BBChevro
Well-known member
Did your old door opener work OK with the heavier doors?
And...,we all know "the look".
And...,we all know "the look".
Between 485 & 705 SQ/FT Bob Heine's Auto Emporium
- Thread starter Bob Heine
- Start date
Workspaces between 485 and 705 squarefeet.
shortykorte
Well-known member
You know Bob if you're ever in the Crapital City, you could teach me how to install garage door insulation. Our door faces west and it's an oven in the summer.
jbmatth
Well-known member
Bob,
It has taken me longer than it should have to make it to the temporary end of this thread, but not as long as it took you to start it.
I love all of the stories and will keep up with your adventures from now on.
JB
It has taken me longer than it should have to make it to the temporary end of this thread, but not as long as it took you to start it.
I love all of the stories and will keep up with your adventures from now on.JB
Mark, the old garage door openers worked fine with the heavier doors once I had them properly balanced. They are contractor-grade openers with simple one-button remotes and doorbell switches on the wall next to the house entry door..Did your old door opener work OK with the heavier doors?
And...,we all know "the look".
Unfortunately when the most used opener (closest to the house) broke, I couldn't find replacement parts except though a garage door installer who didn't want to sell me the parts. I got even by purchasing a new Sears opener. It's a $135 1/2hp unit and twice as loud but it has better security, a 3-button remove and a keyless outside pad. When the opener in the bay furthest from the house died it was the circuit board. I found one on eBay but it was already $106 and had three days to go. I bought another Craftsman...
Bret, thanks for stopping by and for the kind words.
Stewart, I'm better at shooting spitballs through a straw than teaching but I'll see what I can do. I recommend one of those Harbor Freight infrared thermometers to check the temperature of that door. At 3:00 in the afternoon it should be griddle-hot.
With a 20% coupon, that's about the price of ten Starbucks plain Venti's (not really sure what that is -- never been in a Starbucks -- I drank $0.25 cups of black fluid from a machine for 30 years so I have no taste buds left).
JB, great to see you visit my thread. The day before we found this house, we looked at a place out in the swamps. It had an 8-car garage, which I kinda liked but the owner was bipolar and the house was all black and white. Your Hidey Hole seems to be about the same size but far less depressing.Bob,
It has taken me longer than it should have to make it to the temporary end of this thread, but not as long as it took you to start it.
JB
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drivesitfar
Well-known member
Bob: i need to really sit down and read all your stories. i know they will be a great read and somehow i got behind.
i did see where you had a chain around your neck maybe holding an engine off of, but i'm sure i read that wrong.
i know you can and will do more things one handed than some of us can do with both, but an engine around your neck.
keep writing because I (we) all enjoy your stories whether it's about your garage or driving across Australia for fun.
cheers
i did see where you had a chain around your neck maybe holding an engine off of, but i'm sure i read that wrong.
i know you can and will do more things one handed than some of us can do with both, but an engine around your neck.
keep writing because I (we) all enjoy your stories whether it's about your garage or driving across Australia for fun.
cheers
Drives, I would never think of lifting an engine with a chain around my neck. I was just lowering a big block cylinder head onto the engine in my Corvette.
When we lived on Long Island, one of our friends was a construction worker. He started lifting concrete blocks from the ground to the scaffold when he was 8. I met him when he was in his late twenties and he was as wide in the shoulders as he was tall. His weekend job at a junkyard was to pull engines from cars that were so far back that they couldn't get their wrecker close. He would stand on the fenders and lift the engine out by himself. He introduced me to the chain around the neck trick (always put a towel on your neck first, he said). It's not a good thing to do because you put a terrible strain on your back but youth gives you immortality and invincibility.
Back to the garage...
I needed to finish the garage restoration by September 9, 2000 so we could use it as part of my 7th Great Train Party. The kitchen is a good size but once you put out ice buckets, coolers and mixers (not to mention bottles of liquor) it shrinks a lot. A 14-foot counter and 20 gallon sink makes a nice self-serve bar.
Our neighbors in our first house became close friends. We found excuses to party together all the time and they talked my wife into a surprise 5th anniversary party in 1970. Everyone brought gag train gifts and it was a lot of fun. Before we moved to Florida in the fall of 1975, they threw the 2nd Great Train Party and we had a tradition going. Every five years we have a party to celebrate life and friends. Gag gifts are part of the tradition and some of them are priceless, if not a little tasteless.
We even had a train party in Sydney in 1990 although my Aussie friends thought it a ghastly thing to celebrate. A few glasses of wonderful Australian wine improves one's sense of humor in a very short time.
[FONT="]One couple brought Bob’s Twister game. For you youngsters, Twister was a popular adult game in the late 60's. I couldn’t find the real one (pretty sure it's in the attic) but here is what the box looked like…
[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
… and here’s the spinner:
Another friend brought a rubber left hand in a white dress shirt sleeve, with a broken toy watch and real Long Island Railroad timetable. The watch was stopped at the time of the accident (7:32) and the timetable had the appropriate schedule circled. I'll leave that one to your imagination (I used to put it in the Halloween candy bowl next to the door).
One of my oldest and dearest friends copied an album cover. The Bob Dylan classic, Blood on the Tracks is now the theme-song for the celebration. Others have brought me hats, including several engineer’s caps and an embroidered one that is just plain over the top:
My friends insisted I have another party in 2005 so we did but it was the last elaborate one. The most recent celebrations have been more subdued, with a couple or two coming over for dinner. As an ex-pat New Yorker who watched the World Trade Center being built, it’s difficult to have my anniversary celebration two days before the day they came down.
I’m still thrilled to be here more than 50 years later but I also try to be sensitive to others’ mourning.
I needed to finish the garage restoration by September 9, 2000 so we could use it as part of my 7th Great Train Party. The kitchen is a good size but once you put out ice buckets, coolers and mixers (not to mention bottles of liquor) it shrinks a lot. A 14-foot counter and 20 gallon sink makes a nice self-serve bar.
Our neighbors in our first house became close friends. We found excuses to party together all the time and they talked my wife into a surprise 5th anniversary party in 1970. Everyone brought gag train gifts and it was a lot of fun. Before we moved to Florida in the fall of 1975, they threw the 2nd Great Train Party and we had a tradition going. Every five years we have a party to celebrate life and friends. Gag gifts are part of the tradition and some of them are priceless, if not a little tasteless.
