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Author
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Topic: If it weren't for bad luck....
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Gerald Stewart
Knows what it's all about
Member # 162
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posted July 17, 2005 09:07 AM
I still have to sing my favorite song from the Hee Haw Show from time to time. It seems more true right now than ever. We plan our family vacation for a first time ever trip to the Carribean island of Cozumel. You know how that has turned out. Got word yesterday that all of the hotels cancelled all reservations. We are now waiting to see if American Airlines will cancel their flights and issue refunds. Had to do a quick reschedule to Puerta Vallarta.
I went to the lease Friday to do yard work and do some writing on an article for the Trapper annual. Saturday afternoon I decided to go to the river and brave the hords of chiggers to benefit from a relaxing skinny dip in the Colorado. I zoomed back to the cabin to shower off the little red bastards before they settled in a good tight spot(I was unsuccessful). When I went to my clothes bag, I realized that I did not think to include in my gatherings for the trip an extra pair of underwear. Not wanting to put the possibly chigger infested Boxer briefs back on, I just resigned myself to going without undies for the remander of the trip (about 15 hours).
I stepped out of the trailer naked as a jay bird for my last bladder relief of the night at 11:00 and low and behold there was the huge Armadillo that has been turning the yard into a lunar landscape. I zoom back in to put on my boots and retrieve my always loaded and ready Savage .223\12 guage over and under. An unsuccessfull attempt to shoot him using a weak flashlight which caused some difficulty handling the heavy gun at a very close distance(very tight pattern). I miss and he bounds off into the nearby weed ridden empty goat pen at the rear of the cabin.
I walk over to the fence to survey the terrain for the moving rock and discover two of his willing assistants in the yard destruction...skunks. I zoom back into the trailer to get my lever action .25-20. Still naked, I return to the pen quickly before the skunks make for the cabin which they have been living under. I find them under a large metal goat feeder and proceed to foolishly open fire before they decide to come out. After wounding one and putting a ventilation hole in the feeder, They move off into the weeds and I return to the trailer for the shotgun and some turkey loads.
At this point I decide it is time to put on some pants to carry extra ammo and deprive the mosquitoes of my unprotected manhood as a target. I go out into the chigger ridden weeds to find and finish the one wounded skunk and find the other hiding behind a pole in the high weeds. Both had discharged in the earlier excitment and I am collecting some of that on my boots and pants.
With the yard problem half resolved, I return to the trailer smelling of the pungent skunk essence and higher than a kite due to the adrenaline rush. The next morning the whole back side of the cabin reeks of skunk and I see several new holes by the Armadillo, who evidently did not connect the attempt on his life with the fact that he chose to grub in our yard.
If it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all. Gloom, Despair, Agony on me. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
[ July 17, 2005, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: Gerald Stewart ]
Posts: 419 | From: Waco,Tx | Registered: Mar 2003
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Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7
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posted July 17, 2005 11:05 AM
Wow, Gerald, Paul doesn't usually let me e-publish my articles before I turn them in. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Your neighbors must really enjoy themselves. Had I been you, right in the middle of the naked-guy-running-down-the-dillos segment, the sheriff and his wife would have pulled up just to say hello and see if everything was alright. Glad to hear that someone else has my life, too.
Thanks for sharing.
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I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Posts: 5438 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003
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Kokopelli
SENIOR DISCOUNT & Dispenser of Sage Advice
Member # 633
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posted July 17, 2005 12:20 PM
Bad luck??.....Nah, there's people that have been in big cities for so long that they don't know any other way to live. Now that's bad luck!!!
You just had an adventure, and proved the old saying; "The difference between an adventure and an experience is planning".
Good drinking story around the campfire though!!!!
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And lo, the Light of the Trump shown upon the Darkness and the Darkness could not comprehend it.
