THE WEARIN' O' THE GREEN

March 17, 2016

St. Patrick's Day..  Sitting here in my green sweatshirt, tracing the shadows and the sunlight on the house across the street.   Sorry for the death of Frank Sinatra, Jr.  On one of today's episodes of Adam 12, Frank is featured as a cop.  He had a nice career in his own right, always in the shadow of his dad.   I was always jealous of him.  Won't tell the story, but a girl I liked was swept away by him one time!  Sheesh.. 

I'm working on my VW bus and yesterday prompted this email to one of my best friends. He would have had the job done in twenty minutes.  Me?  about four hours. 

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Duncan: 

It's almost seven.  At about 3:30 I took some tools out to the bus to change the brackets for my groovy back bumper.. that would be a two by six.  For three and a half hours, dealing with impossible space to do the work, lying on my back gazing up into the blue skies and the palm trees gently swaying over my head, I thought of you.  I thought of how you'd just get under there and I'd hand you a wrench and you'd cuss and I'd hand you the right wrench.. and you'd get those pesky old brackets off in no time and then we'd stick the new brackets right on and in twenty minutes it would be done.

I thought of you as a little gnat wanted to land in my eye and then some piece of loose crud managed to fall in but I was not going to stop.  But, I wished you were here.

I got one bracket on and then went to the side of bus where the muffler sticks out so that it's more difficult to do the work, but, I should have learned from the first bracket.  Hah.. It's the opposite side and therefore everything is reversed.  But, had you been here, it would not have been a problem.  Lying on the concrete is so nice and comfy, especially with the squirrels peering down and chuckling, as you may be now.  Just quit it.. It is NOT funny!  Well ..maybe to you.. but my body is barking and I'm not going back out there until I've had a couple of Ibuprophen and finished this note to you.   Right now I miss you like anything.. Not because of your superior mechanical skills..  but.. oh wait.. Yes. It IS your mechanical skills that I miss right now.. Sorry..  I was getting nostalgic, but all I needed was your expertise.

The upside is that all the while I'm unscrewing and then screwing again because "righty tighty and lefty loosey" get mixed up when you are lying on your back in pain and wanting to strangle a squirrel and grateful that that one big bird that covered the porch with poop a while back was not resting up in the palm trees with the danged squirrel. 

New bolts for the brackets??  What a concept.. If I can haul myself to the Nissan and set the cruise control for Home Depot, I'll buy two new bolts and send these old ones to you as a souvenir!

What? Do I feel better now? What??  Why yes  I do. Oh.  My neck just made a sound like Rice Krispies!   Hmmm.

 

March 17, 2016

michaelsheehan