other dog

I left a nice one in a booth in Lee-Hi Truck Stop one time. I knew exactly where I left that one, no need to go looking for it. I'm sure somebody else wore it out of there.

So, anyhow... Zina said "that parka must be in the shed, it's not in this house". I said "it's not in the shed, I wouldn't have put it in the shed in the first place, I would have put it in the closet". And I looked in the sheds yesterday, no sign of it, so I knew it wasn't in the shed. So I went out there today to maybe look in the sheds a little more thoroughly, and whaddya know- I saw this clear plastic bag on the shelf, behind the two dog gates that were leaning up against it. It said "twin quilt" on the bag, but I pulled it out and unzipped the bag and it was something green, green like military olive drab, stuffed in it. Stuffed very tight too. Appears to be the missing parka.

Funny how that works... Not funny "ha-ha" but funny weird. It's been very cold 🥶 here like pretty much everywhere else for the last week or so. And I was looking for those warm gloves I bought last fall. I got a pair for myself and a pair for Zina. Found hers, in the console in the pickup, but mine are nowhere to be seen. And ever since I had that allergic reaction to a tick bite a couple of years ago, when my head swelled up like a pumpkin and my hands swelled up to the size a small ham, my hands get really cold really quick when I go outside. Never used to bother me, but now they're super sensitive to hot and cold. So I ordered us both a pair of good gloves, she's always cold anyway. So while I was looking for the gloves, I remembered the parka. You know, the military surplus parka that I bought about 8 or 10 years ago. I used to keep it in the truck in case of emergencies, along with a sub zero rated sleeping bag- one of those lessons learned. It was a really nice parka too, it was heavy, probably weighed 15 pounds, and supposed to keep you warm in temps well below zero. I never even wore it except to try it on because it never really got cold enough. You couldn't work in it, you'd be sweating in just a couple of minutes. And even though I never wore it, it's driving me nuts that I can't find it. It got lost in the move somehow. I've been through this house from one end to the other several times. I hope I didn't throw it in a dumpster by accident, but I can not find it anywhere, it just disappeared.

Well, we sold our place over in Gladys, the closing was yesterday. A woman from Pa. bought it, and we took her son the keys yesterday. He was renting some place down near Martinsville, and he talked like his rent was high and the place was a dump, and he drove all the way to Gretna to work, an hour and a half each way. Now he can drive to Gretna in about a half hour, maybe less. I liked it there, I lived there from 2005 until last spring and I thought it would be the last place I lived, but things change. And I like it better here. I don't know Bob Spooner personally, but I've certainly heard of him for years, and seen articles about his truck. He drove the same Peterbilt since the 60s, when he bought it new. It's a 1961 and it's been through several engines and transmissions I think, but it's the same truck. He was in an accident in his pickup back around Christmas and is still in the hospital. They have a "go fund me" account set up, and it's been all over Facebook, but I can't believe they've only gotten a little over $12,000 so far. Times are tough I guess. https://www.gofundme.com/f/bob-ramona-spooners-medical-other-expenses?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

Sad, but that picture pretty much says it all.

Wow, lucky you're still with us!

I think the coldest temperature I've ever been out in was 26 below zero in Ohio, in the 80s. The wind chill was something like 60 or 70 below. My truck was the only truck that H.H. Moore had that was even running. But I didn't get that cold, because I was prepared for it. I had enough fuel conditioner in the tanks to treat like 4,000 gallons of fuel, alcohol in the air lines, plenty of warm clothes, I was good to go. All my pipes were frozen at home when I got back though and I spent a couple of days up under the house in the crawl space cutting out and soldering in broken copper pipes and replacing what I could with plastic pipe. But the actual coldest that I ever remember being was not when it was freezing, it was just above freezing, about 34-35 degrees I think, and I had nothing more than a short sleeve shirt to wear, not even a jacket. I was miserable because I was totally unprepared! It was windy and raining and I was loading in Chicago, pipe I think. It was still warm here in Va. but not in Chicago. I learned a valuable lesson that day though, I never left home that unprepared again. That's why when I would get a new truck it was an all day job to get my stuff out and switched over, because I had winter clothes all summer and summer clothes all winter, plus food and water, and pretty much whatever else I thought I might possibly need.

