Lettuce, beets, sunflowers, nasturtiums started!
Birthday 67
The great thing about a “Bucket List” is that it is flexible and ever expanding. One of my favorite “stay young” songs is “18 Til I Die”.
I had the most epic experience for this birthday, just to make sure I was not slowing down in any way. The Virginia International Raceway (VIR) has an annual charity event that provided me the incredible opportunity to whirl around a race track at over 150 miles an hour in BOTH a Richard Petty NASCAR AND a Lamborghini. Each had its own experience, however, the Lamborghini can be bought for a mere quarter of a million dollars. I didn’t ask what the insurance cost would be.
Restoring a 1934 Packard Twin Six
Opportunities will often come right up to your face and scream, I’m here, yet many people for whatever reasons, will miss out on some of the best memorable events. My Dad gave me that opportunity and I jumped on it.
When I was fourteen years old, my Dad gave me the same proposal that he had given my two older brothers; spend the time restoring the 1934 Packard which had been sitting in the garage for some twenty years and it would be mine for $1. Dad agreed to invest all the money it would take to restore it. It was my job to invest the time. It was 1962 when I started dismantling the car in the garage.
Now, 1962 was the beginning of the British Invasion. At the time I was working, underage, at two jobs. I worked as a bowling machine mechanic, which meant being behind the machines, ready to spring into action when a bowling ball or pin became lodged and needed a little push. For that service, I got to hang out with the real mechanic and learn about machinery. At the same time, I worked the evening shift pumping gas (yes, in those days, an attendant serviced a car with gas, check the oil and washer fluid, clean the windshield, while smiling the whole time) and repairing flat tires at a Shell station next door to the bowling alley. That job, my Dad didn’t find out about until I had to call him for help. Point being, that I was busy, even at fourteen. I needed money to impress the girls, but as usual in my life, I was running out of time to do all the things I wanted to. Every available hour I spent in restoring that car taught me a lifetime of experience.
- When dismantling something, keep the parts separate and label everything you can, because memory, alone, will not work in reassembly. The four bolts that held the front bumper on were all machined individually, which meant the same looking bolt would only thread in one spot.
- Patience is vital. Letting bolt-release sit for days, returning each day to only apply more breaker juice. Shearing off the head of a bolt that is threaded into an engine head block, made of solid aluminum, is not an easy, inexpensive repair job. Thanks, Dad, for loving me…oh, and yes, also for the time I ignored the oil indicator light on the 1955 Chrysler Imperial and the engine seized at the side of the road, and you paid for the towing and the new engine as long as I put it in. And, oh yeah, my first car accident when I didn’t know what you meant by “pump the brakes on wet pavement”.
- Some people are as thick as a brick. Dad had the Chrysler dealership in Akron complete the repainting of the exterior. The guy that started stripping the old paint used a lye-based paint remover. He mishandled the material twice, putting him in the hospital, twice, with third-degree burns from the paint remover. The next guy took a sander to it and left marks that took hours to remove. These were their best specialist painters. They finished applying 16 coats of undercoat, hand sanded between each coat, followed by 12 coats of lacquer that made the most incredibly deep shine. Come to think of it, I think Dad paid $800 and that was overpayment due to the hours the two guys racked up.
- When something is right, you will know. The frosty spring Saturday morning that Dad and I drove to where the mechanics were prepared to start the engine for the first time in over 20 years. Two old guys (about three days younger than dirt) had laid on their backs under the Packard, grinding the crankshaft, by hand, because in that engine, the crankshaft could not be removed for servicing. It was a Norman Rockwell illustration right out of Saturday Evening Post or Esquire Magazine, this old wooden garage, tucked back under some trees, in what had been the repair shop area of Akron some fifty years prior. It was a frosty, yet somehow foggy spring morning. My Dad insisted on stopping on the way into town at a small store to purchase two lead pencils. He did not explain until we got to the garage their purpose. Imagine four old guys and my Dad, all proudly looking at this beautifully restored gem from a bygone era, and they gave me the privilege of starting it up. It was then that Dad stood the pencils upright, on the top of the radiator to balance vicariously while I, first, turn the key, and then push the start button on the dash. I remember so vividly pushing the button and not hearing any engine noise. I was watching Dad, who was watching the pencils – they did not move at all, indicating the engine had been tuned perfectly. I got out and could hear the hum of that 12 cylinder engine as it just purred into life resurrected. Dad stood there with the biggest shit eaten grin as he just stared at that engine, along with the mechanics as they all pointed and smiled. It was a fine day.
