Date Night

Working hard planning big but never getting it done fast enough. We thought we would have our old 1951 Chevy truck painted this week. All week it was one thing after another. Our other old truck we love and drive out here we upholstered six years ago when we got it out of the junk yard and we have been leaving it out in the sun when we go back to our sailboat for months at a time was looking bad so we are doing it again. It’s not so easy working with old stuff with the foam and padding giving up. The worst part of upholstering this old truck someone else had upholstered it before we got it. It came from the factory with a padded dash. It was all wrinkled up with the mess someone made working on it, and for years I was going to fix it. It was I will get around to it later thing. Now in doing this the whole dash had to come apart to take it off. Even the fragile dash pocket had to come out. It came out in pieces. This old 1972 Chevy truck setting out here in the Kansas sun it being made out of pressed pasteboard, it fell apart. With computers and the after market we ordered a new one. A few Saturdays ago we were working hard not wanting to go shopping during the day so after supper we went to Walmart. Forty miles away. Pam calling it date night. I guess we are really getting old calling going on Saturday night to Walmart “date night” but it was nice with Pam setting close beside me as I was driving along on my side of the seat in our old truck real close like we did when we stared dating back in 1963. Married in 1964. No seat belts back then. No seat belts going there or coming back this time ether. Some times the pleasure is worth the risk or maybe old as we are now it’s realizing how much making your own chooses in your own life are gone and over with. This is rural country where we are and very few cops are out looking for two old people acting like teenagers on Saturday night. With things that were slowing our progress on getting our old 1951 Chevy painted this week our son is working hard out here and had a fairly large trailer of trash he needed hauled to the dump. We had some trash to add to it. So we went this week with Pam saying we were on an afternoon date going to the trash dump. Not very romantic or anyway you could say this was a real date but it had Pam laughing and happy saying it. Setting close to me on my side of the seat again with her head on my shoulder laughing as we went along about how crazy our life can get. Working on an antique truck that we plan on driving out here taking my art to shows that was bought new the year I started to school in the first grade at 5 years old and driving the one we drive all the time out here that was new when we were young and had been married eight years and no way we could afforded a new 1972 Chevy truck back then. I guess we are antiques ourselves now old as we are. I guess one thing hasn’t changed in our long life together. We really got a deal when we bought this house out here six years ago. It’s small with four full size normal rooms up stars with a full basement and a enclosed garage. It needed some work then like what we usually buy but today it’s worth more with repairs done.

Our little house. We painted it white and added shutters on the windows. That’s our old antique motorcycle setting in front of the garage.

But with what a new truck cost today we could buy 4 or 5 houses like ours before interest, insurance or taxes on a new truck cost. When Pam and I had been married about two years people were on us all the time about us being so young married, not finishing school with a baby already. One night after several people that day close to her family had been bothering us really bad about us being so young doing what we did and how bad we had messed up our lives Pam was crying about it a little. She said if we are not grown yet maybe we are all growing up together along with our baby. What do you think our life is going to be like as we get older? I said, “ Maybe we don’t fit in the normal slot people think we should fit in and I know I never have but we are doing okay. We are living in a little house with rent we can afford. We have what we need and even have a little saved. We are not living pay check to pay check like most young people do.” The problem we had with people that day was our car. I bought two junk cars and made one.

Picture of 1952 Chevy like the one we once owned.

A 1952 Chevy car we now had that was paid for. It ran good and Pam took the baby out with her and worked on it while I slept with me working nights. It looked brand new. It wasn’t how it ran or how good it looked it was because it was old and we were realizing, what we could do with junk with how we lived. Here we are six decades later still putting junk back together. With all the criticism we have had to put up with most of our life looking back, what an adventure our life has been. If you like our blog share it with some one you think would like it too. Working hard on how to get our art and our book out there. Thinking about it maybe I will put a picture on our blog each week now so people can see my work.

                                        The Adventure of Life Goes On

Busy With Life

In the last few blogs I said we were really busy and maybe more busy that anyone we know at our age. Doctors tell me staying busy with a ( purpose in life )will add to your life span. Last time I was with a doctor he said, “You got another ten years ahead of you.” Some how maybe that sounded good to him but it took us ten years to build our sailboat we have lived and traveled on for years now before we bought our little house on the prairie in Kansas near our son and where we only stay a few months a year. We will be going back to our sailboat in October. Our sailboat we have been traveling and living on for over twenty years and it’s not our first boat. We been living on boats almost forty years now. Living life with a purpose. I have been working on how to have a career as an artist and a writer. Have had some small success with that but not enough to live and travel like we like to. Now we’re trying to make a push with that with having a box van to store and transport my art. This is one of reasons, why we are restoring our old 1951 farm truck to put a box van on. In away that old truck will be an advertisement. Maybe our crazy life will someday get people to buy my art and read my books. I guess at my age it needs to be soon. Working this hard we need more in life and Pam and I have always tried to stop and smell the roses. The Lead Sled Convention car show was coming up and we wanted to go. I told Pam to dress up and let’s go. She went online and bought a dress that looked like the 1950’s then she got sick. Doctor ran blood test said, it was a viral infection and would be over in two weeks. She is okay now but we missed the Lead Sled Convention. It’s not just the show up there it’s what people drive to the event and sometimes what they wear. Pony tails, poodle skirts and bobby socks. We had a small but good car show coming up about 30 miles from here in a small town of Victoria, Kansas and I knew there would be some old cars there. We went with Pam in her 1950s dress with her hair like girls wore back then.

