The Great Car Shuffle

We seem to have a kind of a tradition going on amongst us neighbors. Central to this tradition are my neighbors Charley and Sharon. Y'see, Charley is a bit of a car nut...

When we first moved in, 3 1/2 years ago, I mentioned to Mrs. OWW that "the guy two houses up the street is running a used car lot!" There were cars for Charley, his wife Sharon, their son Chuck, and their daughter Maureen (Son Kevin wasn't of driving age yet). Plus a dead-engine Suburban and a dying van (I disremember the make/model of that one).

Well, son Chuck traded the Mitsubishi for a Jeep, which was traded for a Jeep Cherokee, which was traded to a neighbor down the street for a Volkswagen GTI. Charley sold his beat-up well-used (200K+ miles) Chevy pickup and bought a Ford F-150, sold that, and bought a neighbor's Dodge 1500 w/Hemi, and then acquired a Jaguar XJ6 from a friend in Missouri to go with the truck. Wife Sharon had a Saab, which was sold and she bought a Nissan Altima, which was sold, and she bought a Volvo. Maureen was driving whatever wasn't being driven by someone else at the moment.

I was never sure who was home at the moment.

After a while, I started kidding Charley about the used car lot he was running. "Honest Charley's Fine Used Vehicular Transportation Emporium".

Then the vehicle count started going down.

The dead Suburban was sold and towed away. Maureen inherited her brother Chuck's GTI, and then her older sister Peggy's Saturn L200 (from out of town - it just magically appeared one day). The dying van was sold. Chuck moved out of town and got married, so whatever he was driving at the time went away. The GTI was sold to a neighbor. Son Kevin became of driving age, and Charley got him a Dodge Dakota pickup. Maureen moved out on her own, and the Saturn went with her. Kevin went to college, and the Dakota went with him.

Ulimately, it was Charley with the big Dodge pickup and the Jag, and wife Sharon with the Volvo. There was also a Harley-Davidson motorcycle for a while, but it lived in the garage.

There was also the odd boat or two in their driveway, but they don't count 'cause they're not street-legal.

Then, daughter Peggy who now lives up in New York needed a car, and Charley lent her the Jag. Two cars!!! No more smart remarks about "used car lots" from Old Weird Ward.

It was too good to last.... which is where OWW got involved in the neighborhood "tradition"....

I'd been muttering for some time that I want a truck for hauling stuff around. Due to the GHIP (Great Home Improvement Project) involving paint, Pergo-type floors, power-tools, runs to the dump, and other things, I wanted a Ford Ranger/Chevy S-10/Dodge Dakota/Nissan Frontier type of truck to haul said "stuff", with an extended cab so's I could haul Chickie and Meelie around.

So, I started checking out the local used truck market - yee flipping gods! These clowns want a short fortune for anything with wheels that runs! They seem to think that Kelly Blue Book retail, plus $2000 is "reasonable". So I was sniveling and moaning at Charley one fine day....

It seems that daughter Peggy hated the Jag XJ6. "Old man's car" is what she said, and wanted another Saturn. Son Kevin liked his Dodge Dakota OK, but really wanted a Saab. And since I wanted a truck...

Charley went up to New York driving my Saturn SL2, which went to daughter Peggy, and came back in the Jag. Son Kevin found a Saab, and the Dodge Dakota "Sport" (extended cab, 4-cylinder engine) now sits in my driveway.

While Charley was going up to New York in the SL2 and Kevin was finishing the week before Thanksgiving while driving the Dakota, I was driving that big Dodge of Charley's. I tell you true, it's a BIG beast, and drinks gasoline like you wouldn't beleive...

So here's the current car situation:

Mr. and Mrs. OWW have a yellow VUE and a Dodge Dakota in our driveway.

Charley and Sharon have the Jag, the big Dodge, and the Volvo.

The Volkswagen GTI has migrated from one neighbor to another neighbor.

The Cherokee in another neighbor's driveway.

I almost had the Jag as well as the Dakota but I let Charley talk himself into falling in love with it, thank God! Lovely car, but 'way back when, I had dealings with Lucas, Prince of Darkness....

Thanksgiving

Just when things seem to be going Real Smooth, and you're feeling pretty good about it, and you're even ready to brag about it, Life It's Ownself will smack you right in the face with a cold fish.

Last Saturday, Meelie, at 9 our youngest, came down with a stomach bug and was going at both ends, poor baby. Mrs. OWW did the majority of care ("I love you Daddy, but I want MOMMY!"), so of course guess who gets the bug?

Meelie recovers within 24 hours, and is bouncing off the walls like her normal self, and Mrs. OWW is flat on her back when she's not in the facilities and is thoroughly miserable. By Monday the worst is over for her, but she's still feeling very shaky and being Real Cautious about what food she eats.

On Tuesday morning, I'm commenting at work that I haven't taken a sick day for myself in two years, and I'm on a roll, right? By Tuesday evening, about 6 PM, guess who's making an intimate acquaintance with the Porcelain God?

By Wednesday morning, the worst was over, and I was able to go to work, and sorta function without it being obvious that I had a severe death wish - I just wanted to curl up in a corner and die quietly. As soon as I got home I crawled into be and slept like the dead until 4 AM Thursday...

Which was Thanksgiving Day.