- I think it was the following Saturday that Dad and I went to the auto registry office in Akron and he signed over the ownership to me for the mandatory $1 required as the minimum sale amount for a vehicle. I was sixteen and it had taken me two years to complete the total restoration of a 1934 Packard, Twin Six. I had completely dismantled it and put it back together and it worked!
- I can remember many a time when Pop was not home, John and our friends would push the Packard out of the garage and stand on the running boards, pretending that we were Al Capone gangsters. We would take turns pretending we were driving. What childhood fun!
- I kept that heirloom until a guy walked up my driveway in Columbus, Ohio and offered me enough money to start my trek to Canada that summer of 1973 – but that’s another story, kids.
A DREAM COME TRUE
A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step, somebody, somewhere, at some time said. I am writing about that first step on a journey that started in my mind, many years ago.
Tonight I sit in a 35 and a half foot RV trailer in a trailer park in Waterloo, Ontario. The smell of campfire wafts through the chilled night air and reminds me of myriad times before in my life. RV, by the way now stands for “Re-Creation Vehicle” as I start, not just a new chapter, but a new book on my life.
The speck of dust in my minds-eye started at some time when I was in my late teens and solidified by the US military to travel in order to defend freedom and the American way. The Army slogan at the time was, Join the Army & See the World. How impressionable are teenagers to be sucked in by that crock? Obviously, it made an impression on me.
Once I began traveling, anywhere outside of Akron, Ohio, it was impossible to bury that wanderlust. I love adventure, and travel will create adventure every turn. Maybe I’m an adventure junkie of some kind, although I do not think I am alone in that longing, especially since I have canvased many people over the years who have told me that they always wanted to do what I am experiencing at this very moment.
Out of body experience as I thank the Universe for coming through for me once again.
If we want to believe that every Dream starts as a vision in the minds-eye, or that everything that surrounds us on a daily basis started as a thought in someone’s mind, then I am simply fulfilling what I envisioned over forty-five years ago! Profound, right?
Many people say they will do such and such when they retire and then proceed to do nothing when retirement comes. I guess you could say, I am living the Dream. Awesome!
This is my new home and traveling mode of no fixed address. When I say there have been many hurdles to overcome to arrive at this moment, that is an understatement. Most people become overwhelmed by the obstacles in their lives. I have chosen to overcome the obstacles and enjoy the ride of life.
Oakville Townhouse Renovations
The townhouse in Oakville was my home for over ten years. It was purchased to have a place for Miranda to live while going to Sheridan College. After she finished, Molly and I moved in until it was sold Sep 16, 2013. Over the years there had been many changes and improvements, however, most of the actual renovations took place during the last year.
I upgraded all the faucets, vanity in the basement, kitchen counters, front deck, deck off the bedroom, hardwood floors throughout second and third floors, cork floor in the basement, removed storage unit in the back and built new fence, replace all the stairs with oak stairs, used scaffolding to paint the living room high walls. Estimated costs – $15-20,000 in material and lots, and lots of hard work
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Kelowna, BC Delivery for Rapidgo
Kids; there is so much excitement surrounding a long, arduous road trip. I took a load of lighting fixtures out to Kelowna, BC in February 2007. I was a bit apprehensive leaving, even though I knew the truck was safe and I had credit cards in case of breakdown. It was the middle of winter across Canada. It takes 13 hours of driving to get out of Ontario, two days to Calgary and then arriving in Kelowna the third afternoon. Grueling. I slept for 24 hours and still felt my body buzzing from the road. Refreshed, I started back at about 4am. To look good, I took the truck through a car wash before leaving Kelowna. That turned out not to be such a great idea when the locks froze and I was on the outside of a locked, running truck, in the middle of absolutely nowhere.
Headed up to Rogers Pass. The Canadian military use howitzers to fire on potential avalanches. There are sections of the road that are covered in concrete to protect from avalanches every year. 
Reached Rogers Pass. Cold, cold, cold!
Leaving Kelowna, headed back 4am.
I got out to take this picture and inadvertently hit the door lock on my way out. Thinking I was smart to have a backup key in my pocket, I thought I was safe until I realized that washing the truck before starting out in the cold led to the locks freezing. I went from lock to lock for quite awhile, breathing on the key and then trying it in the frozen lock. Fortunately, it finally worked. A real McGyver move.
The road my GPS gave me was actually a logging road that is not used in winter. There are no poles, lanes, roads or anything for 3 hours. Locals told me I could have died up there and not been found until Spring.
Local Beaverdell restaurant, deep in the BC interior. 
Headed toward the US border. Beautiful morning. crisp, with frozen mist on everything.
Got into Montana and found out the road I was on had been closed several hours before. This is the re-direct route. It took me 3 hours to go 50 miles. Couldn’t see any further than this for the entire time.
