1990 was one of the last years Toyota made these mini-motor homes.
This little baby has a 6 cylinder 3.0 EFI engine, gets sixteen miles per gallon depending on terrain and weather and road conditions. She has air conditioning, a refrigerator that runs on electric or propane, propane heat, a small bathroom and shower, a kitchen sink and counter, microwave, a dining room table and a couch. You sleep in an overhead bed over the truck engine and there is cabinet space for the few things you take with you.
Research shows Gypsies have long been in America and the gypsy soul is a part of our American experience. There is an entire culture of retired middle class couples who move back and forth across the United States living in two hundred thousand dollar diesel pushers staying in National Parks and State campgrounds. There are disabled vets and singles who live in recreational vehicles and park at a different Wal-Mart each evening to stay one step ahead of homelessness.
Living life as a RV snail has advantages because you can drive away from your problems with a turn of an ignition key.
A gypsy soul is hard to get rid of when you were born with it.
Music is a tougher taskmaster than writing, but not by much.
Laid on the bed is a 1940’s Conn ” Naked Lady ” Alto Saxophone.
Her sound is sweet, her lacquer finish is imperfect and worn, her response is excellent.
This horn was bought at Baum’s Music Store in Albuquerque and cost two thousand dollars. You read about famous violins that are hundreds of years old but are still coveted. This model was used by Charlie Parker and it is hard to question ” Bird’s” musical talent and taste even if his personal life still raises eyebrows.
Autumn will be here soon and leaves will fall from swaying branches. The leaves will tumble in space and then, before they hit the ground, will be sent back upwards by gusts of wind.
Playing a good chorus of ” Autumn Leaves “, with no music, out of your own head, is worth working for.
Music comes from places of dreams.
Popsicle’s have been with us as long as I have been on this planet.
Back when my shoes were size five, we neighborhood kids would hear music marching down our street and see a big white ice cream truck with black speakers mounted on its roof. It was playing happy music on a dreadfully hot summer afternoon.
The truck stopped in front of our house as we stood out front with coins in our little fingers. It wasn’t a glamorous job for the drivers, but, then, people worked to pay their bills.
Grown men with two day beards were paid one to two bucks an hour to drive the truck and sell us treats. They smoked Marlboros or Lucky Strikes and had anchors tattooed on their right forearms. They took our money with a smile and always gave us back the correct change. A radio hanging from the truck’s rear view mirror played Patsy Cline or Hank Williams.Some of the men had fought on the battlefields in Europe and the Pacific.Others were just drifters.
The Popsicle’s were all flavors. You could get cherry, lime, orange, banana, pineapple, and half a dozen more tastes..The ice cream in the freezers was vanilla, chocolate, chocolate chip plus lime or orange sherbet for those who didn’t like ice cream. There were also ice cream concoctions covered with chocolate that were popular – Eskimo Pies, Dilly Bars, Ice Cream Sandwiches.
When you finished your Popsicle you were left with a stick and a joke.
” What is the most musical part of a turkey? (The Drumsticks)
” What did the horse say to the angry cow? (What’s your beef?)
” What is the mouse’s least favorite weather? ( When it rains cats and dogs)
” What do you call a girl in the middle of a tennis court? ( Annette)
Popsicle’s are still sticking around though I never see the trucks in neighborhoods anymore.
What is touching is the generation of kids that bought them from a white truck in front of their home during summer vacation now have gray hair, walk with a cane, or need oxygen to keep them going.
The popsicle jokes are still funny to me even if my gray hair isn’t.
This remodel on Shirley, for Alan, is a long, twisted, dirty novel that is taking some work to get read.
There are convoluted chapters, hairpin curves, a cast of characters that belong in a Louisiana swamp.
This job is not one you want to bring a friend to, but a friend is the only one who will show up day after day and help you put a nice shade of ruby lipstick on an old tired pig. As little money as possible has been spent on this house over the decades and the guiding principle has always been too use a band aid when a tourniquet was needed.
This project is almost done. You keep showing up day after day until there is, finally, a quitting point.
For me, this might be my last rehab. Stan, one of my best friends, says he has ” another nineteen years, two hundred and five days, three hours and two seconds to go till he retires. ”
With this property turned princess finished, dressed for the King’s ball, I am going gator hunting in the bayou and eat fried fish in a tin shack restaurant with sawdust floors and a cooler full of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer by the old fashioned manual cash register.
Next week, Stan, Stan’s brother Sid , Floyd and I are playing golf.
Golf beats working no matter how we score.
ABQ Marketplace on Louisiana has eclipsed Winrock Center, the original Albuquerque Mall.
While Winrock is now huge piles of dirt, exposed steel, jack hammered asphalt, chain link fences and construction signs, ABQ Marketplace is stocked with big name stores, food and restaurants, and stylish clothes that are already moving out of style. This evening shoppers jockey for parking spots and neon lights compete for human attention.
I sit outside the Apple Store and wait for Ruby to finish browsing Bebe’s. Watching her decide between dresses is a lot like watching paint dry and it goes easier if I sit out front and surf the net to see what Russia, China and the United States are up too in their latest wrestling match.
The Apple Logo is prominently mounted, above the Apple store’s front doors, highlighted by a spotlight. In diminishing light, clouds look as if they are plotting rain.
As powerful a mind as Steve Jobs had, he has moved on and other’s have picked up reins of his wagon and are driving it hellbent down winding mountain roads as outlaws try to steal his intellectual property.
Taking a bite out of an Apple has historic repercussions.
We still pay for Adam and Eve’s first unauthorized bite.
Golden Pride in Albuquerque sells fried chicken, Bar- B- Que, burritos, red and green enchiladas, and, of course, a world famous cinnamon roll drowning on a plate in butter and icing.
