. 24th appears set to hit both Earth and Mars. According to analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the cloud should reach Earth today, Feb. 26th around 1330 UT, followed by Mars two days later.

The CME was hurled into space by a filament of magnetism, which rose up from the sun’s northestern limb and erupted on Feb. 24th: SDO movie. Although much of the cloud headed north, out of the plane of the planets, the cloud’s lower edge will dip down low enough to intersect Earth, Curiosity, and Mars.

http://spaceweather.com/

It couldn’t have come at a better time here.  The ranchers have been complaining something awful about the magnetic drought.

Meanwhile, it’s mostly business as usual here.  When I went out onto the porch to say my hellos to the felines it was all present and accounted for except the invader cat.  It was out there last night, but I figure it’s commuting to whatever place it has real people somewhere, keeping them on edge, then hurrying back here where things are really happening.  But that leaves it open to the possibility of missing something both places.

I’m thinking it will carry on this game as long as it thinks it can get by with it at both ends.

Those of you who believe radio waves are messing with your heads will be gratified to know there’s a place in the US where you can get away from it.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/15/west-virginias-quiet-zone-becomes-refuge-for-those-on-the-run/

West Virginia’s ‘Quiet Zone’ becomes refuge for those on the run from wireless technology

By posted Sep 15th 2011 3:12PM
 
 There’s a 13,000-square-mile section of West Virginia known as the Quiet Zone where there’s no WiFi, no cell service, and strict regulations placed on any device that could pollute the airwaves. Those unique conditions are enforced (and aided by the surrounding mountains) to protect the radio telescopes in the area from interference, and it’s hardly anything new — as The Huffington Post notes, Wired did an extensive profile of the zone back in 2004 (the area itself was established in 1958). But as the BBC recently reported, the Quiet Zone is also now serving as something of a refuge for people who believe that wireless technology makes them sick — a condition sometimes called Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (or EHS). Those claims are, of course, in dispute by most medical professionals, but that apparently hasn’t stopped folks from calling the local real estate agent “every other week or so” to inquire about a place in the zone.
 
For those who don’t want to migrate to West Virginia, however, experts suggest a person might  just hit the switch at the power pole and see whether it results in any improvement. 
 
One body of opinion leans to the thought that radio waves have a lot more influence on the human mind when they’re allowed to enter an antenna, swoop down through some receiver to an amplifier, then out to a speaker.  Then back through the air where they encounter a human ear.
 
Making sure those radio waves don’t get passage through and convert themselves to something the human mind can interpret into pictures and words, those experts say, interrupts the damage they can do, or at least reduces it.
 
My personal opinion is that I don’t know.
 
Old Jules
 
Today on Ask Old Jules:  Life in the 1960′s?

Old Jules, what was your life like in the ’60s?

 

12 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Animals, Astronomy, Country Life, Current Issues, Science, Senior Citizens

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Trapped by Time

Posted on February 25, 2012 by | 15 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I had the vague, but mistaken notion I wouldn’t post on the blog today.  I awakened fresh and full of energy, went out onto the porch to chat with the cats and none were available for comment.  So I went back indoors, put coffee on, did my usual getting started routines and bounced around as though I’d become a young man of, say, 60 or 55 during the night.

By the time the coffee was prime, Hydrox spoke outside the front door.  But him being an old guy, when I let him in he promptly headed for the bed and crashed.  Caused me a moment of concern, because the cats here always demand a few moments of quality time, each, me talking to them, scratching them behind the ears, holding them upside down, then finally pulling their tails while they pretend anger and trying to get away.

But there he was, curled up on the bed without so much as a sidle-against-the-leg.

So I plunked down at the comp to begin the daily download ritual and glanced at the time.  3:35 AM.  Sheeze!  3:36 by the time I pulled my eyes away.  The damned computer clock must have gone wokkyjawed!  So I pulled up the sleeve of my sweatshirt far enough to show my watch, which promptly sided with the computer, despite the fact I’ve tried to treat it well.  All I demand of a watch is loyalty when it comes to a crunch, aside from occasionally telling me what time it is.

5:00 AM is when I get up.  Not sometime after 3:00.  I sometimes awaken at 4:30 and lie there a while savoring being alive, but I don’t hop out of bed like some fool and start making coffee.

So I’ve somehow hornswoggled myself.  Might just as well see what’s blogworthy, thinks I.

The NASA site reports Spitzer’s still out there dragging surprises out of the Universe:

NASA Telescope Finds Elusive Buckyballs in Space

Astronomers using NASA‘s Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered carbon molecules, known as “buckyballs,” in space for the first time. Buckyballs are soccer-ball-shaped molecules that were first observed in a laboratory 25 years ago. They are named for their resemblance to architect Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, which have interlocking circles on the surface of a partial sphere. Buckyballs were thought to float around in space, but had escaped detection until now.