We even had a train party in Sydney in 1990 although my Aussie friends thought it a ghastly thing to celebrate. A few glasses of wonderful Australian wine improves one's sense of humor in a very short time.
[FONT="]One couple brought Bob’s Twister game. For you youngsters, Twister was a popular adult game in the late 60's. I couldn’t find the real one (pretty sure it's in the attic) but here is what the box looked like…
[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
… and here’s the spinner:
Another friend brought a rubber left hand in a white dress shirt sleeve, with a broken toy watch and real Long Island Railroad timetable. The watch was stopped at the time of the accident (7:32) and the timetable had the appropriate schedule circled. I'll leave that one to your imagination (I used to put it in the Halloween candy bowl next to the door).
One of my oldest and dearest friends copied an album cover. The Bob Dylan classic, Blood on the Tracks is now the theme-song for the celebration. Others have brought me hats, including several engineer’s caps and an embroidered one that is just plain over the top:
My friends insisted I have another party in 2005 so we did but it was the last elaborate one. The most recent celebrations have been more subdued, with a couple or two coming over for dinner. As an ex-pat New Yorker who watched the World Trade Center being built, it’s difficult to have my anniversary celebration two days before the day they came down.
I’m still thrilled to be here more than 50 years later but I also try to be sensitive to others’ mourning.
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Note to Reader(s): If these stories are TMI, let me know and I'd be happy to delete them (from the forum -- I still plan to bore my grandchildren to death with them).
To understand the journey that brought me to the Garage Journal in 2009 I should start at the beginning, with my first home in September 1944. It was a tiny house in Douglas, Arizona a few blocks north of the Mexican border. The lack of a garage wasn’t a problem because I was a newborn. I was also unimpressed with the Grand Canyon because I couldn’t sit up on my own, let alone see out the car windows. Same with Mesa Verde and all the other places in Arizona, California, Colorado and the states my parents drove through on the way back to New York in 1945.
My second home was an apartment in Fort Tilden, New York (right next to Rockaway Beach). This is what a child born in Arizona looks like when transplanted to New York (I’m the one on the left trying to figure out what’s wrong with my nose).
My next home was another apartment further from the beach in Queens, NY, [FONT="]also lacking a garage. My parents bought a row house in 1948 and it too had no garage (or much of a yard).
[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
If it weren’t for my uncle Harvey, I wouldn’t have known what a garage was. He lived in a house with a detached garage. Had that house been equipped with an indoor toilet it would have been perfect (for me at least).
The summer of 1950 my parents (they’re both teachers) rented a house in Burlington, Vermont to take classes at UVM. The house had had a detached garage with a dirt floor. I was 5 and played with my cars whenever I had a chance. The very fine dirt on the floor was perfect for constructing a miniature network of roads.
Back then my brother **** needed extra help with school so my parents tutored him in the summer. My father was also writing a book and needed to concentrate so I spent several summers living with my grandparents in Vermont, starting in 1951. Their first apartment in Rutland didn’t have a garage but the boy next door did and even had a worn-out, brake-less 20-inch bike that I taught myself to ride (easy to learn on a steep hill).
To understand the journey that brought me to the Garage Journal in 2009 I should start at the beginning, with my first home in September 1944. It was a tiny house in Douglas, Arizona a few blocks north of the Mexican border. The lack of a garage wasn’t a problem because I was a newborn. I was also unimpressed with the Grand Canyon because I couldn’t sit up on my own, let alone see out the car windows. Same with Mesa Verde and all the other places in Arizona, California, Colorado and the states my parents drove through on the way back to New York in 1945.
My second home was an apartment in Fort Tilden, New York (right next to Rockaway Beach). This is what a child born in Arizona looks like when transplanted to New York (I’m the one on the left trying to figure out what’s wrong with my nose).
My next home was another apartment further from the beach in Queens, NY, [FONT="]also lacking a garage. My parents bought a row house in 1948 and it too had no garage (or much of a yard).
[/FONT]
[FONT="]
[/FONT]
If it weren’t for my uncle Harvey, I wouldn’t have known what a garage was. He lived in a house with a detached garage. Had that house been equipped with an indoor toilet it would have been perfect (for me at least).
The summer of 1950 my parents (they’re both teachers) rented a house in Burlington, Vermont to take classes at UVM. The house had had a detached garage with a dirt floor. I was 5 and played with my cars whenever I had a chance. The very fine dirt on the floor was perfect for constructing a miniature network of roads.
Back then my brother **** needed extra help with school so my parents tutored him in the summer. My father was also writing a book and needed to concentrate so I spent several summers living with my grandparents in Vermont, starting in 1951. Their first apartment in Rutland didn’t have a garage but the boy next door did and even had a worn-out, brake-less 20-inch bike that I taught myself to ride (easy to learn on a steep hill).
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[FONT="]Over my mother’s objections my father bought two new 26” bicycles for my brother and me [FONT="]for[/FONT] Christmas 1951. My brother was 8 and big enough to ride the gigantic Roadmaster. At 6 I wasn’t even close but my father was not going to buy a smaller one for me. Dad would only pay for our first bike and it made no sense to buy one I would outgrow in a few years.
[/FONT]
The Roadmaster was built like a tank and took all my strength to lift it off the ground. **** hadn’t learned to ride a bike so my parents tried teaching him Christmas day. After a few painful crashes he quit. They let me take off on my own but didn’t realize how poorly I fit the bike.
For me it wasn’t as much fun as the 20-inch I learned on. I had to get on from the curb and ride the center bar and tank. I could push one pedal down half-way and then pull the other pedal up and around and then push down on it. I spent an hour or two on the bike but when my crotch blisters broke I had to get off. If you’re not familiar with crotch blisters, that’s a good thing.
In April 1952 my parents moved from the row house in Flushing to a new Cape Cod with a one-car garage in North Babylon, NY. Tract homes lack a certain something but a dusting of snow does help.
The garage was a big deal for me because I could get to my bike without my father’s help (in the row house it was stored in the back of a utility closet until the move). Unfortunately I didn't get to ride the bike that spring.
