Back to Square One and Antique Cars

The other day when I picked up my dog Willow at the groomer and she was over-excited to see me (Willow, not the groomer), the groomer made a comment that we didn't take Willow out enough.

We told ourselves we needed to take Willow somewhere.  We nixed the dog park bcause everytime we carried her there she felt intimidated by the other dogs and sat under the bench we were  sitting on and wouldn't come out.  We decided to take her to our favorite human park, Glover Park in the Marietta Square.

The Marietta  Museum of History was having a car show.  You got to vote on your favorite car - they were all good so I voted for them all.  They were all winners - or at least got special mention.... or, that was what I was tempted to do anyway. 

Christi of the Museum complemented me on a certain post in Chicken-fat.  That made my day.  I always spend the rest of the day on Cloud 9 after Chicken-fat gets a comment.  I gloat because most of the time I feel that I am the blog's only reader.

Here are some of the cars that were in the car show:

ARTCAR PALOOZA in Marietta Labor Day Weekend

(psst!  click on the below image to be able to read what the back of the card says)

This weekend is one of those "Art in the Park" on the Square for Labor Day Weekend.  Every time we had gone to one of those we saw some interesting things.  And today was no exception.

Aside from the arts and crafts booths they had an auto show.  Not an auto show of antique cars, not an auto show of souped up hotrods, no display of moonshine cars - nope these are cars that artistic minded folk got ahold of and added a little bit of this and a whole lot of that.   They have a block on Atlanta Street completely full of these interesting looking vehicles.

We didn't know until we saw them but our friends Rachel and Douglas Frey are in charge of the cars, which included getting the owners to bring them, even from far away, like in Houston, Texas.

I noticed a car parked on Main Street, Woodstock, dressed similar, and I think that same car is parked on the Square from time to time.  But he or his car weren't around today.

Remember, click on the picture for it to make more sense.

Bonnie Blue of Houston, Texas

And more.  Come on down this weekend and see for yourself, my photography does not do them justice.

Carefully Synchronizing a Mark II Transmission

The Accident Continued -

I signed a released after it appeared the body work of my little red Triumph Spitfire was taken care of. Shortly after that I had transmission problems.

I had four in the floor. The gears no longer seemed synchronized. They would clank and bang when I tried to change gears – sometimes I could change them and sometimes I couldn’t.

I carried the car to a Triumph dealership and another time to a transmission shop. Neither could repair it.

Then one day after work I was stopped at a red light on Bolton Road in Atlanta, in front of a Sinclair Station and I could not get the car out of neutral to go on. Luckily, the car was light. I pushed it in the Sinclair Station parking lot.

There were two men working there, co-owners. They were both drunk. They said they would look at it. I spent the next several hours standing over them watching them mumble, curse, when something didn’t fit like it was suppose to, and then slip off to have another drink.

Finally the oldest man, probably in his late 50s told the other one what he needed was a coat hangar. They went inside to the coat rack and got one and by cutting it and bending it into an odd-shape and inserting it down a certain way they corrected the problem.

They didn’t want much money – whatever ever the price was I gladly paid. I think it was about the price of a pint of Southern Comfort.

I had no more transmission problems after that.

Tire Business

I was to meet a bunch of friends Monday at 10am. Anna was to take her mother to the doctor shortly after that.

I was backing out in the truck when I noticed the Honda had a flat on the back right. It was about 9:30. I hurriedly told her about it and then pumped it up with an electric air pump.

I went on to the meeting with the Varner’s gang. Anna called AAA and they immediately came out and changed the bad tire for the spare donut tire. The AAA man told Anna that the tire had a big bolt in the tire. He also told her he loved his job.

Later that day we drove the Honda to a Discount Tire in nearby Kennesaw.

The person that we thought was the manager looked at the tire in the trunk and said if it was repairable they would fix it free, and hopefully, we would think of them when we were ready to buy new tires.

We sat down in the show room/waiting room and, well, waited. There was a lady sitting in a chair that gave us a big warm smile and spoke. We politely spoke back. Her face looked familiar… but I couldn’t quiet place it.

The manager told us she was buying Michelin Tires. I asked her if she like Michelin and she said yes. I think I told her we did too. If I am not mistaken, they came with the car when we bought it.

We watched the hyped-up we-think-is-manager guy do things to make the place look neat and impressible such as space the displace tires a certain distance apart, maybe straighten an advertising poster, and busily talking to customers when they wandered in.

In between customers and straightening things he told us some very positive things about his company and the sole owner, which he repeated his name several times. The owner lives in Arizona. Once or twice he quoted the owner directly, both complementary, to show the owner was a wise and decent man.

The lady I first noticed said something from time to time. She complemented the guy for putting things so neat, she added that she was a librarian and could appreciate that.

A guy from the car bay area came in and told her car was ready, she could go.

Then another guy came to us and told us the bolt went into the tire crookedly, therefore, could not be repaired.

However, he said, he just put a tire a customer traded in – and he pointed that was sitting with us and said, “There she goes now”. He went on to say they were nice tires and that would get us buy until we were ready to buy. So, again, “No charge – just remember us when you get ready to buy.” Which we will. We are thinking very positive towards Discount Tires.

As she drove away, it hit me where I have seen her. She lives around the corner from us.