“We found what are now the largest molecules known to exist in space,” said astronomer Jan Cami of the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif. “We are particularly excited because they have unique properties that make them important players for all sorts of physical and chemical processes going on in space.” Cami has authored a paper about the discovery that will appear online Thursday in the journal Science.

But I see by the date that was 2010.  Nothing there worth blogging.  Out-of-date old news.  Sheeze.

Old Sol’s UV pics on spaceweather.com don’t get updated weekends, normally, so a person’s left looking at how it was October 25, 2005 compared to yesterday, instead freshly dressed and spiffed up for a Saturday in February, 2012. 

Any port in a storm, I reckons.

As you can observe for yourself, the drama continues.

Anyway, I see time’s moved right along and it’s 4:59 AM.  Won’t be long before the data’s posted on the various sites so I can download it.  Probably just time for another cup of coffee, another moseying around outdoors to see if any felines have discovered the world made it through the night.

5:04 AM, Yeah, Niaid’s up and around, came in and had her morning hissing/swatting match with Hydrox, rousted him off the bed and stole his place.  Now he’s wanting back outdoors to see what’s in the news.

The Invader-cat doesn’t know how things work around here yet, so it’s out there under the window meowing to itself in puzzlement, hoping I’ll be putting out some viddles.  And the various roosters must have picked up on the house activity noise enough to get them crowing, wondering what-the-hell’s going on.

About all I can tell you about what’s in store for today is a nap.  I don’t care what the Mayan calendar says.

Old Jules

————-

Today on Ask Old Jules:  Are We De-evolving?

Old Jules, are we de-evolving?
The rules of natural selection and competition don’t really exist now. Everything is pretty much given to you as long as you have money. Could this mean that humans could be different in the next hundred years?

 

15 Comments

Posted in 2000's, 2012, Animals, Astronomy, Country Life, Current Issues, Human Behavior, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Culinary Risk Taking – MSG – Root Hog or Die

Posted on February 24, 2012 by | 17 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Socorro, New Mexico, isn’t long on good restaurants.  But during the several years I lived there, I had a favorite restaurant, and a favorite menu item.  The place was owned and operated by an elderly Chinese man with whom I was on friendly, bantering terms. 

This lasted until the discovery that MSG in food causes my blood pressure to skyrocket.  A few times per week I’d sit myself down, they’d bring the usual, and a couple of hours later my pulse would be visible almost anywhere a blood vessel showed.  This was accompanied by a pounding in my head, maybe audible, maybe only seemingly so.

After I figured out the connection between my favorite food item and the blood pressure problem I attempted to discuss it with the owner, though we had a language barrier.   The result was an outburst of anger and indignation.  I didn’t know yet the MSG was the cause.  Just that particular menu item.

I solved the problem by eating elsewhere, but eventually learned that Chinese restaurants, particularly, lean heavily on adding MSG to their foods, and that a surprisingly large number of people have reactions to it similar to mine. 

I also began watching the labels on food I bought to prepare at home.  What I discovered was that a person sensitive to MSG had best carry a magnifying glass in his pocket and read those labels carefully.  Almost everything a person might buy in a can is loaded with it, but especially soups and soup-bases.  If a label slips past and gets inside the vehicle it notifies the owner by the rods knocking.

But I was going to say, I love oriental food, and I was in town yesterday, so I clenched my teeth and decided it was a day for risk-taking.  There’s an Oriental buffet I’d never tried, so I pulled in.  I tried asking whether they had MSG in their food, but it was clear she didn’t understand me.  So I went root hog or die.

The food was mediocre, but I didn’t die.  I took a couple of extra blood pressure pills when the pounding in my head started, and by the time I got home my blood pressure was so low I didn’t have any business being alive.

I found myself wondering why the FDA cops who faint and revive themselves over one-in-a-billion risks to human health otherwise haven’t jumped on this like ugly on a monkey.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules: 

Historical Events Duplicated Today?

Old Jules, does any time in history correspond to what’s going on within the US today?

17 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Current Issues, Gambling, Human Behavior, Kerrville, Politics, Senior Citizens, Survival

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Taking Off Downwind

Posted on February 18, 2012 by | 21 comments

If it hadn’t been for an old friend who was a pilot telling me I could fly an airplane as cheaply as I could spend an hour on the range practicing with a large-bore pistol every week, I’d probably never have thought of doing it.  But something about the idea grabbed me.