Posts: 7589 | From: Under a wandering star | Registered: Apr 2005
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Gerald Stewart
Knows what it's all about
Member # 162
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posted July 17, 2005 03:12 PM
Cdog911, I actually did write a column once for my local paper about a similar situation that happened at this deer lease involving a stiff north wind, the trailer door and Grass burrs. I had my underwear on for that one....just barely. I put down right at 2000 words this weekend about what constitutes a quality calling sound. you will have to buy this Falls Trapper and Predator Caller to get a look at that one. Maybe I should offer him one about all of my hard luck stories at the deer lease. as for neighbors , the closest one is several miles away so that was not on my mind. It would have been a funny sight though.
Kokopelli, have you got any bad luck stories?. Surely someone else has a better story than Jay and his Preymaster in the canal experience.
[ July 17, 2005, 03:22 PM: Message edited by: Gerald Stewart ]
Posts: 419 | From: Waco,Tx | Registered: Mar 2003
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Kokopelli
SENIOR DISCOUNT & Dispenser of Sage Advice
Member # 633
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posted July 17, 2005 03:22 PM
Well, there was the '94 Northridge earthquake that pretty much rearranged everything in my life.
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And lo, the Light of the Trump shown upon the Darkness and the Darkness could not comprehend it.
Posts: 7589 | From: Under a wandering star | Registered: Apr 2005
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Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7
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posted July 17, 2005 03:47 PM
Gerald,
Will that be for the Fall Predator Hunting Special Edition? I've done one for that and just turned in my assignment for the Winter Special, too. If it is, I'm both privileged and honored to be in good company in that Table of Contents.
The rest of you guys are going to (hopefully) see some exciting upgrades starting with the next issue of T&PC due out starting this week. Lotsa stuff on the burners now with more emphasis on calling. It's been a long time in coming together, but when I spoke with Paul last week about some of it, he said things were really coming together and they were really happy with the reception of the new special editions. More to come, but I don't want to hijack this thread, too.
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I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Posts: 5438 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003
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Jay Nistetter
Legalize Weed, Free the Dixie Chicks
Member # 140
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posted July 17, 2005 04:36 PM
Nothing funnier than a nekkid Texican chasing Armadillos and skunks in the dark. I hope you had yer hat on. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Foxworthy would be proud.
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Understanding the coyote is not as important as knowing where they are.
I usually let the fur prime up before I leave 'em lay.
Posts: 1006 | From: Arizona | Registered: Feb 2003
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Gerald Stewart
Knows what it's all about
Member # 162
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posted July 17, 2005 05:18 PM
To be honest Cdog911, I am not sure. All I know it is one of the predator specials. Probably the fall ...or maybe the winter...or maybe I do not really know.
Nope....no hat Jay. Only my birthday suit.
Posts: 419 | From: Waco,Tx | Registered: Mar 2003
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Leonard
HMFIC
Member # 2
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posted July 18, 2005 09:59 AM
bad luck, in this case, and unfortunate about your planned vacation. BUT. At least you aren't in Cozumel right now. You wouldn't be having much fun.
We had a Mexico vacation interupted by what turned out to be a "tropical storm" but still, the airline wouldn't fly into it. We lost a day, and Club Med compensated $ for it.
Good hunting.
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EL BEE Knows It All and Done It All.
Don't piss me off!
Posts: 31492 | From: Upland, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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2dogs
Knows what it's all about
Member # 649
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posted July 19, 2005 01:21 PM
Years ago, I was 15 minutes away from going home @ 0700, from my 24hr shift. I was asigned driver unit #12. We recieve a car fire call, on the outskirts of town.
We get 1/2 mile away from the scene. Theres a Blue Wrecker Truck, hooked to a car that is on fire. From the front bumper to the back. We barely got it extinguished, with our booster tank water.
Wrecker-guy says, "You won't believe this guys luck", we listened.
He was fired a few minutes after he reported to work...[11p-7a]. He went home, to find all of his clothe's strew about the front yard. He go's inside his house. There is his wife in bed with another man. She boots him out...[she, filed for a divorce].
He, then loads up all of his clothes into his car[the only possession's he has].
He then comes to town, buys a couple quarts of beer. Starts cruising the gravel roads getting drunk. He gets into a bad wreck, breaks his femur & bangs up the rest of his drunkin carcass.