Several weeks ago, our neighbors Sharon and Charley, and Lisa and Eric, and a few others decided to do a group Thanksgiving dinner at Sharon and Charley's place (Charley added on an enormous rec room when the house was being built). There were 15 (plus 5 younger children) and tremendous quantities of turkey and all the trimmings, and all of it delicious. I wasn't able to be my usual gluttonous self, but as I said, it was delicious.

Sectarian NON-Violence in Iraq!!

OK, I'm not much for going to church regularly. I'm still a Christian, by up-bringing at the very least.

So THIS really touched me....

Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. ..... Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”

Go and read the whole thing HERE.

And answer me this: WHERE is the Main-Stream-Media on this? This story is huge, and the MSM is dropping the ball. Again.

Pfui.

Late Vet's Day Post

Just found this courtesy of the Grouchy Old Cripple in Atlanta (Hi There, Denny!)

On behalf of Mikey, Tommy, Butch, Dan, Xavier, and Poor Dumb Randy (aka PDR), I'm shoutin' out "Amen! Deal the cards, Brotha!"

Royko was a Great Man...

I just phoned six friends and asked them what they will be doing on Monday. They all said the same thing: working. Me, too. There is something else we share. We are all military veterans. And there is a third thing we have in common. We are not employees of the federal government, state government, county government, municipal government, the Postal Service, the courts, banks, or S & Ls, and we don’t teach school. If we did, we would be among the many millions of people who will spend Monday goofing off. Which is why it is about time Congress revised the ridiculous terms of Veterans Day as a national holiday. The purpose of Veterans Day is to honor all veterans. So how does this country honor them? By letting the veterans, the majority of whom work in the private sector, spend the day at their jobs so they can pay taxes that permit millions of non-veterans to get paid for doing nothing. As my friend Harry put it: "First I went through basic training. Then infantry school. Then I got on a crowded, stinking troop ship that took 23 days to get from San Francisco to Japan. We went through a storm that had 90 percent of the guys on the ship throwing up for a week. "Then I rode a beat-up transport plane from Japan to Korea, and it almost went down in the drink. I think the pilot was drunk. "When I got to Korea, I was lucky. The war ended seven months after I got there, and I didn’t kill anybody and nobody killed me. "But it was still a miserable experience. Then when my tour was over, I got on another troop ship and it took 21 stinking days to cross the Pacific. "When I got home on leave, one of the older guys at the neighborhood bar — he was a World War II vet — told me I was a ----head because we didn’t win, we only got a tie. "So now on Veterans Day I get up in the morning and go down to the office and work. "You know what my nephew does? He sleeps in. That’s because he works for the state. "And do you know what he did during the Vietnam War? He ducked the draft by getting a job teaching at an inner-city school. "Now, is that a raw deal or what?" Of course that’s a raw deal. So I propose that the members of Congress revise Veterans Day to provide the following: - All veterans — and only veterans — should have the day off from work. It doesn’t matter if they were combat heroes or stateside clerk-typists. Anybody who went through basic training and was awakened before dawn by a red-neck drill sergeant who bellowed: "Drop your whatsis and grab your socks and fall out on the road," is entitled. - Those veterans who wish to march in parades, make speeches or listen to speeches can do so. But for those who don’t, all local gambling laws should be suspended for the day to permit vets to gather in taverns, pull a couple of tables together and spend the day playing poker, blackjack, craps, drinking and telling lewd lies about lewd experiences with lewd women. All bar prices should be rolled back to enlisted men’s club prices, Officers can pay the going rate, the stiffs. - All anti-smoking laws will be suspended for Veterans Day. The same hold for all misdemeanor laws pertaining to disorderly conduct, non-felonious brawling, leering, gawking and any other gross and disgusting public behavior that does not harm another individual. - It will be a treasonable offense for any spouse or live-in girlfriend (or boyfriend, if it applies) to utter the dreaded words: "What time will you be home tonight?" - Anyone caught posing as a veteran will be required to eat a triple portion of chipped beef on toast, with Spam on the side, and spend the day watching a chaplain present a color-slide presentation on the horrors of VD. - Regardless of how high his office, no politician who had the opportunity to serve in the military, but didn’t, will be allowed to make a patriotic speech, appear on TV, or poke his nose out of his office for the entire day. Any politician who defies this ban will be required to spend 12 hours wearing headphones and listening to tapes of President Clinton explaining his deferments. Now, deal the cards and pass the tequila. - Mike Royko

Veteran's Day

I hung the flag this morning.

Then, whilst sipping my coffee and checking for news and views, I ran across THIS:

I have lived in America all my life, for 56 years now, and every single night when I have laid my head upon my pillow, you were somewhere watching over my safety. For every single one of those nights of peaceful rest, I simply say, "Thank you!"

Kyle-Ann, for all of my comrades, past, present and future...

"You're Welcome"

Old Weird Ward
USN 1969-1973

World-Shaking News!

The Writer's Guild is on strike.

No new TV shows! No new jokes for Letterman! No new movies!

I am sooooo not upset.

I was raised in L.A. I've met some of these people - some of the most two-faced self-important people in the world - even worse than US Senators. "I {wrote for/starred in/served latte} for {hit show/movie here}! I'm important, and I can comment on Global Warming!

I hope they all go broke and have to actually work in the Real World for a living.

Bah, Humbug! (Yes, the Christmas music has already started. Makes me just a little grumpy.)