I went out to the Killeen, Texas airport and took a few lessons to find out whether flying was one of the adventures I wanted to give myself this lifetime.  Turned out there was no question in the question.

But being a man of ideas, not much time passed before I decided I could buy an old aircraft and save a lot of the cost of renting one while I learned.  A 1947 Cessna was sitting on the strip with a for sale sign on it, that one at the top of the post, so I bought it.

But finding an instructor to teach me to fly a taildragger cut down a lot of my options.  I ended up with a guy named John Rynertson, who introduced himself by saying he was one of the best pilots around.  He owned a Cessna 120, and John taught me enough to get me started.

But we had a falling out, him not soloing me in a timely manner, me thinking he wasn’t doing so because he wanted to maximize the trainer fees.  One day we landed, me thinking this was the day of the solo, and he sneered I wasn’t ready yet.  We were standing by the airplane, so I climbed inside, started the engine and taxied down to the end of the runway, gave myself my first solo flight, illegal.

John and I didn’t have much truck with one another after that.  I flew that old Cessna without having a ticket allowing me to do it, while he flew his C120 up one day and pulled the wings off it in a snap-roll, killing himself exactly the way a man ought to do if he’s going to pull the wings off a Cessna.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d taken off downwind for the first time.  I couldn’t find another instructor, and I was relocating to another town at the time, where nobody knew me.  So for several years I flew that Cessna, 500+ hours flying time, as though I was entirely legal.  Flew out to New Mexico, over to Savanna, Georgia, sleeping under the wing along the way, with no license to pilot an aircraft.

But eventually word got around the Georgetown Municipal Airport and someone cautioned me the FBO was going to rat me out to the FAA.  I decided it was time to complete my training.  Found an old outlaw pilot to sign me off and made an appointment with the FAA examiner in Austin.

When he looked at my log and saw I had 500 hours he shook his head a longish time.  “I’ve been checking out pilots for thirty years.  Before you the one with the most flying hours I’d ever seen was a guy with 100 hours, and he almost killed me during the check ride.  Couldn’t fly an airplane.”

I grinned at him.  “You care to watch me take it around the patch a few times before we do the check ride?  I’ll get the numbers every time around and turn off by the first taxi way.”

We did the check ride and I flew back to Georgetown legal, for the first time.

Almost felt as though I’d lost something.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  Mistakes and Regret? 

Old Jules, what mistakes have you made and regretted?

Previous post about the flying phase: Misplaced Worries

 

21 Comments

Posted in Adventure, Flying, Transportation

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Waiting for Joe Chink – All Dressed Up and Nobody to Fight

Posted on February 17, 2012 by | 10 comments

NCOs dressing down fresh arrivals who didn’t clean their rifles or had Frito Lay in their gas-mask bags always began, “When Joe Chink comes across that line [fill in the blank].   Joe Chink.  The imaginary Chinamen poised across the DMZ sharpening their bayonets.  We were there to scare them into not coming South, and whup if they did.   50,000 of us.

They’re still over there waiting, those GIs, 25,000 of them, but nowadays I doubt they’re being threatened with Joe Chink.  Joe Chink makes the parts for all their weapons, ammunition, their boots, every item of their equipment.  Joe Chink loans money to their overlords to pay for it and pay their salaries.

And back in the God, Country and My Baby heaven Joe Chink’s athletic shoes carry America’s finest boys and jerseys up and down pastures carrying Joe Chink’s footballs for the edification of cheering spectators wearing Joe Chink’s clothing, head-t0-foot.

Back then most of us who had any knowledge of the Republic of Korea military didn’t have much doubt the ROK Army [South Korean] could whip the pants off the US Army if they wanted to, and have plenty left over to take care of Joe Chink if he came across the DMZ.

But nowadays it’s probably North Koreans the US Army’s scaring into not doing anything ugly to all those factories in South Korea making the rest of what US consumers need but can’t get from Joe Chink.  Factories, and the ROK Army which could almost certainly still whip the pants off those 25,000 GIs still over there.

“Thank you for your service,” romantic patriots are fond of saying.

“Kiss my ass,” I’m fond of saying back.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:  Is Just One Religion Better?

 

10 Comments

Posted in 1960's, America, History, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Learning How to Not Be So Stupid

Posted on February 16, 2012 by | 12 comments

Morning to you readers.  I’m obliged you came by for a read.

If I’m going to get anywhere in this life I think I’m going to have to learn how to not be so stupid. 

Yesterday I made that post about the F350 wiring, which I’d been fretting and gnashing my teeth about for months.  Ben offered to try to find me a wiring diagram, and tffnguy recommended a Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forum.  I felt fairly uppidy and hopeful, but not sky-high enthusiastic because I’ve learned the hard way to suppress my melodrama.

