Shoes, Shuttles, and Shetlands

This is kind of a what I did today post but it will take a while to get there.

Quite a few months ago, I was backing the oleragtop out of a parking place and I hear this clunking sound eminating from just below me.

Holy Cr*p!

Old cars, old car issues.

I beat it over to thejeepjunkie's shop and he puts it on a lift and ascertains that my rear transmission mounts are shot. That noise I hear is the driveshaft hitting the underside of the body of the oleragtop.

Thanks was delivered and I headed over to my favorite parts friends and Robbie orders up a couple for me. I picked them up the next day and they have been resting comfortably on the passenger's floor board of that oleragtop since, as thejeepjunkie and this olelongrooffan just never had the opportunity to replace them.

Well, during this trip I realized his need, which I was able to meet during this experience. As we were loading up that trusty new old frig, Richie mentioned he really owed me big time now. Well, I mentioned not to worry about it. He responds that all he did was give me an old hose and that it seems like every week you drop by with an 18 pack of his favorite cold beverage, in bottles even. Now you get me a much needed frig. "I owe you big time," I clearly remember Richie saying.

Now, while I was down at TheHumorousJudge's place that day, the olestationbus was getting a chemically induced high, courtesy of some horse trading by thejeepjunkie. As a result, I was driving my oleragtop and, as TheHumorousJudge's place is set below the level of Halifax Drive, I was listening to the driveshaft kick me in the butt every time I backed up that hillside.

While he pulled out of that driveway with that frig strapped into the back of that Ranger pickup, I backed out and got kicked again. We stopped at a red light, side by side, just a ways up the street, and he drops his window to thank me again and if I need anything, just holler. Well, I do need to change the tranny mounts in the rear of this thing. I got the parts, and I can do it, I just need a place to get it in the air. Come by the shop anytime, he replies.

You bet and we take off.

Well, a couple weeks ago, my rocket scientist buddy calls me and lets me know the paint is flaking out up at his condo and could I come up and check it out? Absolutely. That's just the way it is.

On my way I pass by Richie's shop, instead of the usual 6-8 cars out front, there is only one and another in one of his two bays.

So I spend about an hour with the rocket scientist shooting the breeze about Pebble Brook, Elkhart Lake and his new Challenger. And I head on out.

I decided to stop in at Richie's on the way home, so I stop and grab an 18 pack for his new frig. When I get there, I notice the white Jeep that was in the bay is gone and there is noone around, but the place was wide open.

I put those brews in the frig, noticing he only has one left. Talk about great timing!!

I grabbed a bottle of water and had a seat in one of those green plastic chairs and watch traffic go by on A1A and check out the pelicans in the sky and the shrimp boats on the horizon.

Richie returns a few minutes later and we start shooting the bull as we were checking out the oleragtop, he notices the license plate and correctly comments, "Old Rag Top." I think he might have been the first person, in real life, to correctly identify that plate. H*ll, even a cop had to ask me what it meant.

I asked him when did he think I would be able to use that lift? He asks if I have the parts with me. I mentioned to him those boxes have been gathering dust on my floor board since the day I picked them up from Robbie.

"I have this bay available right now, pull that oleragtop in here."

And, Counters, guess what I did.

You are probably right and I then set about looking for the tools I would need in his big ole toolbox while he put the oleragtop in the air. There was no rubber left on the old mounts, with the new mounts having about 1 1/2" of rubber between the two metal pads. No wonder that thing thumped as it did.

When I bought the oleragtop, thejeepjunkie spot welded an intake manfold gasket out of some gasket rubber.

Well, as of lately, the oleragtop was acting as if that gasket had given way.

Once those two mounts were installed, the oleragtop runs great.

My last tank of petrol I got 26 mph. The previous one, I got 19.

Thanks to danthecabinetman for the hook up, TheHumorousJudge for the frig, Richie for the lift, Robbie for the parts at near cost, and thejeepjunkie for, well, everything!!!

So, all of that was the set up for this.

While I am working on that up in the clouds oleragtop, up drives one of Richie's regular clients, an elderly woman, about 4 foot nothing, driving a ubiquitous Mercury Grand Marquis.