Pam in her 1950’s dress ready to go to the old car shows.

Sorry to say but Pam is not a girl anymore and we’re considered old now I guess. We have been married 61 years now but still have the spirit for living. Our son was with us and would shake his head when people would come up as we walked around talking to Pam. Later that day we were in a store  and a girl not a full grown woman yet but maybe soon would be, walked up to Pam and said, “You’re a really pretty woman.” She stopped before she said for your age. I hate that, for your age. We left the car show headed back to our little house eat a bite and headed on south another 40 miles to Great Bend to another car show. Lots of riding but what a day. Dealing with the reality of getting old and time running out is hard but no time to go set on the porch and wait on it. Maybe this week is a turning point on our 1951 Chevy truck. The motor is back together and has been checked out. The truck is almost ready to paint but there are other things to fix first but the trill of driving this old truck may be coming up soon. With us this is apart of the adventure of life for us. Maybe for some signing a paper and driving a new truck home is the same but with our money we know we will never know.

                                         The Adventure of Life Goes On

A dream car. A 1957 hardtop.

Enjoying the day at the old cars show in Victoria, Kansas

 

This is a 1950 six cylinder Chevy factory motor with a dual exhaust. I wish I had one for our six cylinder. 

Maybe this is something you can use next week to compare to see what we are doing.

 

 

Different Plans

I know I said last week I would try to get a blog out on Sunday from now on so our followers would know what we are doing but it’s the story of our live I guess. We call it plans we make before breakfast and how it all changes after breakfast. We were sure we would have our old 1951 Chevy truck painted we are working on and would have pictures to put on our blog this week. Our best laid plans went off the rails with our other truck we drive out here. Our 1972 Chevy truck we breathed life into a few years ago back when we bought our little house out on the prairie that was in our son’s private junk yard. That is another thing out here in Kansas farm land. Most farms out here have some (great junk) setting some where on the farms. We love driving our old 1972 Chevy truck we have running really good now but it is old. Going to Walmart shopping can run a day working here but sometimes it’s best to shop there. Pam has her rounds shopping with where to find what she wants cheap when we go. One stop shopping has never been in her world. Knowing it would mess up our working on our old 1951 farm truck we are trying to get painted and going again. We needed to go so we went on to Walmart some 40 miles away. This is farm country out here and it’s a drive to get anything out here. I had heard a noise in our old Chevy truck when I put on the brakes for sometimes. Driving in town we were in what we call heavy traffic that would make most people laugh with us calling this heavy traffic. I hit the brakes at a traffic light turning red and had no brakes. I thought at first, I stood up on the brakes and the truck started slowing down. The brake booster had quit. We were there so went on to Walmart with me standing on the brakes and went shopping. The drive back we made it out in the country and back home driving very carefully. Now to fix it. First, I had to take the booster off. Then had to take it to a auto parts place we use 22 miles away in our son’s truck then had to wait another day as they ordered the right one with us taking it in so they could see what to order. Then had to go back and get the right part and then it took time to put it back on. To our surprise we really have brakes now and this had been a problem for some time and we didn’t know it.

The old 1972 Chevy is ready to go and stop again.

Along with the time we lost working on our other old truck we took Sunday off and went to a gun show. First time Pam and I had ever been to one. What a surprise. The biggest surprise was what guns cost now.

My 22 caliber Colt.

I bought a Colt 22 pistol when I was in my early twenties to take hunting with me and have had it all my life since then. There I saw one like it and the man wanted $1200 for it and said it was cheap. We of course didn’t buy anything but what a surprise it was going to a gun show and how many guns were there. This may surprise most people reading this. I still like to hunt but only what we like to eat. Mostly rabbit and quail. Doves now and then is nice eating. Here is the surprise most people won’t believe. I mostly hunt now and have for years with a 800 feet per second 177 pellet gun and a 22 pellet gun that shoots at 1200 feet per seconds. The 22 pellet gun at 1200 feet per seconds is a heavy hitter. I heard a game warden say he had a poacher using one killing deer out of season by shooting them under his deer stand. Shooting them just behind there ear. Out here you can walk for miles across open fields and see nothing. Game we like to eat is found in places were they can find food but mostly in places they can find cover. Big guns don’t interest me. Another surprise rabbits and quail love junk yards where they can slip around and have plenty of cover. If you know how and where to look and how to wait. Just take what you can eat that day and to me a really good pellet gun in the hands of some one that knows how to hunt with it is a survival gun to eat well. Do you really think you need a cannon to kill a rabbit? I spent a lot of my time back on the farm growing up watching and learning the ways of wild things. It’s been part of my life. A lot in our lives is some what the same as wild things. Food shelter and maybe even our love life. Ducks and a lot of things mate for life. If you wondering how I can take quail with a pellet gun. They are very predictable where they will be when and easy to ambush. With a pellet gun and the noise it makes if you’re hidden well enough, when you hit the first bird the other birds will run to it to see what’s happening and you may get a second bird. As for doves they like cedar trees even if it’s the ones in our yard.

                                        The Adventure of Life Goes On

This is Pam’s pocket gun. A 22 magnum. I gave it to her when she turned 21. She carries it with her when she thinks she might need it.