Idiot Lights

I was trying to remember. Was it the fifties or sixties they started replacing gauges in cars with idiot lights? I've never cared for the lights because by the time the light pops on you're in trouble. With the gauges, if the car was starting to heat up you could see it at a glance and try to remedy it. With the lights the only indication you have is the car has overheated. You might have passed a station just a couple miles back where you could have stopped if there was a gauge indicating a problem, but basically when a light pops on it means "You may already be too late to save your engine". Our Blazer is wonderful in this respect. Besides the fuel gauge, it has gauges for engine temperature, oil pressure, and alternator like they used to do on all cars. The Cadillac is an entirely different creature however. It's taken the idiot light concept to a whole new level. It doesn't even have a gas gauge, but gives you the number of gallons remaining. It will have an "F" when you've just filled up, and an "E" when you'd better get to a station quickly. In between these two it will show something like "16", meaning there are 16 gallons remaining in the tank. As to oil pressure, engine temperature or whether the alternator is charging it doesn't just give you a light, it will give you a little message. Something to the effect "We hate to be the ones to tell you, but you've just burned your engine up because you ran out of coolant".

This morning I'm out mowing the lawn and start to get too hot. The thermometer on the back porch is saying 92°, so I take a break in the air conditioning for a while. My wife had taken the Cadillac and headed over to another town about 35 miles away to have lunch with a group of lady friends, and while I'm inside the phone rings. She says she'd been trying to call me. The car is heating up so she stopped at a station, bought some coolant and added it to the reservoir, even though it didn't take much. I figured she had received one of the cars little love notes telling her she was in trouble, but not so. She said as she started back out it was showing two hundred twenty five and still going up, what should she do. I asked "where are you reading this temperature" unaware there was anything in that car that would actually give you some useful information. There was silence on the phone for a second, then she said "I was looking at the "Trip Counter" and thinking it said "Temp". Now she did make me swear not to tell a soul, so if she asks, you didn't hear it from me.

The Environment

My childhood in the 40's & 50's was in a town of five hundred some people in Indiana. We didn't have all the amenities of a city. No theater, skating rink, swimming pool, bowling alley or such, so I spent much of my childhood in the woods along the streams. Then I bought my first car in '58 and drove every little road leading to anywhere over several surrounding counties. Never once did I see a deer or wild turkey. I was in my mid thirties the first time I saw a wild deer, and about 45 when I saw the first turkey in the wild. Since then they've both become plentiful.

After high school I started working in downtown Indianapolis. I lived about 35 miles west and would leave home to a bright, sun-shiny day, but by the time I was near Indianapolis the sun would be hidden behind this dome of pollution that covered the city. There were smoke stacks belching black smoke into the sky, sewers and packing plants that emptied raw sewage into White River. You could generally tell about where you were in the city by the smell. The river was dangerous. No one ate fish from there or boated there, let alone swim. Today there are parks on the river, they have an annual float race, the skies over the city are clear, and it's a beautiful community.

In 1900 we had 46.52 million acres of forest lands under the National Forest Services control. In 2000 that number had grown to 187.74 million acres, over four times as much. This does not count the lands owned or controlled by the lumber and paper industries. These industries know that to run out of trees is the end of their business, so each year they plant more than they harvest.

In the late fifties the Great Lakes were in trouble. Lake Erie was classified a dead lake. Today there is commercial fishing on lake Erie. Contrary to what the environwackos have to say, the United States, in cooperation between government and the private sector, have done a lot toward cleaning up our environment and the efforts are ongoing. Hysteria, lies, fabricated evidence and falsified statistics do nothing but hurt the cause the wackos profess to be working for. In point of fact, very few of the most vocal "environmentalists" do anything but talk. It's the individual out there picking up along the roadside, industry finding better ways to manage landfills, government when it finally manages to pass reasonable regulations (based on fact rather than sensationalized feel good legislation).

Most people would prefer to live in a clean environment, and we're making it happen. Flying around the country in huge private jets spouting slanted, incomplete statistics and outright fabrications does nothing but hurt the efforts of the genuine environmentalists.

Next Blog

Usually, when browsing through blogosphere, I'll click the "next blog" link at the top of the page just to see something new. Recently this has been giving me sex and porn pages with no "next blog" link to click. Since I watched my first porn movie many moons ago I've had this realization about such things. That is, Sex is not really a spectator sport. If you aren't one of the participants, you're missing the whole point.

I'm not offended by pornography, but I haven't been excited by such things since I first found out how delightful it is to be with a real live lady. Somewhere about puberty I figure. It just aggravates me that I have that popped up instead of the possibility of finding an interesting new blog to read.