One night I was coming back from Chillicothe, Ohio- with an empty log trailer as a matter of fact. It was snowing hard, but 64 was in pretty good shape when I came across, but getting worse. When I got on rt. 60 at Buena Vista and started east it was pretty bad. So I decided that if rt. 60 looked like it had been plowed going up the mountain I was going for it, if not I would just pull into the Food Lion parking lot on the left before you start up the mountain. This mountain was a 2 lane road, 4 miles to the top, 7% grade, nowhere to stop until you went over the top. So once you started up you were committed, there was no where to pull over if you wanted to. And for some reason the road looked like a salt truck had been up it so I kept going. But it didn't take long at all to figure out that my eyes had deceived me, because no plows had been up the mountain, and neither had anybody else. I spun my way almost to the top, where the Blue Ridge Parkway crosses over, then almost lost it. The truck was almost completely sideways by then, rear end toward the ditch, I was facing the center line. But it was still moving- just barely, but still moving. I was really sweating bullets by this point. The speedometer said I was doing a couple hundred because I was spinning so much, but actually I was hardly moving at all. But I was moving. And I thought "if I can just make it to the top I'm pulling into the big wide spot about a half mile down and calling it a day- I shouldn't have tried to get over the mountain until tomorrow anyway". And finally I got a little more traction and a little more straighter and made it to the top. And I pulled right into that big pull off and jumped in the bunk. I had barely gotten stretched out when I heard a noise and looked out and saw 2 salt shakers coming up the mountain. At least the Amherst county side was out getting it done! I knew they would turn around at the Parkway because that's where the county line was. So I got back up and decided I should follow them off the mountain when they came back through. When they finally came back- they usually had a cup of coffee and a smoke at the parkway- I let them get about a 2 curve head start and pulled out behind them. You could see way down the mountain because there were no leaves on the trees. I went all the way back to the woodyard that night, hooked to another load of wood and went home, because once I got off the mountain it was mostly just raining. It turned out to be a good decision to follow the salt trucks down the mountain too, they had a major ice storm over that way and a lot of people didn't have power for over a week. Trees were down blocking roads all over, so if I hadn't followed them I might have been stuck over there for several days.

Funny, it always seems to work like that. One time I was coming back from Westvaco in Covington with an empty log trailer. It was snowing hard and by the time I left the paper mill and got on 64 the road was completely covered. I pulled over on the shoulder at the on-ramp at exit 36- right before you start up North Mountain. It was 5 miles to the top and I wasn't sure I could make it because I hadn't seen the first plow truck working. I figured that a salt shaker would come along eventually and I would just follow it to the top. Finally one did, and I did. No problems- until he turned into the crossover about a quarter of a mile from the top. I couldn't believe he had abandoned me like that, but he did. And I caught hell making it that last quarter of a mile too, it was touch and go for a while there.

I got stuck over on rt. 60 in West Virginia one night with an empty log trailer. It did exactly like the weather man said it was going to do- come down as rain but it was going to freeze the instant it hit the ground. I figured I would just make it as far as I could then stop when the rain started. It started raining and the next pull off was the big wide spot at the top of the mountain before you get to Rainelle. And I almost made it. But not quite. I was going uphill, almost up to where it leveled off before I got to the big pull off, just sitting in the road spinning the tires like I was on ice. Because I was on ice. A state truck came by spreading salt, went around me like I was sitting still, because I was sitting still. Then he said on the cb "hey big truck, you stuck?" I really wanted to say "no, just thought I'd stop in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere at 3am" but I said "yeah". Then he said "ok, I'll back down in front of you and throw some salt out". He started backing up and started sliding right away. He said "whoa, it's slick ain't it!" I said "yeah". Then he said "let me throw my chains on". I thought I should give him a hand with the chains, but he was chained up and backing down the hill by the time I got my jacket on.

I've only chained up one time in my life, and that was to get over to the beer store, 2 miles away.

All I heated with for many years was wood. Kept the whole house plenty warm. No doubt it was a lot of work finding, cutting, splitting, and stacking firewood but I was young then and never minded it, actually I enjoyed doing all that.

That's the truth!