[/FONT]
The Roadmaster was built like a tank and took all my strength to lift it off the ground. **** hadn’t learned to ride a bike so my parents tried teaching him Christmas day. After a few painful crashes he quit. They let me take off on my own but didn’t realize how poorly I fit the bike.
For me it wasn’t as much fun as the 20-inch I learned on. I had to get on from the curb and ride the center bar and tank. I could push one pedal down half-way and then pull the other pedal up and around and then push down on it. I spent an hour or two on the bike but when my crotch blisters broke I had to get off. If you’re not familiar with crotch blisters, that’s a good thing.
In April 1952 my parents moved from the row house in Flushing to a new Cape Cod with a one-car garage in North Babylon, NY. Tract homes lack a certain something but a dusting of snow does help.
The garage was a big deal for me because I could get to my bike without my father’s help (in the row house it was stored in the back of a utility closet until the move). Unfortunately I didn't get to ride the bike that spring.
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June and the summer of 1952 brought disappointment and joy. Disappointment because I couldn’t bring my bike to Vermont but joy because my grandparents moved, renting a house on a dirt road a few miles north of Fairhaven, VT. About 100-yards up a hill was Glenn Lake. The house was nice but its big 2-car garage with a dirt floor was my new Valhalla – it enabled me to build an even more elaborate highway system for my cars.
Fish from the lake to feed my cat Goldie was another bonus. My grandparents believed cats could feed themselves and as long as mine didn’t feed on their chickens or eggs she would be welcome. I was the overseer for the chicken coop and fenced pen – these were semi-free-range chickens (neither my cat nor the local fox was pleased). You can see the garage roof to the left:
No one in my family shared my obsession with garages so there are very few pictures in the family album. I did find a picture of my cousin trying to make friends with my cat (the ears say Goldie is about to fight or take flight) in front of the second bay of the garage. The other bay had an overhead door.
One of my chores was to fill the right side of that bay with firewood, which had to be small enough to fit in the wood side of the kitchen stove.
Here’s my grandfather fly fishing for perch or bluegills and yes, we wore dress shirts and ties when we went fishing.
A few months after my return in the fall I was able to sit on the seat and do the push-pull pedaling thing without riding the bar (big improvement in the comfort department). That’s me leaning against the tree:
Easy access to the bike allowed me to lighten the bike, removing the headlight, tank and luggage carrier. With these bikes (including the original Schwinn Phantom) lightening is a relative term. It’s like riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle without an engine.
I tried lightening the bike further by removing the fenders but the huge tires slung swaths of muddy water on the front and back of my pants and shirt. Young boys are rarely proud of a wet stripe on their pants and most go out of their way to avoid them. I put the fenders back on.
Fish from the lake to feed my cat Goldie was another bonus. My grandparents believed cats could feed themselves and as long as mine didn’t feed on their chickens or eggs she would be welcome. I was the overseer for the chicken coop and fenced pen – these were semi-free-range chickens (neither my cat nor the local fox was pleased). You can see the garage roof to the left:
No one in my family shared my obsession with garages so there are very few pictures in the family album. I did find a picture of my cousin trying to make friends with my cat (the ears say Goldie is about to fight or take flight) in front of the second bay of the garage. The other bay had an overhead door.
One of my chores was to fill the right side of that bay with firewood, which had to be small enough to fit in the wood side of the kitchen stove.
Here’s my grandfather fly fishing for perch or bluegills and yes, we wore dress shirts and ties when we went fishing.
A few months after my return in the fall I was able to sit on the seat and do the push-pull pedaling thing without riding the bar (big improvement in the comfort department). That’s me leaning against the tree:
Easy access to the bike allowed me to lighten the bike, removing the headlight, tank and luggage carrier. With these bikes (including the original Schwinn Phantom) lightening is a relative term. It’s like riding a Harley Davidson motorcycle without an engine.
I tried lightening the bike further by removing the fenders but the huge tires slung swaths of muddy water on the front and back of my pants and shirt. Young boys are rarely proud of a wet stripe on their pants and most go out of their way to avoid them. I put the fenders back on.
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djones1a
Well-known member
I am enjoying reading this.Keep on writing.Lol
don long
Well-known member
That's a pretty cool bike Bob
Don't you wish you had it today. I wish I had it today It would fit right in with my other stuff in the party garage.
I do have a hotrod 20"er hanging up in there.
Don't you wish you had it today. I wish I had it today It would fit right in with my other stuff in the party garage.
I do have a hotrod 20"er hanging up in there.
Toolfool
Well-known member
Currently my favorite thread.
coljar
Well-known member
Yes Bob, by all means, continue on. By the way, you were showing the picture of your grandfather dressed up while fishing. I remember my grandfather would mow his lawn dressed the same, tie and all.
shortykorte
Well-known member
Awesome idea on the train party. Making Long Island Ice Tea out lemons. Good for you.
No matter the subject, your writing is a joy to read and it's cool seeing how we once lived. Like they say, the good old days.
No matter the subject, your writing is a joy to read and it's cool seeing how we once lived. Like they say, the good old days.
jbmatth
Well-known member
What Bob is really doing is slowly writing all of his life stories down for us to get entertained on, then in a few years will compile them in a book for us to buy. You are not fooling me Bob, I see what you are up to. Now where do I send my deposit? Also because I'm the first to figure this out I expect to have my copy serial number 1 and autographed. Thank you in advance,
JB
JB
djones1a, will do and thank you for reading along. As a child I preferred comic books -- lots of illustrations and a few words. I'm not exactly following that lead but I'll try to pepper my garage life memories with as many relevant pictures as I can find.
Don, I'd love to have saved a lot of things but my real space is somewhat limited. But I'm not complaining; my 3-car garage is a huge space almost anywhere besides the US and unusually large even here.
I'm not sure how long my mental space will hold up but I seem to be able to wake up long dormant memories by reading threads in the Garage Journal with yours ringing bells every day. My Roadmaster was a 1951 model made by AMF (I thought bikes was all they made back then). In 1999 Pacific Cycle built 6,200 repops of the 1948 model so I could bypass all the restoration work and buy one of those (http://thecabe.com/forum/threads/roadmaster-reproduction.9722/).
Toolfool, thank you so much. We do have a lot of stuff in common.
