It's springtime here in central California. Might be snows or whatnot in other states, but it was in the upper seventies yesterday (and is today as well) and this makes everything green, wanna grow. Read that: lawn, trees and WEEDS. I spent half the day, yesterday, addressing weeds I'd turned a blind eye to for weeks prior - that and some judicious tree-pruning that was overdue as well. I did all this in shorts and a light cotton shirt.
Anyway - at some point during my labors - my cellphone jangled. Answering it, I found it was an old friend who needed a rear hub for a Hawk he was re-habbing. I knew I'd have one - I'd just have to look a bit to find it. I told him I'd do that and get back to confirm it. After we'd finished our conversation, I didn't go straight to the parts pile to find a useable hub. I knew if I did that I risked distracting myself from my weeding and lose what little resolve I had towards the task.
Later in the evening - revelling with my alcoholic reward - I metally berated myself for letting the hub quest slip my intents. Then this morning, the phone rings again and I'm unable to get to it before it quits ringing. When I do get to pick it up, I see that it was my friend calling and I remembered the damned hub that I'd not yet found. Rather than call him right back and offer excuses, I decide that I'll go right out and scare up a hub before I return his call.
While it's going to be in the 70s again today, it's still "coolish" out there in the damp morning air. Consequently, I grab a light, padded denim jacket that's hanging by the back door. I slip it on as I head towards the pile of South Bend trinkets. Stopping at the edge of said "pile", I survey as much as I can - given that the damned weeds are surging amongst everything - trying their best, I might guess, to make the irregular metallic mish-mash blend in with the landscape. I curse as I realize that the obnoxious Foxtail grass has already put up the seeds that I'm gonna swear at for the rest of the year. Said seeds drop onto and INTO ones shoes - causing pain and discomfort - and are all but impossible to dislodge once so affixed. For the moment tho, they're still green and won't attack.
I called this stuff a pile. Truth is, it's more of a carpet. It's only one or two parts deep, but covers roughly an area of about 50 by 80 feet. Just a bunch of this and that that I've kept from various Stude cars and trucks that met their Waterloo here. I'd give the whole mess away if I thought I could find an honest vendor to take them and and do right by them. Thing is, most of those types are TOO FAR away OR would wanna come and cherry pick that which they figured a buck could be made from. So - either I'll pass on and it'll be up to some scrap collector to deal with or I'll just get tired and call the one scrapper that I know. For the moment, it's safe. There's not a raft of C-K sheet metal or anything like that, but good Lark metal and some mechanical pieces that are getting scarcer as I finger this post out.
OK, so I stand and survey the oxide-tinted scatterings in front of me. No drums or hubs cry out: "Here I am!". Consequently, I carefully choose my first step onto some bumper ends. Then my right foot tests a truck gas tank top. These two things having elevated my vantage point a bit, I again survey the surrounding field of stuff. I move my left foot a bit and then decide to place the right one on the back of a Flight-o-matic that looks solid. I kinda test it first to see just how solid it is, and it seems that it'll hold me. Time to step to it and commit my weight.
From that moment of committment, the Flight-o seemed to rock back slowly - and I tried to transfer my bulk in a fashion that would compensate. To tell the truth, it all seemed to happen in very slow motion. But not slow enough that I could back out of the inevitable. I was going down. And even tho I'd earlier sorta looked at what I was going to land on, it hadn't really registered with me. As I dropped backwards, groping hands found some jutting pieces of sheet metal - thankfully not ragged or sharp. All I could do with those handfuls was steady my progress a bit - I still worried about what my back and butt were gonna find. To a degree, my butt was rather nicely accomodated when my fall concluded - my back - not so much. Quickly taking stock of the situation, I realized I had settled nicely into the upturned front fender of an early Lark. Save for the inner fender corner jabbing me in the back (geez, was I glad I'd grabbed that padded jacket!), it wasn't all that uncomfortable! The biggest problem was - I couldn't move!
I sat there for a moment - surveying things. I was so far down - and ensconced by this fender - and with my feet well above where the bulk of me was - that I couldn't even begin to get back up. I must've looked like an upturned turtle. And I futher counted my luck when I realized how my backside had missed the filler neck sticking up from that old truck gas tank. That filler neck now filled my crotch - as tho the result of a whole bottle of Viagra.
Anyway, I just sat there for a moment. We're in the country here. And even if I were of a mind to holler for help, either our neighbors are off to work, or in their homes or shops. I did remember my cellphone was in my left pocket. Trouble is, I couldn't have gotten it out if my life had depended on it!
What I finally figured out was that if I kicked sideways enough, I could twist myself (and the fender I was wearing) around to where I could actually get my feet onto solid ground. This was accomplished only after I moved a couple of starters, suspension bits and a Packard oil bath air cleaner so's I'd have cleared places (of ground) to plant my feet. Then with supreme effort I was able to hoist my carcass up out of the fender, usig the lowermost parts of that fender as hand holds. I then took stock of various appendages and concluded the only damages were to my pride. I dusted myself off and continued the quest for a hub - which I found eventually. That Hawk has to make it to a show in about ten days.