Never so glad to see an interstate again.
Montana got much better.
Chicago skyline. Yay, only 11 hours to home.
Machu Picchu
One of the most amazing trips of my life was backpacking through Ecuador and Peru in 1978. I flew into Quito, Ecuador, experienced my first earthquake, bused my way south into Peru. Flew from Tumbes, Peru to Lima, Peru then flew to Cusco, took an early morning train to Machu Picchu to spend the day.To sit quietly on a terrace where farmers had planted corn in 2000 BC, was truly life changing. Here are some pictures of that trip.
Train, leaving Cusco
Funny story, I got up early to go to the train station to make sure I got a ticket for what they call the “local train”. There was also a Gringo train, however, the cost was higher and did not allow much time at the summit. As I was leaving the station, I overheard a local say that the train was leaving in an hour, not the 2 hours as written on a plaque on the station wall. When I ask the local, in Spanish, why the plaque said an hour later, they said, that sign has been there for years. All the local people know it leaves an hour earlier. So, imagine, running in the thin air at 10,000 feet, back to the hotel, crawling over the hotel guards sleeping on the floor in front of the door, so nobody can leave without paying, grabbing packs, and getting back to the station in an hour. My lungs felt like they were on fire.
The flight into Cusco is interesting. The plane has to fly directly at a mountain, before turning 180 degrees to descend sharply on the runway. Pretty scary.
When I was leaving, I got the airport, exchanged all my local currency and got in line to get my boarding pass. When I got to the front, the agent asked if I had reconfirmed my ticket. I said I had not known I needed to, however, I could reconfirm at the counter. She said, oh no, you must reconfirm at their office in downtown Cusco. Good grief! So I had to give the cab driver $20US because that is all the currency I had – no change, of course, to get back into town. I arrive at the airline office to meet hundreds of travelers trying to get tickets, etc. All of a sudden the guards start ushering everyone out of the office into the street. When I asked why, the guard said, we are too busy, so we are closing the office. I questioned the logic in this and was told, most people will go away and not come back, so that when they reopen in 45 minutes, there will be fewer people to deal with. Amazing logic.
When I arrived in Lima, I rented a car to sightsee for the day. After inspecting the VW bug, I went back to the car rental counter and explained that there was no gas in the car and the windshield wipers were missing. The girl explained to me that the cars are rented with an empty tank and are to be returned with an empty tank. I questioned the logic on that as I had rented cars around the world and never rented one with an empty tank, to begin with. She explained that there was a gas station at the entrance to the airport. It took me a second to figure this out as I asked, does you cousin own the station. She looked pleasantly surprised and retorted, oh yes!. So what happens is the cousin siphons the gas out when the car is returned and sells it again to the next gringo. Actually, pretty creative.
Here are some other pictures of that adventure.
Arrived in Otavalo, Ecuador with Rob Young. He had this rented this penthouse (haha) for trips to Ecuador to buy sweaters for Magic Mountain. He and Kent Griffin would trade off buying in S. America and operating the retail/wholesale business in Canada.
I can still smell the fragrance from the many flowering plants. The outside shower overlooked the countryside.
This is what is called an Ecuadorian wedding shirt. I really enjoyed that shirt for many years.
Local market
Cuenca street corner with local courier service. These guys carry hundreds of pounds at a time. I saw a carrier with an oak desk, plus an oak chair on his back. Unbelievable!
Local construction techniques
Lots of decorated, carved doors.
This disabled musician was carried by friends, maybe he paid, not sure, to this location outside my hotel window near the market. Every morning I would wake up to his pan pipe serenade. Most amazing!
Local merchant of toffee. They stand in the doorway and pull the toffee. I watched as a fly landed on the toffee and was immediately incorporated into the pulled toffee. Interesting added protein, yuck!
What are called Panama hats are actually made in Cuenca, Ecuador. Many times you can see women carrying dozens of hats on their heads through town. All handmade and quite beautiful.
I bought the strap that the lady is weaving in this picture. I have used it on cameras and guitars for many years.
This is my room in Tumbes, Peru, on the border with Ecuador. When I rented the room, I asked for a room with running, hot water. When I got to the room, the toilet had not been used in forever and there was no water, let alone hot water. When I complained to the desk, they said, well, you might get water today, and you can heat it yourself. Might get water meant that a truck came into town each evening and if one was fast, one could get a bucket of water. No chance of a gringo beating out a local.