Coljar, I will continue and thanks for the support. Back in the 50s, everyone in my family dressed up in a suit and tie (dress and stockings) daily. We dressed down to shovel dirt and manure on the weekends. My high school even had "Dress-up Friday" when the boys wore suits or sport jackets and ties and the girls wore party dresses.
My wife believes "Casual Friday" started the "moral and financial decay" in the world today. I still have a couple of suits and tuxedos from our cruise ship days but my wife doesn't want me to "look silly" at Thanksgiving or Christmas so they stay in the closet. She just won't let it go -- the one time I wore my hat to the Captain's Dinner and shouted "I'm Late, I'm Late, To a Very Important Date."
Thank you, Stewart, the train party is a reminder for me as to just how lucky we all are to be alive. I don't miss everything about the good old days but maybe having to get out of the car and make a call in a phone booth was pretty good (I hate seeing people in the oncoming lane looking down at their lap!).
Ah shucks, I thought no one noticed. JB, don't let this put a damper on my fun but you actually nailed me.
My father and I didn't really get along for most of my childhood. He liked books and I liked cars. He liked sports and I liked cars. He liked airplane models and I liked car models. He wanted me to become an Automotive Engineer, I wanted to become a mechanic....
As I've mentioned, my father co-authored a book and after my career change from computer mechanic to technical writer, he joked that I was finally paying attention to him. In the fall of 1968 my father and mother came up to Wappingers Falls for a visit (they still lived on Long Island). He brought an autographed copy of the brand new edition of the book:
The books I was writing were IBM Confidential (computer circuit manufacturing machine repair manuals) so I couldn't bring them home to share.
Thanksgiving Day 1968 my father had a massive heart attack and died at his desk at home. That turned out to be the last thing he wrote to me.
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1/2 Cup
Member Emeritus
Just a fantastic read Bob
Thank you for sharing your story.
Regards
Thank you for sharing your story.
Regards
BBChevro
Well-known member
I'm really enjoying all of your stories Bob, keep it up. 
Just a fantastic read Bob
Thank you for sharing your story.
Regards
Thank you, my Aussie friends! I am trying to avoid making an even more disjointed thread by giving a chronology rather than multiple side trips into the past.I'm really enjoying all of your stories Bob, keep it up.
My summers in Vermont were special for my grandparents. Their son, Erik was their oldest, followed by my mother and her sister. Erik fell ill in 1937 and died of pneumonia at 26. He was born in England and loved the uniforms and hats the constables (Bobbies) wore. Because of this fascination, Erik’s nickname was Bobby. When I was born my mother named me Robert as homage to her brother and everyone called me Bobby. To my grandparents, I was Erik’s reincarnation.
I enjoyed being with my grandparents and spent a good deal of time in the kitchen cooking with my grandmother (peeling vegetables and watching mostly). I spent time on the road with my grandfather as well. He was a part-time salesman for a local monument company (gravestones). A few days after an obituary appeared in the newspaper, he called the family to make an appointment so he could help them choose an appropriate monument.
I frequently joined my grandfather on these trips and when the calls were finished and we headed home, Grandpa would stop at a roadside stream and we would fly-fish for trout using the flies he taught me to tie. We rarely caught a fish but I remember bragging to a Vermont game warden about the one we did catch. The warden was very kind, stretching the little fish to a legal length rather than issuing my grandfather a summons for an under-size catch. Grandpa was not happy with me and his gentle scolding was ten times worse than my father’s worst beating with a belt.
About a half mile from my grandparents’ home was a small run-down old farm. The family that owned it was barely scraping by so they supplemented their income caring for four foster children (two boys and two girls). The farmer’s two children never lifted a finger as far as I could tell; the four foster kids did all the work around the farm. The parents treated the four fairly well, allowing them to play once they finished their chores. They became my playmates and I became their assistant, helping to finish their chores sooner. I actually enjoyed the work and the smells actually grew on me. I even liked the smell of the pigs for some reason. Stepping in fresh cow pies was one of our stranger games... It wasn’t the same as working on the farm because I could take a day off and drive around with my grandfather but it did give me a taste of what it took to run a subsistence farm.
It was good to have playmates. For one, there was no TV or even a radio at my grandparents’ house and lightbulbs were a waste of money in the summer (when it’s dark, you sleep). For another, I dreamed up more ways to die than Stephen King and having a survivor to go for help was a good thing. The area around Fairhaven is peppered with abandoned slate quarries. When I wasn’t jumping off the high walls of the slate pits into indeterminate depths, I was stacking slate walls for forts that had dead branches to support their slate rooves. I did give up climbing the piles of slippery slate when I disturbed something that rattled a lot like a snake. It may have just been leaves rattling in the breeze but I’m positive I escaped the fangs of the largest rattlesnake in the northern hemisphere.
Glenn Lake was (and still is) pristine. In addition to supplying fish, it supplied water to my grandparents’ house. The water was drawn from the cove where the lake spillway discharged (the picture where my grandfather is fishing is the cove). A large brass showerhead on the bottom strained the water that went down the pipe buried in the hill leading down to the house. The water pressure in the first floor kitchen was low but adequate. Pressure in the second floor bathroom was marginal. Filling the tub with lukewarm water took about an hour but it was OK for my grandfather’s daily shave with a straight razor. My grandparents used the tub but I took my weekly baths alone in the lake a good distance from the cove where our water was drawn.
It never occurred to me or my grandparents that I might drown or be attacked by wild animals. I did swim but I was so skinny I sank like a rock so most of my swimming was underwater. I could stay afloat and swim better in the ocean back then.
Toward the end of my third summer in Vermont, I was old enough to help the crew that harvested the hay from the adjacent fields. Payment for the farmer was all the broken bales of hay from the harvest. I got to drive a tractor and the flatbed truck. OK, it was a lot like my bike riding but without the crotch blisters. To reach the clutch in the truck I had to scoot down so low in the seat that I couldn’t see out the windshield. The man who let me drive just told me when to turn the wheel. The tractor was only slightly better, I could see but couldn’t coordinate the hand throttle and steer. I didn’t really learn to drive but it was the high point of my life up to that time. I adopted my father’s WWII Army officer’s hat that summer (I was a strange child).
