Hedren

Studebaker

Hedren — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:42:38 +0000

“Fifty dollars is a princely sum”. That’s what my father said when I drove up to the homestead in my newly purchased Studebaker. Not new but newly purchased. In addition you might want to know this event happened pretty close to a half century ago. Actually the price was fifty-five dollars but I figured fifty would sound better to my fathers cost conscious ears.
Dads’ next line was “for crying out loud, you’re going to have to spend another fifty just to make it legal to drive”. What more could it need, I thought, I just drove it home. The engine didn’t make too much noise. The clutch went in and out, the car moved forward and back without complaining a great deal. It had current license plates. The tires showed at least a hint of tread. To this teenaged motor head the world was in perfect order.
Dad was right of course. Pretty soon oil was being bought in five-quart containers. It occurred to me at the time the local mosquito control district might find the car useful as a mobile fogger. I quickly found out where the spare tire was kept. In my starry eyed initial perusal of the Studi I neglected to check that particular aspect. Let just say with the amount of cord showing through, the tire couldn’t be faulted for not being able to holds it’s breath. Then in short order much of the rust that kept the old beauty together proceeded to dislodge itself.
Soon, to pay for the cars upkeep and maintenance, my golf caddying job changed. What had been a rather easy morning job carrying one golf bag for eighteen holes became a morning round followed by an afternoon round of eighteen holes only now carrying two golf bags.
The Studebaker and I soldiered on for that summer and into the fall. As the weather turned colder it become more and more obvious the Studi and I would have to part ways. There just wasn’t enough bondo and tin in the world to patch up all the holes that were now allowing Jack Frost free entry. The heater, I do have to admit tried valiantly, but it just couldn’t keep up.
I figured I’d park the Studi for the winter and bring it back to life next spring. Only to hear dad exclaim, “For crying in the beer, (In his lexicon “out loud” and “in the beer” were interchangeable) when are you going to get that rust bucket off the street”. The city put it in a somewhat nicer manor. Their letter simply stating they were discussing the possibility of billing me for the cost of sending the street sweeper by the house every few days to clean up the rust.
I got the message. I put a for sale sign in the window. No offers were forthcoming. Finally the mechanic at the local filling station said he would tow it away for ten dollars. The day to say good-bye arrived. The fellow put the hook under the bumper started to lift when the old Studi could bear no more and bent in half. The hood looking skyward while the rest of the car stayed parallel to the ground. “It’ll run ya another ten dollars”, he said. “I gotta get the flatbed”. Later that day, my disposable income disposed of, I watched my grand old Studebaker make its last trip down the highway.
The street sweeper came by the next morning. I watched as the revolving brushes swept away the last of my car.

Dining out

Hedren — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:21:19 +0000

While searching for one thing sometimes you come up with something totally unexpected. That’s what happened here. I discovered this response totally by accident while looking for a recipe for hamburger rice hot dish I had stashed someplace on my computer. I thought you might enjoy reading it.

A year or two ago I was reading Jim Heffernan’s blog, which by the way is titled “Jim Heffernan’s Blog”, he had written a piece about his experience dining out in the twin cities. I had a similar experience, which I commented to him about.

By the way look up his blog. Jim is a terrific writer located in Duluth. He is a retired newspaper writer/columnist who writes of life and times with great insight and humor. Be sure to check out his book too, better yet go out and buy “Cooler Near the Lake”, you will absolutely love it.

Hi Jim
I happened to be in the cities this past weekend too, visiting with family.

Saturday evening my brother-in-law suggested going out to eat. My wife and I thought a steak dinner would be wonderful. We were thinking Mr. Steak he wasn’t. I knew I was in trouble when Gloria the hostess met us at the door. Wearing a tiny black dress she had to stand at least 6’4″ in her stiletto heels. We were seated and she lingered at the table I assumed in search of a gratuity. A short smile and shake of my head and she got the message it wasn’t going to happen. My wife misreading my smile kicked me in the ankle.

Gustav, our server, appeared after a while. A smiling lumberjack type this Gus was not. Goose-toff, accent on the wrong syllable, probably was trendy in some circles with his prickly, short greased up hair of various colors. Orders were taken; mine started with an $18 salad the price of which didn’t include tomato slices $3 and cucumber slices another $3. Dinner was garlic mashed potatoes for $12, asparagus I thought cheap at $7, and a steak which cost what would have bought a good used car in my youth.

The brother-in-law ordered up 3 bottles of wine. His family drinks, mine sips, I don’t partake at all.

Dinners done, deserts consumed, wine gone; the brother-in-law turns to me and announces we will split the bill in half. His family, which controlled 2/3rds of the table, beamed at his gracious offer. I was opening my mouth in protest when I got another swift kick in the ankle from the misses. She squeezed my forearm to the point of numbness and I understood I was to play nice in the sandbox.

Goose-toff grabbed the offered plastic, returned with his tip already added in, and I signed my name to a piece of paper that reduced by bank account by several c-notes plus.

By the way the steak was excellent.

Erick H

Share the road

Hedren — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 16:46:24 +0000

Most motorways now feature signs letting us know we are to share the road with bicyclists. Fair enough. But do I have to share the road with an idiot. That is a bicyclist who seems intent on suicide.
OK, here’s what you need to know, I own a class A motor home. It uses a lot of the roadway. It is roadway I am allowed to use. It is roadway, which I do not exceed by using either too much width or length. But is roadway that I use to its full extent.
A bicyclist uses the road way with an approximately an area of two feet by six or seven feet. My vehicle is larger than the average bicycle. It is also slightly more difficult to fit into the assigned area. Vehicles such as cars and trucks also fit into this “larger size” category.
So why is it some bicyclists, I’m not saying all here, want to pedal their vehicles in or vary close to the main roadway. I am speaking about the ones who seem to ignore the fact that just to their right is a paved shoulder of eight to ten feet. Riding on which, as far to the right as possible, would probably increase the likelihood of living on this planet to a nice old age by a factor close to one hundred percent.
Here is my story. This past July I was driving my motor home on a trip up the north shore of Lake Superior on Highway 61. On a couple of separate occasions I had to move my motor home across the center line to avoid it hitting a bicyclist who was riding on the fog line on the main roadway. The fog line is the white stripe that marks the edge of the roadway, to the left of this line is the driving lanes to the right the shoulder. In these instances the shoulder to the right of the bicyclist was paved. A nice layer of asphalt roughly eight to ten feet wide.
Most of the time I was lucky with no one approaching in the on coming lane. One time however there was. I immediately slowed down to try and let the on coming car go by before I had to cross the centerline to avoid the bicycle in my lane. The on coming car seeing a problem also slowed down. The driver of the on coming car also in his wisdom decided to use the shoulder on that side of the road in order that I might be able to move over just enough into the on coming lane to squeeze by the person on the bicycle.
It worked. The person on the bicycle riding in the main drive lane on Highway 61 is still alive. That is unless some one else wasn’t as lucky and was unable to move their vehicle over to avoid the bicycle.
When I had passed the bicycle and looked back in the rear view mirror I was greeted with the view of the bicyclist sitting up on the seat, arm raised with middle finger extended. After just saving his life, and avoiding a head on collision which would have taken a couple of lives, I had an extremely hard time resisting the urge to go back and run him over.
No jury would have convicted me.