Anyway - at some point during my labors - my cellphone jangled. Answering it, I found it was an old friend who needed a rear hub for a Hawk he was re-habbing. I knew I'd have one - I'd just have to look a bit to find it. I told him I'd do that and get back to confirm it. After we'd finished our conversation, I didn't go straight to the parts pile to find a useable hub. I knew if I did that I risked distracting myself from my weeding and lose what little resolve I had towards the task.
Later in the evening - revelling with my alcoholic reward - I metally berated myself for letting the hub quest slip my intents. Then this morning, the phone rings again and I'm unable to get to it before it quits ringing. When I do get to pick it up, I see that it was my friend calling and I remembered the damned hub that I'd not yet found. Rather than call him right back and offer excuses, I decide that I'll go right out and scare up a hub before I return his call.
While it's going to be in the 70s again today, it's still "coolish" out there in the damp morning air. Consequently, I grab a light, padded denim jacket that's hanging by the back door. I slip it on as I head towards the pile of South Bend trinkets. Stopping at the edge of said "pile", I survey as much as I can - given that the damned weeds are surging amongst everything - trying their best, I might guess, to make the irregular metallic mish-mash blend in with the landscape. I curse as I realize that the obnoxious Foxtail grass has already put up the seeds that I'm gonna swear at for the rest of the year. Said seeds drop onto and INTO ones shoes - causing pain and discomfort - and are all but impossible to dislodge once so affixed. For the moment tho, they're still green and won't attack.
I called this stuff a pile. Truth is, it's more of a carpet. It's only one or two parts deep, but covers roughly an area of about 50 by 80 feet. Just a bunch of this and that that I've kept from various Stude cars and trucks that met their Waterloo here. I'd give the whole mess away if I thought I could find an honest vendor to take them and and do right by them. Thing is, most of those types are TOO FAR away OR would wanna come and cherry pick that which they figured a buck could be made from. So - either I'll pass on and it'll be up to some scrap collector to deal with or I'll just get tired and call the one scrapper that I know. For the moment, it's safe. There's not a raft of C-K sheet metal or anything like that, but good Lark metal and some mechanical pieces that are getting scarcer as I finger this post out.
OK, so I stand and survey the oxide-tinted scatterings in front of me. No drums or hubs cry out: "Here I am!". Consequently, I carefully choose my first step onto some bumper ends. Then my right foot tests a truck gas tank top. These two things having elevated my vantage point a bit, I again survey the surrounding field of stuff. I move my left foot a bit and then decide to place the right one on the back of a Flight-o-matic that looks solid. I kinda test it first to see just how solid it is, and it seems that it'll hold me. Time to step to it and commit my weight.
From that moment of committment, the Flight-o seemed to rock back slowly - and I tried to transfer my bulk in a fashion that would compensate. To tell the truth, it all seemed to happen in very slow motion. But not slow enough that I could back out of the inevitable. I was going down. And even tho I'd earlier sorta looked at what I was going to land on, it hadn't really registered with me. As I dropped backwards, groping hands found some jutting pieces of sheet metal - thankfully not ragged or sharp. All I could do with those handfuls was steady my progress a bit - I still worried about what my back and butt were gonna find. To a degree, my butt was rather nicely accomodated when my fall concluded - my back - not so much. Quickly taking stock of the situation, I realized I had settled nicely into the upturned front fender of an early Lark. Save for the inner fender corner jabbing me in the back (geez, was I glad I'd grabbed that padded jacket!), it wasn't all that uncomfortable! The biggest problem was - I couldn't move!
I sat there for a moment - surveying things. I was so far down - and ensconced by this fender - and with my feet well above where the bulk of me was - that I couldn't even begin to get back up. I must've looked like an upturned turtle. And I futher counted my luck when I realized how my backside had missed the filler neck sticking up from that old truck gas tank. That filler neck now filled my crotch - as tho the result of a whole bottle of Viagra.
Anyway, I just sat there for a moment. We're in the country here. And even if I were of a mind to holler for help, either our neighbors are off to work, or in their homes or shops. I did remember my cellphone was in my left pocket. Trouble is, I couldn't have gotten it out if my life had depended on it!
What I finally figured out was that if I kicked sideways enough, I could twist myself (and the fender I was wearing) around to where I could actually get my feet onto solid ground. This was accomplished only after I moved a couple of starters, suspension bits and a Packard oil bath air cleaner so's I'd have cleared places (of ground) to plant my feet. Then with supreme effort I was able to hoist my carcass up out of the fender, usig the lowermost parts of that fender as hand holds. I then took stock of various appendages and concluded the only damages were to my pride. I dusted myself off and continued the quest for a hub - which I found eventually. That Hawk has to make it to a show in about ten days.
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