Gets hauled away, via the county ambulance. With S.O following to write him up. On the way back from this wreck, via the wrecker-man. His car mysterioulsy catches on fire...& it wasn't even raining, game over.
[ July 19, 2005, 01:21 PM: Message edited by: 2dogs ]
Posts: 1034 | From: central Iowa | Registered: Apr 2005
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Bud/OR
Knows what it's all about
Member # 450
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posted August 02, 2005 11:58 AM
You want bad luck?... I had it about forty-five years ago, about six miles North of Cottonwood, AZ., on the Verde River.
My old man had a '37 Chevy that he'd taken the back seat out of so we could haul the dogs. We were hound hunters in those days. That's how I learned to drive. Pulled behind the car was a little flat-bed trailer with ring-eyes on each corner to hook our strike-dog to. Now... Hoot, the 'strike-dog' was bullet-proof on bobcat. He was a brindle Plott with the prettiest turkey-mouth you ever heard. He had one eye and a split right ear (the truth) and the old man always said he was the only dog he'd ever seen that could follow a bobcat into a tin culvert and come out with the cat in his mouth and all his guts intact (the dogs guts). I guess eyes and ears didn't count.
We'd run those old roads, way into the night, looking for 'eyes'. A bobcat's eyes have a shine that isn't like a coon, coyote or coate. Old Hoot would confirm it from his perch on the trailer and we would cut loose the dogs and the run would begin. It happened just like that, that night.
We saw the shine and I slid her to a stop in the middle of the road. Hoot cut loose and the other dogs went nuts. I piled out and grabbed my rifle while the old man turned the dogs loose.
Now...I was sixteen years old and my dad was sixty and he was nearly stone deaf. I would usually run right next to him because he couldn't hear the dogs very good. (no such thing as radio collars back then). I figured I would beat-feet, down the road, after the dogs and wait for him if the chase turned off into the mesquite or crossed the river.
A bobcat doesn't have much run in him, small lungs, I guess. This sucker must have run a half mile before it went up a big cottonwood. The dogs were going nuts and running around the tree.
I hadn't thought to grab a flashlight but it was full-moon bright and the leaves were down so I walked around under the tree and finally spotted the cat's head, against the moonlight, stuck up out of a big fork. I raised the rifle and could see my front bead, through the peep, clear as could be, against the sky. I eased it down until it blotted out between the cat's ears. I touched her off...bad luck.
The cat rolled out of the tree and my life changed forever... The lights that came on blinded me. The woman screaming scared me. She screamed, over and over, "The sons of bitches have killed my cat! Get the gun!"...
Now...to this day I do not have a clue where that house came from. I am sure it was not there the night before. But... I was always a quick study and I deduced that it was time to leave...and I did.
I wasn't more than a few hundred yards from the dead cat when I heard the shot-gun go off and the dogs ki-yi-ing. In another hundred yards the dogs passed me, heading toward the car. I ran around a curve in the road and passed my old man. I noticed that he was running in the wrong direction. I yelled at him to turn off his flashlight but he didn't hear me.
I said that I was a quick study. Knowing that I had inherited this from the old man...I continued to run...toward the car. I looked back once and saw him squatting in the middle of the dark road looking back at me. I knew that he was 'quick studying' and I hoped he did not have a heart attack before he deduced that there was something radically wrong.
I approached the car and slid to a stop before I tossed the rifle in among the dogs. They looked to be ready to try somewhere else. And...I had been driving and had the keys. I backed into the mesquite and cat-claw, all the while hoping I didn't run into a house. Down the road I went, rocks just a flying. After about a mile I looked over, next to me and I deduced that my dad was not with me...more bad luck.
I only had a six mile run to get to the house so I took the dogs and trailer home. It was cracking daylight and my mom was up. She came out of the house and watched while I unhooked the trailer and put the dogs in the pen. She commented that some of the dogs had bloody spots on their butts, almost like they had been hit with birdshot. I was hoping to get gone before she noticed anything else but...maybe I get being 'a quick study' from her. She had noticed that the old man was not present. I related what had happened and she suggested, strongly, that I go back and get him... Bad luck just piles up.