I told Anna who I thought it was and she thought that lady that lived around the corner is a school teacher. Maybe a media specialist at a school? We left it at that. Not that it mattered anyway.

This morning in the rain before daylight Willow and I were on a walk when the lady in question, that lives around the corner was backing out of her driveway. I waved and motioned for her to roll down her window.

Now days, how do you motion someone to roll down their window – pantomime pushing a button?

Her windows went down and she pulled up beside me. I asked her was she at Discount Tires Monday getting new tires. She said yes. She has always has a very big toothy very gracious smile. She told me she recognized us when we went in. I told her I didn’t want to make a fool of myself asking her there – so I chose to make a fool of myself standing in the rain in the dark asking her.

I told her we were driving on one of her tires and told her that story, and we had a good laugh… with me and Willow getting soaking wet.

She also told me that day she found out her nephew had a seizure and was now in the hospital. I told her that same day I found out my first cousin had died. We told each other we were sorry.

Small world.

New Car

Anna and I just couldn't contain ourselves any longer. We went out yesterday and bought us a new Honda Accord EXL. It seems to have everything on it.

We did not even plan on buying a new car this weekend. Had we serioudly given it any thought we would have got the title of our Nissan out of the safety deposit box. We just thought we would visit a few new car dealers and test drive a few and do a little reseach. But what we did not consider it was the end of the month at the end of the car year - it is almost time for new cars to come out. Heh heh.

Salesmen were all over us and apparently were ready to accept any offer, which we took advantage of.

And here it is.

Spiderman Artist & the Prairie Home Companion

How am I going to tie today’s activities in with Spiderman? Did I scale a wall? No, I am not sure I can even scale the floor. Notice the artists’ names. One of them is Mark Bagley. He is a relative-in-law. I’ll get to him in a minute.

First, as I mentioned in the previous blog when I got the paper I saw Anna’s car with a flat. The back right tire was flat as, well, a flat tire.

I went in and told Anna and she was afraid I might have a hard time changing it , because of my heart trouble.

She suggested we call AAA -800 number and join then call for service. I told her I didn’t think it worked that way. That would be like signing up for auto insurance and then saying, “Oh, by the way, I had a wreck this morning, I’ll send you the bill.” It didn’t seem like you can join after the fact and expect them to correct something that happened before you joined.

It was worth a try. Anna called. She explained we discovered we discovered her car had a flat just a few minutes ago, and would they send somebody out to change it if we joined. Yes, they would they said. Surprises suprises.

With our credit card number we became instant members. That was about 7:30. By 8:00 a AAA truck was backing into our driveway.

The AAA emergency man was very nice and seemed well educated. He took off the flat tire and put air in it and he looked for a leak and couldn’t find one. He said he suspected to mischievous neighborhood kids might be the guilt party. I looked over across the street in their teenager’s bedroom that has a big Rebel Confederate Southern Cross flag and said, “Could be.”

So he asked did I want to put on the old tire or did I want him to put on the spare. I told him the spare, because I wanted to take that tire to Sears Automotive where we bought it and have them to check it out. He proceeded to put on the spare and it would not fit. The reason it didn’t fit was there is a ring around the wheel base. Which the more we studied it decided the ring was installed onto the wheel to help set the fancy wheel rims we bought… all chrome and all. That was a couple of years ago. But the ring, part of the kit prevented regular spares from being put on. So, I told him to put back on the tire he just filled with air…. Which he had a hard time with that too… there was little room on each lug bolt for the lug nuts.

We took it to Sears and decided the heck with it, we would just buy two new tires, so kindly put them in the front and put the old front ones in the back. So, the mechanic broke a lug bolt trying to get one of the front ones off. They didn’t have that part in stock and told us they would have to get it from the Nissan dealer, it might take an hour or so.

OK. We would just eat lunch in the mall, do a little shopping and then go to a nearby movie house (I followed Anna in my truck) and see a movie we had been wanting to see, Prairie Home Companion. Which we did. It was a mutli-plex theater complex with 24 theaters. At one time it was the largest in the south, but I’m sure since I heard that the record surely has been broken.

While getting our tickets I ran into my first cousin Patty and her husband Mark. Mark Bagley. I told them we were going to check out Prairie Home Companion and Mark said they were going to see the Superman movie. I said, “Of course you are.”

The reason I said that because Mark Bagley is one of the penciler artist of the comic book The Ultimate Spiderman. He must do well, he is always going places for interviews and to sign his books – even over seas. – they had a hop and skip tour through Europe not long ago, on signing tours. And it one book at was flipping through at Barnes and Noble he is listed as one of the top 100 comic book artists.

And he still speaks to us – that is amazing. And Mark isn't carried away with himself. He reminds himself that he used to be a carpenter (didn't also Jesus?). He is a humble person.

We went in to see Prairie Home Companion and I completely enjoyed it. I thought it was great and all players were great. Although Anna and I both thought that Garrison Keiller might be carried away with himself.

When got the car back at about 5:00 and we had dinner at a barbecue joint and went to Kohl’s and bought a new coffee pot.

Alls well that ends well.

Groan

Oh me.

I woke up this morning and found out the coffee pot is not working and then I went outside to get the paper and saw that Anna's Altima had a flat.

Darn! Shoot!

I just hope the old belief trouble comes in threes isn't true.

And I wished I had joined AAA when I thought about it. I wonder if AAA fixes coffee pots?