This black vehicle is parked in front of the East Central Route 66 location and comes equipped with literature, philosophy, and Biblical principles.
On the hood, the trunk, door panels, and bumpers is wisdom from the past. Good ideas are good regardless of the century and continent they were penned.
Mark Twain has his own special way with words and ideas. The Bible is clear on its central points – Men are Sinners, Mankind has fallen, Temptation is Satan’s favorite game, Redemption is possible, Death can be conquered, Jesus is the Savior.
Inside Golden Pride, I try to pinpoint the owner of this moving book but it could be most anyone in the restaurant.
New Mexico is odd that way. You can have a millionaire and a bum sitting at the same table and you can’t tell, from outward appearances, which one has the money.
Diving into my cinnamon roll, it is certain that Mark Twain, as much as the Holy Bible, comes up with ideas I wish I had thought of.
Thinking about the kind of person who would write on a car makes my lunch go better than normal.
This cinnamon roll has just the right amount of butter and icing, ordering two would just not be right, so I concentrate on the poetry of ideas..
One thing I wouldn’t write on my car, for sure, is my phone number.
Anonymity has great advantages.
Casa Esperanza is a non profit that provides temporary housing to families whose members are undergoing medical treatment in Albuquerque.
As a part of fundraising they run a car auction of donated vehicles. On Friday, the first of each month, you look at rolling stock, start engines, check doors and windows, look for oil leaks and body damage, check fluids. On Saturday you register, get a bidders number, and follow the auctioneer down a slippery slippery slope.
This Saturday there are fifty bidders and sightseers who move from one car to another as the auction unfolds. Some cars go too cheap, some too expensive. Some of these clunkers have been parked in garages as elderly drivers used them only to go to church. Some are to the point that fixing costs more than keeping. Some have been in wrecks. Some have salvage titles. There are stories behind these vehicles as flamboyant as the stories behind their owners.
The auction is over by noon and successful buyers take their papers to the office, pay fees, and make a white knuckle drive home.
Crazy Ron buys a Cadillac Deville that drives like a charm till it gets a mile from his house. The engine light comes on and the car shuts down from overheating.
” It drives great, ” he tells me at the curb in front of his house the next day.
Auctions are a place where buyers bid against buyers.
It is a spectacle, but buyer beware. Casa Esperanza doesn’t guarantee vehicles.
They move them out.
The fourth of July is the official birthday of the United States.
The American fight for Independence was hatched in Boston pubs and undertaken by a cadre of locals. Over taxed and under represented was the big beef and secretive plotting led to a Declaration of Independence from merry old England who was licking wounds from European wars and needed raw materials and taxes from America to pay for debts incurred.
There was fighting, men died, a Constitution was written, leaders got elected.
These days the metaphor for America is an aging Uncle Sam who sports a long white beard, wears clothes made out of a flag , has a top hat of red, white, and blue, a firm grip on your American credit card, and a hand in the affairs of other countries all over the world.
This is an older group present tonight, a group with a collective history.
This wild bunch has seen the Civil Rights movement, Kennedy assassination, Moon Walk, World War 2, Vietnam, Watts, Desert Storm, 2008 Financial Collapse, Government Shutdowns, the fall of Russia, Castro, Cell phones , Computers, Multiple Recessions, Gay Marriage, Food Stamps, Medicaid, TARP, TSA , Sex changes, Drones, Watergate, LSD, Disneyland.
Birthdays are good, once a year. They give a chance to pause, look back, look ahead.
What America says it is, and what it is, is a growing enigma.
It makes moments of peace, like this, more poignant.
The Albuquerque Bio park is an oasis of water in the desert.
There is an aquarium, rose gardens, a gift shop and museum, a restaurant, and a little train that blows its whistle as it takes kids on a sedate ride through the grounds. The Park has been here over thirty years and is a result of private and public money pooled.
In the aquarium, Alma and I are below ground level, separated from fish by large glass panels that are the edge of their world and the beginning of ours.
In one tank, jelly fish float, almost transparent aliens with internal power plants lit up like Christmas ornaments.
Taking pictures for her Facebook pages, Alma returns to Marinduque in December. With family, a coconut farm, and the beginnings of a pig farm, she has reasons to be there. We humans have roots that keep us grounded. Jellyfish hold to nothing.
Recently an uncle who raised her and her brothers and sisters, after they were abandoned, passed. Working in Chicago, all she could do was wire money back to the Philippines and say a prayer for the man who took her in when no one else wanted her.
To have a hard life and still be enchanted speaks volumes about the human spirit.
Cars go until they don’t go. They are traded when they start to cost more than they are worth.
My Prius, an experiment in high tech, is gone.
When electronic systems start to malfunction you have to step back and decide how much you like the idea of forty five miles per gallon in town. Adding the cost of maintenance and repairs, it makes sense to step down to an old fashioned gas engine that gets thirty miles a gallon but can be repaired and maintained by most mechanics with wrenches and good diagnostic instruments.
My Yaris has a fancy name but it is just an inexpensive compact car. Loosely named after a Greek Goddess of grace, Charis, this little transportation car is more down to Earth than it’s name implies. With its modest price, it is never going to be mistaken for luxury. A four banger with automatic transmission, it has good styling, a big trunk, a cracked windshield that is part of an” as is ” sale, four doors and a mediocre sound system.
Our car relationships can be tenuous.
Not marrying or sleeping with our cars gives them a very short shelf life.
People tolerate performance issues with spouses much longer than their vehicles.
Me and my Yaris are doing okay thus far.
If cars could trade us in I would really start to worry.
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