All the way back I tried to find some options. The only thing I could come up with was suicide and that would mean the old man would still have to walk home...and he'd stomp my dead ass when he found his car. He wasn't more than two miles from the house when I found him. I deduced that he was very angry.
He got in and reached over and turned off the engine. He explained, in a very calm voice, that he had thought about killing me...and ruled it out. He said that if I were dead he'd never get the story of what happened. I mentioned that he was deaf. He always carried a tablet and pencil, for times like that,I suppose, so he wouldn't have to kill people that he could not communicate with. I have never written that fast, before or since.
He ran behind the dogs until he died at age eighty-four. Sometimes I would suggest we go out and run a bobcat. He never failed to laugh at that one.
Bud
[ August 02, 2005, 12:24 PM: Message edited by: Bud/OR ]
Posts: 51 | From: Oregon | Registered: Nov 2004
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Gerald Stewart
Knows what it's all about
Member # 162
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posted August 02, 2005 01:38 PM
I hope he laughed as hard as I did at your story. Thanks for a belly holding laugh.
Posts: 419 | From: Waco,Tx | Registered: Mar 2003
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Rich Higgins
unknown comic
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posted August 02, 2005 01:41 PM
Bud, you should E-mail that to Paul Wait. That was good enough to share with everyone.
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Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7
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posted August 02, 2005 01:55 PM
I agree, Rich. Great story. Let me help...
Paul.Wait@fwpubs.com
Good luck.
-Lance
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I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Posts: 5438 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003
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Crow Woman
Knows what it's all about
Member # 157
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posted August 02, 2005 05:02 PM
Bravo Bud!!!!!!! I still got tears in my eyes over that one from laughing so dang hard... Send it... immediately!!!!!!
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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Sheri L Baity
Lord, Please give me peace, because if you give me strength, I might beat someone to death!
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2dogs
Knows what it's all about
Member # 649
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posted August 03, 2005 05:29 AM
Excellent story. Got some good laughs as well.
Posts: 1034 | From: central Iowa | Registered: Apr 2005
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Tim Behle
Administrator MacNeal Sector
Member # 209
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posted August 03, 2005 06:01 AM
I just read it for the third time since you posted, and it still brings tears of laughter to my eyes!
Great Story!
[ August 03, 2005, 06:02 AM: Message edited by: Tim Behle ]
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Personally, I carry a gun because I'm too young to die and too old to take
an ass kickin'.
Posts: 3160 | From: Five Miles East of Vic, AZ | Registered: Jun 2003
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2dogs
Knows what it's all about
Member # 649
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posted August 03, 2005 06:02 AM
Circa mid-sixty's.
My Dad, his two hunting buds, myself & 6-greyhounds crammed into a early model [1960-62?] Ford Falcon station wagon. [I rode shotgun with the hounds, new-guy...no seniority]
We headed up around Mcallsburg/Zearing, Iowa area to hunt Jackrabbits. We stopped at a farm, to ask permission.
Farm cats, everywhere...perhaps a dozen or more. Hounds going "NUTS" wanting to get out & [munch] some cats.
A tall [big-boned] woman, answers the door, et is conversing with my Dad. About letting us hunt her 1-mile long X 1/4-mile wide picked bean field.
She says, you can hunt it. As long as your dogs, don't bother my cats"...Dad say's, "No problem"
We drive a mile down the gravel road, on the opposite end of the section. Us & the hounds pile out & take a quick pee-break. Well, there's a Jack, laying in the road ditch[Murphy's LAW].
He kicks up, & commence's to haul-ass [straight-lined] down the bean field towards that farm. Greyhounds, sail over the barbed fence in hot pursuit.[Normally our dogs would/could turn a Jack, in a couple of hundred yrds or less].
Were watching....watching...watching. HOLY @%#** THEY CAN'T TURN HIM! We then quickly pile back into the car, to head down the road to the farm to grab our hounds.[We could see this whole MESS, unfolding. As we drove.