Richie see her and starts laughing saying to me, "Come on, this woman is a blast and we'll laugh our *sses off the whole time."

I have to tell you, we did.

"Dalvie" Epstein, probably 75 or so, cusses like a sailor and says stuff like "I am out of here", Git-er-done. She has a quick wit and just keeps us in stitches the whole time.

Finally Richie asks what she wants.

"Tires."

"I don't do tires."

"Why not?"

"Morons do tires," was his laughing response.

"Well, do you know any morons?" I told you she was quick.

"No, but his brother"-pointing to me-"does tires."

"Are you going to let him call your brother a moron?"

"Maam, he is twice as big as me, he can call my dumb*ss brother whatever he wants."

"What's his phone number?"

Well Richie gives it to her, and before she leaves, she comes over to me and says-and I swear it's true--this 75 year old woman says, "I am going to tell your brother we are having an affair and see if I can get a discount."

Richie and I just about die laughing as she shuffles over to that green beast and heads home. 20 minutes later thejeepjunkie calls up to Richie's place and he had just gotten off the phone with her and was laughing his *ss off also.

Now, back when I was gainfully employed in the construction industry, I was usually up and about and on the job by 7:30 or 8 am. Working with Manuel Labor, most clients don't want us around their home until around 10 or so. I usually wake up around 8 or 8:30. thejeepjunkie is usually at his shop by 6:45am, earlier if there is work to be done on an old Jeep.

Well, this morning at the crack of dawn freaking thirty, my phone rings and it is thejeepjunkie.

"Whatca doing?"

"I'm sleeping, you dumb*ss."

"Well, wake up, I need you to get up to Dalvie's and bring her car down here so I can put some new shoes on it."

"Jeez dude, alright I'll be there in about 1/2 hour." When family asks, you just do it.

"Hurry up," was his response.

A shower, two pieces of toast, and a Diet Coke later I am travelling twenty minutes north of Taj Mahal to pick up a car to take to thejeepjunkie's shop, twenty minutes south of the Taj Mahal.

So I get up to Dalvie's place and she answers the door dressed in a long t-shirt and says, "What took you so long?"

"Maam, 30 minutes ago, I was dreaming about our love affair."

She cracked up!! And of that I am proud.

She then asked me, "What was this going to cost?"

"Maam, I don't even know what you are having done, I am just the shuttle driver," and get thejeepjunkie on the phone.

So I get that dirty, green monster down to thejeepjunkie's shop and slowmike gets to it.

I stepped outside to have smoke and a coke and check out the cloud cover early this Thursday morning.

I had mentioned to thejeepjunkie that Dalvie's car pulled hard to the right. They checked the front alignment and thejeepjunkie wonders out loud what she had hit to get it this far out of kilter. There is absolutely no telling, was my response.

Here is thejeepjunkie, in his natural environs, talking to Dalvie and giving her a ration of sh*t about her car and mentioning I am going to stop and have it washed on the way back to her pad in Ormond By The Sea.

thejeepjunkie gives me a twenty and I stop and have that freshly shod old timer's automobile scrubbed inside and out.

And, if it wasn't so far for Dalvie to drive, she would be back here tomorrow.

I then got on the road back up to Dalvie's palace and drop off that sparkly clean, newly shod Grand Marquis for her.

I ring the trusty doorbell and she answers, this time in a pink pinstriped uniform mentioning she has duty at the hospital in less than an hour.

She gives me a check for what she owes thejeepjunkie and a twenty to "play around with".

Now this is nearly five hours after I picked up her daily driver.

So, I get back out on Julie Drive heading west over to John Anderson Drive which runs parallel to the Halifax River with million dollar homes lining that waterfront, heading back down to thejeepjunkie's shop with Goodyear's check and his twenty.

But, I bless it and let it go. Sometimes you just have to do that.

On John Anderson, I spot this million dollar, waterfront home

and look across the street and see these, what I am pretty sure are Shetland, ponies grazing in the front yard of this home.

I absolutely knew I had to whip a Ueeee to get that image for all of us Counting Along.

And it is in this way I

Celebrate Life.