I enjoyed being with my grandparents and spent a good deal of time in the kitchen cooking with my grandmother (peeling vegetables and watching mostly). I spent time on the road with my grandfather as well. He was a part-time salesman for a local monument company (gravestones). A few days after an obituary appeared in the newspaper, he called the family to make an appointment so he could help them choose an appropriate monument.
I frequently joined my grandfather on these trips and when the calls were finished and we headed home, Grandpa would stop at a roadside stream and we would fly-fish for trout using the flies he taught me to tie. We rarely caught a fish but I remember bragging to a Vermont game warden about the one we did catch. The warden was very kind, stretching the little fish to a legal length rather than issuing my grandfather a summons for an under-size catch. Grandpa was not happy with me and his gentle scolding was ten times worse than my father’s worst beating with a belt.
About a half mile from my grandparents’ home was a small run-down old farm. The family that owned it was barely scraping by so they supplemented their income caring for four foster children (two boys and two girls). The farmer’s two children never lifted a finger as far as I could tell; the four foster kids did all the work around the farm. The parents treated the four fairly well, allowing them to play once they finished their chores. They became my playmates and I became their assistant, helping to finish their chores sooner. I actually enjoyed the work and the smells actually grew on me. I even liked the smell of the pigs for some reason. Stepping in fresh cow pies was one of our stranger games... It wasn’t the same as working on the farm because I could take a day off and drive around with my grandfather but it did give me a taste of what it took to run a subsistence farm.
It was good to have playmates. For one, there was no TV or even a radio at my grandparents’ house and lightbulbs were a waste of money in the summer (when it’s dark, you sleep). For another, I dreamed up more ways to die than Stephen King and having a survivor to go for help was a good thing. The area around Fairhaven is peppered with abandoned slate quarries. When I wasn’t jumping off the high walls of the slate pits into indeterminate depths, I was stacking slate walls for forts that had dead branches to support their slate rooves. I did give up climbing the piles of slippery slate when I disturbed something that rattled a lot like a snake. It may have just been leaves rattling in the breeze but I’m positive I escaped the fangs of the largest rattlesnake in the northern hemisphere.
Glenn Lake was (and still is) pristine. In addition to supplying fish, it supplied water to my grandparents’ house. The water was drawn from the cove where the lake spillway discharged (the picture where my grandfather is fishing is the cove). A large brass showerhead on the bottom strained the water that went down the pipe buried in the hill leading down to the house. The water pressure in the first floor kitchen was low but adequate. Pressure in the second floor bathroom was marginal. Filling the tub with lukewarm water took about an hour but it was OK for my grandfather’s daily shave with a straight razor. My grandparents used the tub but I took my weekly baths alone in the lake a good distance from the cove where our water was drawn.
It never occurred to me or my grandparents that I might drown or be attacked by wild animals. I did swim but I was so skinny I sank like a rock so most of my swimming was underwater. I could stay afloat and swim better in the ocean back then.
Toward the end of my third summer in Vermont, I was old enough to help the crew that harvested the hay from the adjacent fields. Payment for the farmer was all the broken bales of hay from the harvest. I got to drive a tractor and the flatbed truck. OK, it was a lot like my bike riding but without the crotch blisters. To reach the clutch in the truck I had to scoot down so low in the seat that I couldn’t see out the windshield. The man who let me drive just told me when to turn the wheel. The tractor was only slightly better, I could see but couldn’t coordinate the hand throttle and steer. I didn’t really learn to drive but it was the high point of my life up to that time. I adopted my father’s WWII Army officer’s hat that summer (I was a strange child).
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drivesitfar
Well-known member
Bob: your stories are so well written and always make me smile so you have my vote and maybe everybody else's to write in any order that you want to and have time to.
love the stories and pictures and if you have more please share as you can.
cheers
love the stories and pictures and if you have more please share as you can.
cheers
metalhead140
Well-known member
Great stories as usual Bob!
HSpencer
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Bob
The photo of your grandfather fly fishing made me smile really big. That's exactly what I wish I were doing Right Now!
I have really enjoyed all the old photos you have posted!! Thanks so much for the memory lane walk!!
Best Regards
Herb
The photo of your grandfather fly fishing made me smile really big. That's exactly what I wish I were doing Right Now!
I have really enjoyed all the old photos you have posted!! Thanks so much for the memory lane walk!!
Best Regards
Herb
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sublime68charger
Well-known member
Great stories Bob!
Keep posting them up!
Keep posting them up!
Gary in NY
Well-known member
I have really enjoyed this thread. Thanks for sharing!
BuickFarmer
Well-known member
Really enjoying the old farm stories Bob. I use to spend part of my summer school vacations at my uncles dairy farm and consider them some of the best years of my life and probably has a lot to do for why I bought my 15 acres and doing with it what I am. Some great stories for a "tech writer" keep um comin!
dlcwent
Member Emeritus
After reading that story Bob and the one that Hotfr8 put up over in 1/2 cups thread, I think that maybe I will share some of the history I remember. That was touching to say the least. Thanks for sharing.
Drives, in grade school I cringed when the teacher asked for a 500-word essay. As I wrote in ink I would count the words and mark each 100-word milestone in pencil. Getting to 500 words was like climbing Everest.
Once I became a technical writer I had to tighten up my writing and when a professor handed out a 10-page paper assignment, I had to rewrite it four or five times to get it down to 10 pages. I'm trying to do that in this thread as well. I'm editing these posts down to about half their original size (content is the same, just attempting to write it with fewer words -- and more pictures).
MH, thank you and I do enjoy reading yours as well.
Herb, I was an avid fisherboy back then. I spent my limited cash on fly-fishing, bait-casting, spin-casting, deep-sea and drop-line equipment. When not fishing in Vermont, we went party-boat fishing on the Great South Bay on Long Island. Back in the early 50s it was chock full of flounder and fluke and we would catch bucket-fulls every time we went out. When the flatfish disappeared, we rigged for blowfish and would catch hundreds. On my uncle Harvey's boat, any fish not cleaned by our return to the dock were thrown overboard so I learned to skin a blowfish in seconds. The blowfish taught me that gloves are more than a fashion statement -- lost a lot of my own skin skinning them.
Sub, I thank you and I'll keep posting but this will come back to the garage eventually...
Gary, so glad you are enjoying it. Where in NY are you?