We turned the mile corner, hauled butt towards the farm. We whipped into the farm drive. WHAT a SIGHT! Each greyhound had a cat in it's mouth, shaking & a munching. Farm woman is beating the dogs with a straw broom. She's screaming obscenties...& swinging that broom, like a crazed lumber-jack. [I opted to stay in the car, at this time]
My dad & his buds, are grabbing dogs [some they had to smack, to drop their cats]. They quickly put them in the car. This woman is still SCREAMING at my Dad & his buddies. To, "GET THE H*LL OFF OF MY FARM!"
We hauled butt outta Dodge.
[ August 03, 2005, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: 2dogs ]
Posts: 1034 | From: central Iowa | Registered: Apr 2005
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Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7
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posted August 03, 2005 02:42 PM
Good kitties.
Alright, my own cat-killing hound story. (Must be something about those darned cats.)
I'd bought an English redtick male pup from a friend and danged if we could get that dog to start on anything. He was so timid that he was shy of everything. So, I contacted the breeder and told him that the pup was even scared of other hounds, so taking him out with a cast was probably not feasible. He told me to come and get one of its littermates and maybe she would bring him along. So I did.
About the same time, my dad was having trouble with this brindle colored feral housecat so I live trapped it. That's when I got the idea. I transferred that cat to a rollcage we usually used with a coon inside and sprayed it all down with racoon training scent, then thru it in the pen with the pups. (After all, it kinda maybe looked sorta like a coon.) That female went all kinds of crazy on that thing and after a few minutes, my pup started getting interested, too. Then I got idea number two. I tied both pups off on a buddy lead and dragged that cat into a fully enclosed chicken pen outside my grandmother's brooder house. While I was leading both dogs to the pen, my grandpa comes around the corner with his pipe hanging out of his mouth and asks me what I'm doing. I pointed at that cat, then at the pups, and told him that three were going in, and two were coming out. He kinda gave me a "Hrumph" and shrugged his shoulders. Said he'd been running hounds for fifty years and considered this technique to be "non-conventional". I just shrugged him off and shoved both dogs into the pen and closed the gate. The next three or four minutes were certainly "non-conventional", so I guess Grandpa was right.
Everything was calm as the pups just trotted around sniffing at everything. The cat - it chose to hide behind a loose piece of tin siding on the side of the chicken coop. Then the female pup found him and the race was on. Round and around that pen they went. Cat first, then the female, and my male pup standing in the middle spinning in circles trying to figure out what the hell all the fuss was about. That cat would run a ways on the ground then leap up on the chicken wire side panel and run about head high for a ways. A couple times, it'd bail off and end up in the middle of the pen with both pups right behind it with their jaws just a snapping.
By the luck of God, my pup got first hold on that cat's tail and danged if that cat didn't let out a helluva squall and swing around right on top of old Cody's head. It was wrapped around his whole head with its front claws buried in the back of his head behind the bases of his ears, and its back claws clamped onto either side of his throat. I'm screamin', "Holy shit!" and my grandpa's just laughing his fool head off at the corner of the garage. My pup is howling like he's dying while he runs laps around the inside of that pen with the cat on his head and the female right behind both of 'em. The cat's catterwhallin' like he's got the rabies. And my grandma comes runnin' out the backdoor to see what all the commotion is. Of course, as soon as she figured out what happened and that I did it, she's yelling at Grandpa to stop laughing because it isn't funny. She's yelling at me asking me what the hell would possess me to do such a thing. About that time, that female finally catches up with Cody and his new hat and grabs that cat by the throat and commences to shaking the snot out of it. Cody runs to the nearest corner and climbs inside his own a$$hole trying to hide from the cat. The female looses her grip and that cat beats feet for the gate and flies past me, Grandma and Grandpa at about mach 4.
After a couple days of making sure all the scratch marks and open wounds are sufficiently healed, I take the pup back to Larry, the breeder, and tell him it didn't work. That's all I figured he had to know. A week later, he calls me on the phone and demands to know what the hell I did to his dog. Seems she'd gotten loose every one of the past five days and went down the road where she managed to kill all but about two of the neighbor's farm cats. Oops.