I used to run from Lynchburg, Va. to the Pittsburgh area a lot when I was driving. A lot. And the usual route- at least until they invented those E-logs it was the usual route- was I-64 over to Sam Black Church, rt. 60 west to Charmco, WV, then rt. 20 up to Nettie and rt. 39 to Summersville, then rt. 19 to I-79 to points north. Same thing coming back to Lynchburg, just in the opposite direction. Just before you started down the big hill to Charmco there was a fancy looking yellow and brown R model sitting behind a building on the left. You couldn't see it all that good, and there was just a brief period where you could see it at all. I tried many times to get a drive-by picture of it. I'm sure I posted some here, but I never got a "good" picture. And last night when I was looking at the "Mystery Hole" I looked on the street view on google maps for that R model- and there it was. That truck's been sitting right there for many years. I can only imagine the pride somebody must have had in that unit when it was running. Then I went back up towards Nettie to see if I could see the old GMC that they used for a yard dog at Happy Trucking. I guess there are some things I miss.

well then... I got the bill for the new stew pot stand. As it is with everything anymore, it was three times as much as I was expecting it to be. I would have made one myself out of one of these old truck wheels i've got laying around if i'd known it was going to cost me $200. The same folks were surprisingly cheap when they made a lid for my favorite grill though, and a rear bumper for that Dodge pickup I had. I took it back to get them to tweak it a little bit- this is the old one that fits the smaller pot. The new one doesn't quite go in far enough, but if I biggerized the hole the smaller pot would fall through. I'm going to get them to lower the new one a couple of inches, and cut out a half-moon piece in front where I put the wood in. That's about a 5 minute job, so maybe they won't charge extra for doing that.

Yes, Jon Krakauer wrote the book. He wrote a lot of good books, I read "Into Thin Air" several times, they made a TV movie about that one too.

It's called a bow saw, the bar is actually the only difference in those two saws. You could interchange them if you wanted. They used to be really popular for cutting pulpwood, the main advantage is that the bar itself is so thin it wouldn't get pinched, at least not as easily anyway. The main disadvantage is that they are notorious for "kickback", I know people that have their faces scarred up today from using one, and one is a professional logger. That's the one I haven't gotten started, and I might not even fool with it. The other one has the "anti kickback" safety feature by the handle, but it's not connected to anything. I think that's why they don't even make them anymore, because they're dangerous. But it's the cat's ass for firewood cutting, when my father in law ran that saw he pretty much just set those two prongs on the ground and tilted the saw forward and could cut firewood with one hand.

Yep, I remember taking broken tools back to Sears and they would would just throw it in the bin and get you a new one, no questions asked.

I was helping- I guess my former sister in law?..or still my sister in law?..I'm not sure, she was the sister of my wife who passed away in 2005- anyhow, her and her husband are apparently calling it quits after many years and we were helping her move last night because she had to be out of her former home by 11:59 pm. She had these 2 chain saws that belonged to her dad, and she told me if I could use them to take them. I really don't have any need for them since I haven't burned firewood in years but I grabbed them before she changed her mind. They're too good to just let them go to waste. My father in law passed away 7 years ago, and they probably hadn't been started since long before that. I dumped the old gas out and put new gas in them and got one of them started already, but no luck on the other one yet. I helped him cut many loads of firewood with these saws, I had an XL12 Homelite myself, and a 925. The XL12 was one of the best saws ever made in my opinion, mine burned up when my shed burned down.

True that!

I took a picture of a helicopter at the Truckers Parade Against Cancer last year and it looked like the propeller was stopped, it's still on the computer. I might have posted it on pictures of the week here, I don't know.

One of my earliest tool memories is hearing that a BFH and a long handle punch were two of the most important tools to have.

I have a book here somewhere that he wrote about his life, mostly about the early years before he "hit the big time". One of my favorite stories in it was about when he won his first race. He stopped at a steakhouse with all his crew to celebrate with steaks. They were still in the jeans and T shirts that they were wearing at the track, and they sat down and ordered steak for everyone. They waited and waited for their food and while they were waiting a wedding party came in and sat down. In just a few minutes the waiters started bring out steaks- for the wedding party. Needless to say they were highly pissed. I think it was Cale that said "those look like our steaks". I know it was Cale that walked over and picked up a steak off of one of their plates with his hands and took a bite out of it, then he said "tastes like our steaks too". That's how the fight started.

The numbers this morning. I like what John Kennedy from Louisiana said about the border- he said it was a man made crisis, and the man's name was joe Biden.