But I went to the Forum site and immediately remembered I’d been there before, several months ago.  The reason I remembered was the popup advertisement for Phoenix University that blocked the entire screen and came back as soon as I clicked the X, every time.  The site took forever to load on a dialup, too.  So I blew it off and spent the next few months twiddling my thumbs trying to find ways to fix the immediate problem.

But yesterday, because of tffnguy’s recommendation I fought my way through the esoterica, waited while things loaded, killed popups as though I could dress them out and have them for supper.  Registered, posted a question about the wiring, along with pics, and asked for any help anyone could offer.

In a matter of hours I had a reply and a wiring diagram.  Now I’m back where I could have been several months ago if I’d had the patience and determination to wait for that site to load and posted an identical request back then.

Gale’s fond of saying that during the 40-odd years we’ve been friends every mutual acquaintance, if asked to list my traits would have had, “If there’s an easy way and a hard way, he’ll pick the hard way and stay to the end.”

Maybe I’m beginning to understand what they were talking about.  If I can get that grapefruit out of my mouth I might try to sort it out and change it.

Old Jules

 

Today on Ask Old Jules:   World Ending in 2012?

Old Jules, is it true that the world’s gonna end in 2012?

 

12 Comments

Posted in 2012, Senior Citizens, Survival, Transportation, Trucks

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Running the Obstacle Course – the F 350

Posted on February 15, 2012 by | 10 comments

Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Maybe I was too much like the guy in the picture above trying to find a vet to work on his dog.  I borrowed Little Red yesterday and drove into Harper to talk to the Real Mechanic I had in mind to work on the New Truck.

He seemed a nice enough guy, but when I explained what I had in mind, described the truck and the problem, he explained he didn’t care to have anything to do with it.

There’s another Real Mechanic in town, but I decided to back off and think about how to approach this a bit more rather than ask and have him say, ‘no’, too. 

The frustrating thing about it all is the fact I could get that truck running well enough to drive it into town myself if I could find photographs of the wiring on a running 1983 F350 with a similar engine.  I’d replace the wiring myself, then just take it in to get whatever else needs doing for an inspection sticker.

Today I’m posting a plea on Kerrville and Fredericksburg Freecycle groups for under-the-hood photos with the air cleaner removed from anyone owning a running truck of that vintage.  If that doesn’t turn up anything I’ll post on Kerrville Marketplace group offering whatever price it takes to get photos, I reckons.

Crazycrazycrazycrazy.  I honestly never anticipated a man in the bidness of fixing cars would refuse to fix one.  Guess the economy isn’t as bad as I’ve been hearing it is.

Maybe I need to find a vet.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules: 

Old Jules, what was the happiest time in your life?

Happiest Time?

10 Comments

Posted in Trucks

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Another Bug on the Windshield of Life – The Tow Bar

Posted on February 14, 2012 by | 18 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Nobody much uses a tow bar anymore.  The only thing available to rent in town was something called a ‘car dolly’, and I didn’t like the idea of renting one, even a little bit.   But Gale’s reluctance to pull the New Truck into town with a chain was expressing itself full volume without him having to say anything outright.

I’d put notices on Kerrville Freecycle, Kerrville Marketplace, done everything I could think of without success.  But a week or so ago Gale mentioned he’d seen one for $100 at a thrift store in Kerrville.  At least he thought it was a tow bar.  He said it had been sitting there a goodly while.

Those of you who read here probably know the idea of paying price-tag prices for something isn’t in my makeup.  And $i00 for a tow bar, while probably a reasonable price, just wasn’t something I was about to do.  I’d rent a car dolly first.

I borrowed Little Red and made a special trip to town in the hope it was a tow bar, and in the further hope they’d be ready enough to see it gone to be willing to do some horse trading.  When I arrived unsuspecting began a bargaining session lasted maybe two hours.  Tough, tough, tough, those people have become.

The only time in my life I ever recall having to dicker that hard for anything was in Mexico when I was 17 years old bargaining for a pair of needle-toed, fancy-stitched turquoise-dyed-stovepipe topped boots.  I’d only tried one of them on and the fit was perfect.  Got that guy down to $17 for the pair.  But when I got back to Portales and put them on, turned out they were two different sizes.  Killed my feet, wearing them.

But I’ve digressed.

As you can see from the pic, the tow bar’s now here, same size for both feet.  And now it’s only going to be a matter of prying Gale away from whatever else he thinks he ought to be doing to get the New Truck to a Real Mechanic.

Old Jules

 

18 Comments

Posted in Texas, Trucks

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