(Lookin' back, you'd have thought that experience might have ruined Cody for fighting, but he turned into one of the best throat dogs I or the guys I hunted with ever saw. A coon would come down out of the tree and old Cody would spar back and forth until he had an opening, then in he'd go and clamp down on the coon's throat until it was dead. I would guess that dog put the munch on a good three hundred coons before I retired him with his best work being the last night he hunted when he treed fifteen coons in a hedgerow along standing milo with another walker dog. Looked like Christmas trees when we shined out headlights on them.).
Then again, who can forget the night we all went coonhuntin' nekid in nothing but our cowboy boots? But, I'll save that for another time.
[ August 03, 2005, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: Cdog911 ]
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I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Posts: 5438 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003
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2dogs
Knows what it's all about
Member # 649
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posted August 03, 2005 05:38 PM
Cdog911,
Good story, I could see it all...LOL.
Anything but a [throat-dog] is a slow learner, eh.
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feral cats & road coon are how we trained our greyhounds to kill. They loved cat, the best...Hmmm, must taste like chicken.
Posts: 1034 | From: central Iowa | Registered: Apr 2005
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2dogs
Knows what it's all about
Member # 649
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posted August 12, 2005 07:47 PM
November 1983, Sunday around 10:30 am. We had a walkin smoke report. Church goer said he seen smoke coming from the front of the vacant Water Bed Store, next to the vacant Coast-to-Coast Store. We responded.
I'm driver for Lieut's truck, we take the alley side. Capt's truck reports Heavy smoke showing, from the front side of both stores. Lines are laid.
I charge my Lieut's handline, he "masks-up" I mask-up. I'm nozzle-man, he's my back-up. Heavy Black cotton smoke coming from around the back cellar door. I pull my glove, feel the door...it's warm. Door is locked, I boot it in. We advance, air is very warm & Black as coal. We hear distant crackling/muffled noises, still advancing.
We come to another wall, I find a door. right then I just "exhale" & my low-pressure hose whips off my regulator, not good. I need to breath, felt my hose, it felt torn. My regulator is dumping all of my remaining air big-time[wake up Leroy ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) ]
I come around the nozzle, hanging onto the handline. "Walking fast" towards the stairwell, I need to breath. Felt the handline going upward[OH YAH!]. WHAP! hit my head on the low header. It knocked what little air I had left in my lungs out. I was on the floor now, I inhaled out of response.
Now choking/gagging, no air-movement now for a minute or more. I'm still conscious, fighting to breath & crawl up out of the stairwell to get some air. I'm going unconsious...[WHERE'S MY LIEUT?? ![[Mad]](mad.gif) ].
I'm halfway up the 10' 75 degree narrow stairwell. Black Cotton smoke still rolling over my head. I'm still struggling, but greatly dimenished now, felt some fear[thought I was gonna die there]. Suddenly, I feel this great
"Warmth & peace", come over me.
I relax & quit fighting...closing my eyes.
Right before I went unconsious, I heard some loud muffled noise's & seen a blurry mass above me in the stairwell. I'm barely consious.
Next thing I'm conscious of is being thrown upstairs, in one long motion. I flop onto my belly, outside on the ground. I hear my Captain, yelling at me. He rip's my mask off & quickly peels off my air-pack.
I'm coming back around, choking/puking/gagging out of my nose & mouth. Still couldn't exchange
any air to speak of. What little, I did manage to suck in, came right back out, as wretching/drooling dry heaving.[I already emtied my stomach]
Crawling quickly as I could muster to some fresher air, smoke hanging low.
Fesh air now...Thank You! GOD.
I flop over on my back gasping. Other firefighters show up[call-back] & render me aid.
Wasn't my day to go.
[ August 12, 2005, 07:53 PM: Message edited by: 2dogs ]
Posts: 1034 | From: central Iowa | Registered: Apr 2005
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Tim Behle
Administrator MacNeal Sector
Member # 209
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posted August 17, 2005 01:36 PM
I don't think I'll ever go on vacation again.
I can't afford to leave home.
The wife and I planned two vacations for us this year. The first one was to Mexico. I think you all saw how that one turned out in the other thread. It cost me $2k on a high interest credit card to get the wife out of that Mexican Hospital.