Funny story. I arrived at the border at the same time as several Peace Corp young adults. I figured they spoke better Spanish to get us through the border crossing so I let them lead the way into the guard house at the edge of a dried up ravine that separates Ecuador from Peru. Very interesting. The border was guarded by a little shack on one side of a bridge over the dry ravine. On one side were local merchants, sitting in the dirt, selling items that are illegal in Ecuador, and on the other, merchants selling products illegal in Peru. It had not rained in Tumbes for years. Even the cactus was dying. One Peace Corp guy really angered the border guard after being told that we needed a Visa to cross the border. He said to him in Spanish, so what is the bribe I have to pay to avoid walking back a mile to the town to get a visa? The guard went nuts and screamed at all of us to go back for the visa. I agreed to stay and guard the backpacks while Liz Marusic, and the Peace Corp group went back to get the paperwork.
I was waiting inside the guardhouse, a small one-room building with a desk, a couple of chairs and several windows with bars over them. As I was sitting there, the guard went outside for a moment. The wind came up and blew the door shut and it locked closed. The guard ran to one of the grated windows and started yelling at me to open the door. As I was walking towards the door, it struck me as so funny, and I couldn’t help but blurt out, in Spanish, how much to open the door for you, with a smile on my face. He initially turned red, then started to laugh as I opened the door. He came in and said, I like you, and proceeded to open his desk and take out a bottle of some kind of alcohol along with two glasses and started pouring. By the time the group got back and looked at me in aghast, we were the best of friends and he had already stamped my passport before getting the visa.
This is the airport in Tumbes to take a flight to Lima, some 3000 miles down the coast of nothing at all going on except dry desert. I had some concern that the cab driver was going to execute us on the way to the airport since I could not see anything that looked like civilization on the way. When we got there, the airport was not open yet. When the plane arrived, the pilot loaded the baggage. As we started to taxis down the runway, the plane turned around and came back. We were told that plane had a flat tire, and we had to wait until another plane had to arrive with a spare tire before we could take off. Needless to say, I was nervous the whole flight over a deserted desert coastline. Too funny.
Vancouver Trip 1977
As you know, I love to travel. In 1977, four of us set out from Guelph to go to Vancouver on a road trip. I remember we were going to stop to see Carolyn Inch’s brother in the mountains of BC. It took us 3 days to get out of Ontario, due to van problems. I had bought the blue Econoline Van in Toronto after moving to Pape Ave with Andy and Penney. The first thing I had to do was to replace the engine with a rebuilt that I bought out of Montreal and installed in the backyard. It made the trip and got us home safely. Although, we did almost run out of gas in the middle of the night headed into Banff, AB. And then there was the time the column gear shift would not engage into second gear as Rick Paine was crossing a railroad track with a train about 50 feet down the track.
We got to Vancouver and visited Stanley Park for the first time in my life. The fact that I may have been on some mind-altering something only created a memory full of vividness.
Sitting on a tree stump in Stanley Park, wearing a suede shirt that I had made myself from scratch. I impress myself sometimes with my creativeness.
The van I bought and changed the engine, moved to Guelph, drove to Vancouver – this is BC backwoods.
A couple of slide shots from the trip out.
West Virginia Fall Fair 1973
Fall fairs are so much fun. In the fall of 1973, I drove from Columbus, OH to West Virginia for a local fall fair. They had a firing range with antique muskets. I had to try my hand. There is a delay from the time the trigger is pulled until the powder actually ignites in the barrel and the ball fires. It took some getting used to in order to keep the aim after the trigger is pulled.
The Purpose of Forgiveness
It was 1965, I was seventeen. I had begun working as an orderly at the St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio. I started working at seventeen and under the age required by law. I was not asked to validate my birthdate when I completed the application and I figured I was in my eighteenth year, which was close enough.
I was living with Mom & Pop at the Merriman Rd house. I was working evenings and nights on a swing shift while going to Firestone High School. I was driving my Plymouth Satalite and dating Sandy Dako.
Pop was complaining about his feet hurting. I had seen patients in the hospital soak their sore feet after surgery and suggested we set him in a chair with his feet in a basin of hot water. I remember being on my knees, washing his feet, and thinking how vulnerable he must have felt. I became conscious of a level of understanding and forgiveness for all the pain and suffering he had caused me. I remember thinking, that if I were to meet this person on the street, I would walk on the other side because I would find him so distasteful. While at the same time thinking, he is my father, and in order to let these angry feelings go, all I had to do was make a decision to let go. I felt a profound feeling of release and relief, a sense of freedom, and a lift of pain off my shoulders. It was a serendipitous moment of reflection, resolve, and contentment in one moment of time.
Since that time I have repeatedly read and heard forgiveness is for the benefit of the victim, not the abuser. First the exam and then the lesson.