Lamar, I completely agree. There is something calming and uplifting working on a farm. Of course I might have a different view if I had to go out and feed the chickens, milk the cows and slop the pigs in below-zero weather with snow drifts blocking the barn doors.
DLC, I think you should share your history. The stories shared on this forum have awakened my own memories and it gives me a warm feeling (of course, that could just be the incontinence).
My family started tent-camping before I was born. My own camping memories start with this trip, at a campground on Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula. My parents slept on army cots and my brother and I slept on the floor of the 8x8 umbrella tent. Our luxuries were a white gas Coleman stove and lantern. I remember a sleepless night in a violent storm with Dad trying to keep the water out by holding onto the tent flap. Entertainment was watching wet stuff dry (if you tent-camp, you’ve probably watched this show more than once). The 1947 Chevy in the background was my parents’ first new car. I remember it being delivered to the house on a car transporter (did I mention I was obsessed with cars?).
My father was not the best negotiator when it came to buying cars. I’m pretty sure he stopped horse-trading when the salesman got down near the suggested retail price plus the cost of fresh air in the tires. However, my Dad was not a fool. My maternal uncle Laverne was the BEST horse trader in Wisconsin who ended his negotiations when the salesman was crying hysterically and his “boss” had slit his first wrist. Because of this, my father would drive the family from Long Island to Wisconsin and visit the dealer with Laverne and they would walk out with two new cars for the price of one (or close to it). Uncle Laverne was also quite thrifty so he drove off the lot with a two-tone green 2-door post sedan and my parents drove off in a pale yellow Bel Air 2-door hardtop. That's my aunt, uncle and cousin posing with the car.
Chevrolet marketed the hardtop as having “the airiness… of a convertible with the coziness and permanence of an all steel top.” Unlike the ’47 we traded in, the ‘50 had the electric directional signal option (I don’t think it was self-cancelling but it certainly was loud). The elderly woman with Mom, **** and me is my paternal Great Grandmother who was the funniest person in my life back then (sense of humor funny, not the other thing).
My father was not the best negotiator when it came to buying cars. I’m pretty sure he stopped horse-trading when the salesman got down near the suggested retail price plus the cost of fresh air in the tires. However, my Dad was not a fool. My maternal uncle Laverne was the BEST horse trader in Wisconsin who ended his negotiations when the salesman was crying hysterically and his “boss” had slit his first wrist. Because of this, my father would drive the family from Long Island to Wisconsin and visit the dealer with Laverne and they would walk out with two new cars for the price of one (or close to it). Uncle Laverne was also quite thrifty so he drove off the lot with a two-tone green 2-door post sedan and my parents drove off in a pale yellow Bel Air 2-door hardtop. That's my aunt, uncle and cousin posing with the car.
Chevrolet marketed the hardtop as having “the airiness… of a convertible with the coziness and permanence of an all steel top.” Unlike the ’47 we traded in, the ‘50 had the electric directional signal option (I don’t think it was self-cancelling but it certainly was loud). The elderly woman with Mom, **** and me is my paternal Great Grandmother who was the funniest person in my life back then (sense of humor funny, not the other thing).
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BBChevro
Well-known member
djones1a
Well-known member
This is so cool how you have all these memories and pictures to share,i to am a car guy but do not remember all the details like you. Thanks for sharing!
Mark, you laugh but wait 'til you turn 70. Sneezing and laughing too hard are not your friends.
djones1a, I hope my memory isn't unique. I have a hard time remembering what I had for dinner the night before last but things that happened 60+ years ago are amazingly clear. On the down side I tend to repeat myself and I have a hard time remembering what I had for dinner the night before last.
The fall of 1954 brought huge changes to our family’s life. My father and his co-author finished the first edition of their book. We sold the ‘50 Chevy to Anna Banana (no idea what her real name was but that’s what she asked **** and me to call her). She was the lady who made sure my brother and I got off to school on time, cleaned the house and stayed with my brother and me after school until our mother got home from her grammar school teaching job. Dad was as good selling cars as he was buying them so I think she paid $100 for the car. I’m pretty sure my parents offered it to her for free and she insisted on paying something (she was like a member of the family).
The replacement car was a lightly used 1953 Oldsmobile 98 4-door sedan. The local Olds dealer let his wife use the car for a year before my father bought it. Because my parents had a near fatal head-on collision on the way to work in 1952, the Olds had 4 seat belts, rubber mats and plaid plastic slip covers added before Dad took delivery. I believe the mats and seat covers were for my benefit – it’s really hard to get vomit out of rugs and cloth upholstery.
It was not immediately clear why we needed a car this big with the most powerful engine available and a 4-speed (dual range) Hydramatic transmission (I’m sure I mentioned my father was not a car person).
In the spring of 1955 Dad brought home a used travel trailer that he found and bought on his own. It looks a lot like a Shasta but it isn’t. It’s a 15-foot (including tongue) Crescent. I don’t recall seeing another Crescent travel trailer before, after or during the 4 years we used ours but it was one of the few east-coast companies making travel trailers in the early 50s. Before you ask, yes, we got dressed up to inspect the new-to-us trailer (it was a Sunday so we were dressed for church as well).
The Crescent had a 3-burner propane stove with toaster-size oven, icebox and sink. The sink drained out the bottom of the trailer and there was no water tank on board. A garden hose provided pressurized water when we were at home or in a commercial trailer park. Otherwise we used a 5-gallon WWII surplus Gerry can and poured water into the sink. The trailer had three 110v light fixtures that worked like the water (house or trailer park hookup with an extension cord). We still had the Coleman lantern for light when there were no hookups.
In preparation for bringing the Crescent home, Dad had Sears put a hitch on the Olds and someone installed an electric brake control on the steering column. I don’t know if trailer hitches had classes back then but ours was less than class 1. The chromy hunk of steel the 2-inch ball mounted to was held up by a 5/16 or 3/8 threaded rod, bent at the top. They drilled a hole in the bumper to accept the bent part of the rod. Under the bumper there were two green straps with holes drilled every half-inch and each was attached at a diagonal, screwed into some sheet-metal under the car. Not a weld in sight.
The electric brake control was as interesting as the hitch. It looked like the directional signal pod we had in the ’50 Chevy and you pulled the handle up to activate the trailer brakes. There was no connection to the brake pedal in the car and the control was more of an on-off switch than anything else. Every time my father used it, the sound of screeching tires followed us.