Our big vacation, was to drive back to Indiana and visit family and friends, and hit the NTA convention. I've not been back since we moved five years ago.
Before we left, I took the Wife's car into a dealership, for a tune up ( Almost $400 in repairs there ) then again to correct a shake in the front end. Between 40-50 MPH the front end would shake like I had a tire out of balance. They said the ball joints needed to be replaced. Another $400. I had the wife call on Thursday to get the final bill. They said they hadn't started it yet ( we had dropped it off on Monday ) We were to leave on Saturday morning, so I calmly explained things again to the guy in charge, and he got someone right on it.
Then he called back, seems the ball joints had been bad so long that the front driveshaft had cracked and the traction bar had bent. So I told him to replace them. Then he called back and said my front tires were ruined by all of the bouncing and he could sell me a new set for only $460. I told him for that much, I'd have to cancel the vacation and wouldn't need the new tires at all. So he found two in the same size as the rear and replaced them.
We picked it up on Friday afternoon for just a few pennies under $1,600.
Saturday morning we took off for Indiana. My Grandmother had not been doing well and wasn't expected to last long. So I made the 1,800 mile drive in two very long days.
Thirty miles from my parents house, the front end seemed to explode.
It seems the driveshaft that had been replaced, was replaced with an old rusted one. So rusty that it couldn't move back and forth as designed. It had been doing all of it's flexing on the rack and pinion gears, until they blew up as I pulled off of the Interstate.
The only good thing about this trip so far, is that I did make it back in time to say goodbye to Grandma on Monday morning. She passed later that night.
Dad planned the Funeral for Thursday, but then my Uncle in LA called and said they couldn't make it until Friday. Now the Funeral is on Saturday.
That put the end to our plans of going to the NTA convention on Friday and Saturday and on to visit family in Michigan on Sunday.
Right now I'm hoping to go to the NTA tomorrow, and come back on Friday. Dad's truck has a trailer package on it. I just finished rewiring all of the light connections. ( Go figure, a never used trailer package had faulty wiring ) So I'll borrow his truck to pull the trailer up to Goshen, and come back Friday in time to pick up the Wife's car from the dealership here, and then drive down to Southern Indiana for the viewing and funeral.
If nothing else breaks before Sunday, I told the wife she was driving home. I'm going to curl up in the back seat with a case of beer, a box of cigars, and go nucking futs.
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Personally, I carry a gun because I'm too young to die and too old to take
an ass kickin'.
Posts: 3160 | From: Five Miles East of Vic, AZ | Registered: Jun 2003
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Melvin
Knows what it's all about
Member # 634
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posted August 17, 2005 02:20 PM
Tim,you don't want to do that..when you step out of the car you're gona fall face flat into mucking fud. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
[ August 17, 2005, 02:21 PM: Message edited by: Melvin ]
Posts: 661 | From: PA. | Registered: Apr 2005
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Gerald Stewart
Knows what it's all about
Member # 162
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posted August 17, 2005 02:50 PM
Didn't Hank williams senior write a song for you Tim....something about a tear in your beer. Man, I will never complain about another vacation with simple stuff like high humidity and hurling off a boat.
[ August 17, 2005, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: Gerald Stewart ]
Posts: 419 | From: Waco,Tx | Registered: Mar 2003
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Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7
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posted August 17, 2005 06:28 PM
Tim,
Sorry to hear about all your problems. Kinda puts my day into perspective.
And sorry to hear about your grnadmother. Hope she went peacefully and as mercifully as can be.
As far as the car goes, I think a little therapy is in order. Take all the emotions you're feeling right now, bottle them up tight in a little knot deep in your belly where they can fester and brew until you get home and have both hands firmly clasped around the throat of the shop manager at the place where they worked on your car. Then, let 'r roll. I'd be getting all my money - ALL my money for both repair trips - out of them or threaten them with a hell of a suit for endangering you, the wife and kids. That would make me feel better. Maybe it'd work for you. In the meantime, you can't go anywhere but up.
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I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Posts: 5438 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003
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