2003 August | Some Blogging Guy

Archive for August, 2003

Sounds from yesterday I miss

August 22nd, 2003 by Howard | No Comments | Filed in Observations, Personal

Sounds from yesterday I miss

“Ding – ding”!
Remember full service gasoline stations?
Use to actually call them “Service Stations”!

They all had the long black rubber hose that snaked out from the bowels of the dark garage across the entire parking lot. When a car drove into the station it would run over that hose and “Ding! Ding!” the bell would sound. Soon, someone would emerge from the garage, greasy and grimy no doubt, possibly even peeved that he had to yank his head out from under the hood of a ’67 Camero whose alternator he was in the middle of replacing. He would wipe his wide hands on the sides of his gray blue pants and stick his head in your window and ask you want you wanted.

“$5.00 Hi Test!” you would say, back in the days when $5.00 would actually almost fill up your tank. As a teenager in the early 70′s often I would stop for just a buck’s worth of gas in my 1960 Rambler. With gas going for about 30 cents a gallon, that would be enough to take me and my girl out for the evening.

Here is the neat thing – the guy, and yeah, it was always a guy back then, would get your gas fueling, and then wipe your windshield clean! And even more, open your hood and check your oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid and water!”

The “Ding! Ding” of yesterday I miss. It means more than just a sound to me, it brings to mind a simpler time. A time of service. Full service. A time of dreams and a much slower, leisurely pace. More smiles.

If you remember those sounds fondly too, well, have , have I got good news for you! Now, you can buy your own full service gasoline station bell and hose! Yeah, just hook it up and drop the hose across your driveway and you too will hear that “Ding! Ding!” when you drive up your driveway. The web site “Collector’s Buy and Sell” has it on their site.

I’m going to order one for all of my friends for Christmas! And get one now for my driveway! I can’t wait to see the look on my wife’s face when she drives up that first day and then hears that sound from the past, “Ding! Ding!”

Small irritations . . .

August 21st, 2003 by Howard | No Comments | Filed in Main

Small irritations . . .

There is this cashier where I purchase sodas or coffee everyday on my job, and she is obsessed with pennies. Everything I buy, no matter what, somehow winds up including a penny. A large special coffee is $1.71. A coffee and a bottle of water is $2.46. A Ford Mustang and a Lear Jet works out to $2,900,259.81 No matter what, there is that dang penny hanging out there. And without fail, every single time she will ask me, â€œDo you have a penny?â€ And every time I will respond with â€œNo, I donâ€™t ever carry change.â€ And then she groans as if I just backed over her dog with the Ford Mustang.

This has been a routine now for over two years. You would think that after well over 400 visits to her counter and going through this one act play every single day that she would just stop asking me for the damn penny and give me my change. I hate change bouncing about in my pocket, so upon returning to my office I will drop it all in my left desk drawer, where my co-workers will rummage through it the day before payday to purchase coffee or lunch.

Lord help the woman if my total rings up to $3.01. Itâ€™s a near crisis if itâ€™s $1.71 and she has to fork over 29 cents, but if she has to give me a whole 99 cents of coins I think it sends her into coma. Her eyes rolls back in her head and her upper lip curls back in sheer misery and she sways back and forth in front of the cash register for a full moment, and I am not sure if she is about to pass out or speak in tongues. Then she just gives me two whole dollars in change and tells me I owe her a penny. I then try to give her a nickel or a dime saying, â€œKeep the change for the next few times I donâ€™t have a pennyâ€ But she reacts as if I am attempting to inject Louisiana Hot Sauce up her nose, and I eventually give up and stager away in her debt.

Why canâ€™t the woman just give me 99 cents? My theories over the years have varied, from she canâ€™t count to she is allergic to change and thus doesnâ€™t want to handle it or she has a pet spider living in the quarter slot and every time she digs out the change it stings her.

Or, maybe she just loves Abraham Lincoln and wants to collect as many pennies with his likeness on them as possible. Maybe she is super gluing them on the side of her car creating her own â€œLincolnâ€ automobile. Maybe she has short term memory lost and canâ€™t remember our conversation from yesterday, where I told her for the 432 time that I never carry change, I never will, and just give me my damn 99 cents or Iâ€™m gonna pull the elastic of your slacks back and pour my hot coffee down your butt crack.

Small irritations. They can make a man nuts.

To the unknown artist, Ruth

August 19th, 2003 by Howard | 1 Comment | Filed in Observations

To the unknown artist, Ruth Baldwin

OK, unknown to me anyway. This is just the center part of a much larger oil painting that I have hanging on my living room wall. The whole painting shows mountains, trees, blue sky and fluffy white clouds, and more of the river. I photographed the center part with my digital camera because the church and flowing water is the central attraction for me. I purchased the oil painting when I was between marriages, divorced, living alone and capable of making such purchases without consultation. Besides, the price was right.$2 bucks at a garage sale. Now that I am married once more, I am pleased that my wife, who has far better taste in one of her eyebrow hairs than I have in my entire body and truck combined, also enjoys the painting. So, the Ruth Baldwin still rests on our living room wall. Both of us enjoy it very much. I have no clue who Ruth Baldwin is or was. I searched the internet and found many people by that name, some of them associated with art or creative endeavors. But no one that jumped out as the likely oil painter, Ruth Baldwin. Of course, the painting could very easily have been a high school kid’s production for a class grade. However, I prefer to think that it was created by an elderly woman at the local senior center. I don’t know why. The painting is not world class, but I’ll tell you this – it brings pleasure to Suze and me. And that makes it extremely valuable. So, Ruth, whoever you are, and wherever you are, here’s to you! Artist!

I hate talkative gas pumps!

August 17th, 2003 by Howard | No Comments | Filed in Main

I hate talkative gas pumps!

All I want is gas in my pick-up. That’s it. Zip my debit card through the slot, pump the fuel, get my receipt and skedaddle. Vamoose. Depart. But some service stations, like THAT word applies to them, have installed these brand new modern state of the art talkative %&$%* fuel pumps! After you conclude fueling, I just want my damn receipt. But, ooohhh, nooo. It can’t be THAT easy these days. After all, we are not living in the 90′s anymore, we are in the 00′s. As in zip for brains. Or the “oh-oh” decade! Anyway, I want my stinking receipt, but what do I get? Some oil company’s version of twenty %*%&% questions!

“Would you like a discount car wash?”

I push the no button

“Would you like a car wax?”

Ah, still no.