Soon after the basics were taken care of, Mom and Dad announced we were going on a road trip during the Easter vacation break. It was to be a Civil War battlefield tour and a shakedown cruise for the new (to us) car and trailer. Everything went great and we learned a lot. We learned you needed a special end on the electric hookup cable (3-prong, I believe) and a hose bib converter (female/female) to hook up the water pipe to a standard garden hose.
Between the Easter vacation and Summer vacation we got things sorted out, including a spare tire for the trailer and 4 scissor jacks to level it up each night. The trailer had a dinette in front that converted into a lumpy almost-double bed, a full double bed at the rear with a single bunk above.
**** and I switched beds daily during our trips. The bunk had a comfortable sleeping surface but no ventilation of any kind so it was pretty hot and stuffy sleeping up there. The convertible dinette had a 4-hump plastic sleeping surface (sheets don't help much with plastic) but it had windows above it that could be opened. Air conditioning consisted of four windows, a door with screen and a roof vent. The stove provided heat as a side-effect of cooking but was too dangerous (no pilot) to use as a heater while sleeping.
The replacement car was a lightly used 1953 Oldsmobile 98 4-door sedan. The local Olds dealer let his wife use the car for a year before my father bought it. Because my parents had a near fatal head-on collision on the way to work in 1952, the Olds had 4 seat belts, rubber mats and plaid plastic slip covers added before Dad took delivery. I believe the mats and seat covers were for my benefit – it’s really hard to get vomit out of rugs and cloth upholstery.
It was not immediately clear why we needed a car this big with the most powerful engine available and a 4-speed (dual range) Hydramatic transmission (I’m sure I mentioned my father was not a car person).
In the spring of 1955 Dad brought home a used travel trailer that he found and bought on his own. It looks a lot like a Shasta but it isn’t. It’s a 15-foot (including tongue) Crescent. I don’t recall seeing another Crescent travel trailer before, after or during the 4 years we used ours but it was one of the few east-coast companies making travel trailers in the early 50s. Before you ask, yes, we got dressed up to inspect the new-to-us trailer (it was a Sunday so we were dressed for church as well).
The Crescent had a 3-burner propane stove with toaster-size oven, icebox and sink. The sink drained out the bottom of the trailer and there was no water tank on board. A garden hose provided pressurized water when we were at home or in a commercial trailer park. Otherwise we used a 5-gallon WWII surplus Gerry can and poured water into the sink. The trailer had three 110v light fixtures that worked like the water (house or trailer park hookup with an extension cord). We still had the Coleman lantern for light when there were no hookups.
In preparation for bringing the Crescent home, Dad had Sears put a hitch on the Olds and someone installed an electric brake control on the steering column. I don’t know if trailer hitches had classes back then but ours was less than class 1. The chromy hunk of steel the 2-inch ball mounted to was held up by a 5/16 or 3/8 threaded rod, bent at the top. They drilled a hole in the bumper to accept the bent part of the rod. Under the bumper there were two green straps with holes drilled every half-inch and each was attached at a diagonal, screwed into some sheet-metal under the car. Not a weld in sight.
The electric brake control was as interesting as the hitch. It looked like the directional signal pod we had in the ’50 Chevy and you pulled the handle up to activate the trailer brakes. There was no connection to the brake pedal in the car and the control was more of an on-off switch than anything else. Every time my father used it, the sound of screeching tires followed us.
Soon after the basics were taken care of, Mom and Dad announced we were going on a road trip during the Easter vacation break. It was to be a Civil War battlefield tour and a shakedown cruise for the new (to us) car and trailer. Everything went great and we learned a lot. We learned you needed a special end on the electric hookup cable (3-prong, I believe) and a hose bib converter (female/female) to hook up the water pipe to a standard garden hose.
Between the Easter vacation and Summer vacation we got things sorted out, including a spare tire for the trailer and 4 scissor jacks to level it up each night. The trailer had a dinette in front that converted into a lumpy almost-double bed, a full double bed at the rear with a single bunk above.
**** and I switched beds daily during our trips. The bunk had a comfortable sleeping surface but no ventilation of any kind so it was pretty hot and stuffy sleeping up there. The convertible dinette had a 4-hump plastic sleeping surface (sheets don't help much with plastic) but it had windows above it that could be opened. Air conditioning consisted of four windows, a door with screen and a roof vent. The stove provided heat as a side-effect of cooking but was too dangerous (no pilot) to use as a heater while sleeping.
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The afternoon of the last day of school in June 1955 (around the 21st) we left Forest Hills High School and headed west. The Interstate Highway system was not even a dream that summer. We took turnpikes through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. In Illinois we took Route 66 and kept going until we reached Carlsbad Caverns National Park. It was nice to get out of the heat down in the cavern.
Our next stop was Mesa Verde National Park. The cliff dwellings were amazing and I saw my first mummy in the museum. Esther was amazingly well preserved. I actually remembered the name but Googled it to be sure. Our National Park guide taught me something I have carried to this day. To get to the Balcony House ruins, you have to climb a 32-foot tall ladder, which also lets you see the shallow toe-holds in the sandstone rock face that the original inhabitants used. The guide told us not to look down and just climb four steps, take a breath and count four more steps. Do this 8 times and you are at the top. It worked! Climbing down was the same process in reverse.
From Mesa Verde wwe traveled to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Monument (it became a National Park a few years later).
We spent most of a day in the Monument and left early the next day to get to Grand Canyon National Park. We then spent a couple of days on the rim enjoying the view.
Dad decided to hike down the Bright Angel Trail with ****. I was not allowed to take part in strenuous activities that summer because our family doctor believed I had a heart murmur that might be serious. They tried to get me on a mule ride down into the canyon but there was a two-week wait (it’s about 13 months these days). I settled for a quiet day of contemplation beside my mother.
Dad and **** arrived back at the trailer after dark (they left at dawn). The hike down put a new kind of strain on their legs and half-way down they left their backpacks hidden behind some rocks. Carrying only canteens and a camera, they got to the bottom and decided to rest for an hour or two. Their legs started to cramp up and the climb back out of the canyon was a nightmare. It’s a 12 mile round trip hike but the vertical distance is almost 3,000 feet. I don’t recall any warnings back in 1955 but now the trail description includes the following – WARNING: Do Not attempt to hike from the rim to the river and back in one day! I remember silently thanking my doctor that night.
