Just for the youngster, Austin

A Long, White Beard Story, but Hang In There.....

So yesterday, I spent a fair portion of my Friday with the Kid, liquidating a few pieces of furniture from my, much too large, collection. I can tell you this, the used furniture market in Daytona Beach sucks. I sold several pieces for way to cheap but I did keep the Lee family pieces, one of which will be going to the Kid in the not to distant future.

An interesting sidenote here, to all parents, the Kid and I were supposed to do all of this activity on Thursday of this week, as opposed to Friday, however the Kid spent the night with a buddy on Wednesday and was incommunicato Thursday am. the jeep junkie was pissed the Kid did not honor his commitment to be with me on Thursday. Thursday evening when the Kid and the jeep junkie dropped by the Taj Mahal after fishing, the first thing the Kid did was to apologize to me. I told the Kid, 'Hey dude, I'm not upset. I am your Uncle, not your Dad. You need to meet yours and his expectations and not mine.' I think I did the right thing there. I think I told him to meet his expectations, but was not upset he didn't, after all, we are not after weapons of mass distruction here.

Earlier today, I was mentioning to Cheryl Lee, the jeep junkie's wife, what I liquidated, and her eyes kind of glazed over. Stanley bedroom furniture with matching dresser and nightstand, teak wooden table and chairs, leather sofa, well, stuff can be offered only




so many times, then it has to move on. Suffice it to say, though, I got every penny I spent on that furniture out of the use of it and the $200 I got out of it will go far toward the purchase of a bar height table, if I can find one.

I spent all day today in, literally, every furniture in the QuadCity area, from the north down, Ormond Beach, Holly Hill, Daytona Beach and Daytona Beach Shores, both new and used furniture, and every thrift shop I saw, looking for a bar stool height table. While I found several, I found none I was thrilled enough to part with a couple dead presidents for. In addition to furniture, I saw a ton of pretty cool old stuff and, also, a bunch of junk.

I stopped down at an antique shop on Beach Street in Downtown Daytona Beach and saw a copy of this car, the one pictured is in my collection

for $125.00. Now, as the bus knows, this car does not sell on ebay for $6.00 so I knew I wasn't buying much of anything in this place. No bar height tables either.

As some of you Counters know, I sometimes plan a trip and sometimes, I don't. Well today, I routed out the most economical and sequential trip I could, trying to conserve that $2oo budget as well as $4.07 per gallon petrol.

The final leg of my trip was up Nova Road, ultimately passing by the Kid's and the jeep junkie's home subdivision. As I was cruising up Nova, also known as Florida 5A, I passed by a thrift shop not found in the AT&T yellow pages nor known to me previously. I, of course, whipped a Uee and went back to investigate. While I am, primarily, in the market for a bar height table, I also have been keeping my eye out for other, cheap, stuff. Like an electric knife for the jeep junkie to cut the foam rubber for the back seats of that old CJ5 of the Kid's, when necessary, found one, two bucks.

Anyway, just down the street from the Kid's home, I was in this thrift shop and saw the following truck for, also, two bucks.

As it fits in with my collection, as seen in the following picture

especially the truck on top of the Winn Dixie truck in the upper right,

I had to pick it up. While I got alot of those Winn Dixie trucks from the bus several years ago, they are special to me, now, knowing what Lil Mom's Mother's name is. But I had forgotten something very significant, shared with me during that same trip.

So anyway, after leaving this shop, where I also picked up an old Manhatten Transfer cassette for fifty cents, see, the 850 has a cassette player and I can only listen to country music so long, I stopped by the Kid and the jeep junkie's home just because. It is family after all. Noone ever seems to just drop by anymore and I always like it when that happens. the Kid and the jeep junkie do too, as they are always smiling when they see me. Makes this old man feel good.

So, after chatting it up a bit with Cheryl, and I GOT INVITED TO STAY FOR DINNER, I told the Kid to check out the new truck I got for my collection. A little later the Kid and I were talking about it and the jeep junkie wanted to see it. I went to that 850 luxury sedan and got it out

and showed it to him. After commenting how cool it is, he told me this is Austin's truck. I was a bit curious as to why but, both the Kid and the jeep junkie interjected, "Don't you remember Austin absolutely loves pickles and even is referred to, at least on that trip, as

"The Pickle Boy"?


Well, youngster Austin, you Pickle Boy you, know that uniformed representatives of the United States Government will be delivering this truck to you in the next few days.

Hope it brings a joy to you for many years as this recollection your old John John has of it, its acquisition, purchase and changing of hands, has had for me.