We strange humans

Several years ago when New York was having a garbage strike, it became a health risk. Trash built up on street sides attracting rats, and creating quite a smell. So the city told everyone not to put their trash out until services resumed. When his small waste basket became full, one interprising bachelor, would tie it up in a plastic bag then seal it in a corrugated carton. He'd drive to a business district and park at the curb. He left the box on the passenger's seat in plain view with the window down. He'd go into a shop and watch, and within a few minutes someone would steal the box.

A fellow bought a new, larger refrigerator. The old one was still good so he set it on the front lawn with a sign saying "Free". It sat there more than a week with no takers, so he replaced the free sign with one that said $50. That night someone stole it.

A farmer had a problem having cows injured or killed during every hunting seasons. He had multiple no hunting and no trespassing signs posted around his property that were ignored. Finally he extended the barbwire up another foot and replaced the signs with ones that said "Do not feed the lions". He never had another cow injured.

Many years back a college student finding himself way short of tuition money, placed ads in several inexpensive papers. The ads simply said, "Chance of a lifetime. Send one dollar to (giving his name and address)". Eventually the law asked him to stop because of the complaints, but couldn't charge him with anything since he'd not promised anything in return for their dollar. He made his tuition.

Country Livin'

Living in a small town is such a pleasure after all those years in Vegas. When I had to renew the plates for both cars, I walked into the county clerk's office. There was no one else there and three people behind the counter, so all three worked on it for me. I'd forgotten to bring the proof of insurance for the one vehicle so they called my insurance agent and had them fax this over. I was in and out in under five minutes.

I ordered materials for a back porch for my daughters mobile home. The building supply place knows where I live so I didn't even give them an address.

We were going into town Wednesday so my wife made out checks for the utility bills and we dropped them in a drop box in front of the post office. Back home later that afternoon she realized she'd forgotten to put stamps on the four envelopes and called the post office. The clerk paid for stamps and put them on the envelopes and my wife paid him back the next day.

Even though my youngest son lives in Indiana they had to buy their marriage license here, because they were going to be married at our place. After a week had passed and they'd not received the license in the mail, he called me. I called the clerks office and was told it had just been returned to them as an incorrect address. The address was correct and totally legible, so I don't know why their post office in Indiana returned it, but they did. Since I was to be in Indiana that week-end I told her I'd just pick it up and deliver it to them. When I walked in her office she picked up the envelope and handed it to me, knowing who I am.

When my brother wanted to build a couple of duplexes, he bought a piece of land and was clearing it getting ready to build. The president of the local bank has a farm adjacent to this land and walked over to the fence to see what was happening. My brother explained what he was doing and asked if he knew where he could get a loan for X amount to build them. The bank president said he would have the papers drawn up and my brother could come in and sign them.

We tend to overtip for service. A lot of people around here do not tip at all, and the ones that do only leave small tips. When we go into a restaurant here we get immediate service and lots of attention. The glasses and cups never go empty and they'll fix things that aren't even on the menu if they have the ingredients. Bag boys at the grocery always get us immediately because they know they'll get a tip when they take out stuff to the car. The station that pumps our gas for us always makes sure we get immediate attention because we'll give them a couple of bucks.

In a small town you're not just another face. People remember you. You've become a "local" so people chat. They show us pictures of their kids or grandkids, tell us the latest gossip, fill us in on things that are coming up in the community, tip you off on the best buys, or the best produce, or services. Yep, I think I'm home.

River trip pictures

Rollin' on the River

My brother is having around 75 members of his wife's family down to their river home on Saturday. He decided he wanted the pontoon boat there to take them out on the river if they wanted to go. Instead of using closer boat ramps, he decided to set it in about 12 miles or so up the Cumberland at the nearest town and float down, and I went with him. Three of his grandsons decided to join us, so Thursday we spent about six hours mostly drifting with the current and only using the motor to steer into deeper channels at the shallower areas. The boys caught some rainbow and brown trout along the way. We took plenty of food and drinks, had the canopy up for shade and set out in a fog shrouded river. I took the camera with the zoom lens and got a few shots after the fog lifted. We'll see how those come out after the roll is shot up and developed.

After their shindig he's decided, instead of going back up river, to float down about 20 miles farther to take it out. I'll be going with him for that trip. He'll drive the truck and boat trailer to the pull out destination and leave it there. I'll follow along in the car to take us back to his house to get on the boat. The kids will be back in school by the time he does that, so it will be just the two of us on that trip. There are some homes, farms and cabins along the Cumberland, but miles and miles go by with no sign of civilization at all. We didn't see but four fishing boats in the entire six plus hours, so pretty much had the river to ourselves. Little experiences like that are the icing on the cake of life. It was a great day.