Our next stop was Mesa Verde National Park. The cliff dwellings were amazing and I saw my first mummy in the museum. Esther was amazingly well preserved. I actually remembered the name but Googled it to be sure. Our National Park guide taught me something I have carried to this day. To get to the Balcony House ruins, you have to climb a 32-foot tall ladder, which also lets you see the shallow toe-holds in the sandstone rock face that the original inhabitants used. The guide told us not to look down and just climb four steps, take a breath and count four more steps. Do this 8 times and you are at the top. It worked! Climbing down was the same process in reverse.
From Mesa Verde wwe traveled to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Monument (it became a National Park a few years later).
We spent most of a day in the Monument and left early the next day to get to Grand Canyon National Park. We then spent a couple of days on the rim enjoying the view.
Dad decided to hike down the Bright Angel Trail with ****. I was not allowed to take part in strenuous activities that summer because our family doctor believed I had a heart murmur that might be serious. They tried to get me on a mule ride down into the canyon but there was a two-week wait (it’s about 13 months these days). I settled for a quiet day of contemplation beside my mother.
Dad and **** arrived back at the trailer after dark (they left at dawn). The hike down put a new kind of strain on their legs and half-way down they left their backpacks hidden behind some rocks. Carrying only canteens and a camera, they got to the bottom and decided to rest for an hour or two. Their legs started to cramp up and the climb back out of the canyon was a nightmare. It’s a 12 mile round trip hike but the vertical distance is almost 3,000 feet. I don’t recall any warnings back in 1955 but now the trail description includes the following – WARNING: Do Not attempt to hike from the rim to the river and back in one day! I remember silently thanking my doctor that night.
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Lyndon
Well-known member
Bob
Forgive me, but I've been so busy lately (yes - picture that one armed man - oh no, you don't have to, my apologies) that I haven't had time to catch up with your story. I will shortly. I love reading your story. Mine doesn't come close, but is nearly as long.....
Lyndon
REALLY, REALLY behind. Sorry.
Forgive me, but I've been so busy lately (yes - picture that one armed man - oh no, you don't have to, my apologies
) that I haven't had time to catch up with your story. I will shortly. I love reading your story. Mine doesn't come close, but is nearly as long.....Lyndon
REALLY, REALLY behind. Sorry.
drivesitfar
Well-known member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Heine View Post
...The stories shared on this forum have awakened my own memories and it gives me a warm feeling (of course, that could just be the incontinence).
AND THEN YOU WROTE A RESPONSE TO ANOTHER MEMBER'S COMMENT
you laugh but wait 'til you turn 70. Sneezing and laughing too hard are not your friends.
Bob: i'm just waking up and catching up on your thread which is a great read BTW. then i get to these lines you write and have to stop and laugh (only 60 so not having issues YET). keep writing because i'm sure you are putting smiles on other members (and lurkers) faces too.
have a great day
Originally Posted by Bob Heine View Post
...The stories shared on this forum have awakened my own memories and it gives me a warm feeling (of course, that could just be the incontinence).
AND THEN YOU WROTE A RESPONSE TO ANOTHER MEMBER'S COMMENT
you laugh but wait 'til you turn 70. Sneezing and laughing too hard are not your friends.
Bob: i'm just waking up and catching up on your thread which is a great read BTW. then i get to these lines you write and have to stop and laugh (only 60 so not having issues YET). keep writing because i'm sure you are putting smiles on other members (and lurkers) faces too.
have a great day
Gary in NY
Well-known member
Bob,
We're right on the St Lawrence River. About as far north as you can get in NY.
We're right on the St Lawrence River. About as far north as you can get in NY.
jbmatth
Well-known member
It is great to read your stories Bob, they are bringing back some of my own memories of growing up in a simpler way of life. Even if I'm less than half of your age. The trip to the grand canyon sounds similar to mine back in 2010. I went with my parents, one grandmother, one sister-in-law, my future bride, and 4 of my 5 brothers (One was deployed in Iraq at that time.) Three of us split off one afternoon to do a hike to Havasu Falls. We arrived at sun up at the trial head where there was a sign that stated no day hikes, the problem was we only had one day before we had to meet back up with the rest of the family. We each had 2 liters of water, some energy bars and gels, toilet paper, and a couple of cameras.
We decided to go for it, the worst that could happen other than death was they tell us we have to stay the night. The trip started off with a 1 mile decent of about 2000 ft. Over the next 10 miles we went down another 400 ft. or so. We were able to see 3 of the most beautiful waterfalls in the US if not the world. Stolen from someone with a better eye and camera:
We made the trip down to the falls and had a good time playing in the water and taking photos as well as talking to others down there hiking and camping. They were extremely surprised to see three guys with just camel backs and not 40 pounds of gear. Well we had lunch on our way out and started running back to the trail head to drive the ~90 back to the closest real town for the night. We arrived at our hotel in time to each shower and eat at the world famous Roadkill Cafe in Seligman, Az. by 6pm. All in all we ran 22 miles total and had 4,800 total feet of elevation change. It will forever be one of my fondest memories of spending time with brothers, and the entire trip as one with family.
Thanks again for sharing, and if you don't want my story on your thread feel free to delete it.
JB
We decided to go for it, the worst that could happen other than death was they tell us we have to stay the night. The trip started off with a 1 mile decent of about 2000 ft. Over the next 10 miles we went down another 400 ft. or so. We were able to see 3 of the most beautiful waterfalls in the US if not the world. Stolen from someone with a better eye and camera:
We made the trip down to the falls and had a good time playing in the water and taking photos as well as talking to others down there hiking and camping. They were extremely surprised to see three guys with just camel backs and not 40 pounds of gear. Well we had lunch on our way out and started running back to the trail head to drive the ~90 back to the closest real town for the night. We arrived at our hotel in time to each shower and eat at the world famous Roadkill Cafe in Seligman, Az. by 6pm. All in all we ran 22 miles total and had 4,800 total feet of elevation change. It will forever be one of my fondest memories of spending time with brothers, and the entire trip as one with family.
Thanks again for sharing, and if you don't want my story on your thread feel free to delete it.
JB
