Continuing car saga

In the spring of 1990 we moved back to Ohio. At that point most of the cars we owned were just the average run-of-the-mill transportation type cars. We had two Oldsmobile Cierra Cutlass. We also had the following: a Chevette, a Toyota Nova, a couple Caprice cars, and my current truck. The Toyota Nova was actually a Chevrolet Nova built by Toyota.

My son Steve, gifted me money to buy a collector type car. I ended up purchasing a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado convertible. I bought it at an auction, I should've shopped more I bought it at a good price however it did need some work. It needed new brakes, brake lines, fuel lines, plastic inserts or bumper fillers as they are called. I also replaced all the fluids.

The car still needs quite a bit of work. I've replaced the top, done other extensive repairs. I replaced the bumper fillers I have a blog concerning that ordeal. Because it sits so much we've replaced two fuel pumps. At present it needs a paint job, trunk liner, interior work and Lord knows what else.

I like convertibles and this car is a lot of fun, however it has a 500 CC engine and it gets 8 to 10 miles per gallon. So in the days of four dollar gas I have not driven it as much as I would like. The Cadillac Eldorado's are front wheel drives, which were unusual in the 70s. This car was to be the last of the convertibles and Cadillac made 14,000. A lot of these cars are still around as people thought they would be collector cars. At this point they are not worth anymore in a nice convertible of that era. The exceptions are a very very low mileage auto in perfect condition. Cadillac also made about 200 Bicentennial editions which are highly collectible.

Two finger keyboard dance

From 1960 to 1964 I had the privilege of attending St. Charles Borromeo Preparatory High School. Now one would think that a school that prepared you to attend college would require a typing course. Back in those golden years before computers and word processors a typewriter was essential at the college level. Instructors supposedly would not grade down for a hand written paper but encouraged you to have a typed report.

While I attended college there was an entire industry devoted to typing papers for students. However they charged by the word or page not sure which, more than likely the page. I never could afford to pay to have my papers typed, nor did we own a typewriter.

So now in the days of computers I wear calluses on one or two fingers trying to navigate emails , blogs and other computer operations which require typing. Recently I have purchased Dragon software, which is a voice recognition program. So far it has proved to be interesting and considering the fact that my dictation is fair at best, the program works well. I am also learning to speak clearer while using it and it is trying to learn my poor dictation.

Even though the process requires proofreading, it is not perfect, I find it easier to use than typing. It also provides some very interesting errors. So if sometime you are reading a blog or an email from someone and it makes no or very little sense you might find that they used this software and did not do a good job of proofreading.

Selling on line

 

Before I retired I sold on eBay. I sold my dad's collection of  brewania. Brewania is signs, glasses, posters, patches, and other items related to the brewing industry. I also sold items I picked up at yard sales, flea markets, Goodwill and my wife's extra crafts . I sold enough items that I had a feedback of over 800.

At some point eBay decided that it did did not need the small seller. So when it got very expensive and I did not want to work for eBay or so it seemed, I closed my store. My protest of exorbitant fees had very little effect on eBay and they continue to thrive. The price range of the items I was able to sell made it unprofitable for me to continue on eBay.

So after retired I found Etsy. They have low insertion fees and very reasonable, actually low final value fees. That being said traffic and sales are much lower than eBay. I have two stores on the Etsy website. One store is named Decortiques, the other is Thriftpickers. Decortiques sells vintage and some handmade items. Thriftpickers sells supplies and some vantage patterns. Originally Thriftpickers was designed to sell vintage under $10. That did not work out well and I am not sure what I will do with that store.

I was considering closing both stores but since I have this new speech recognition program Dragon, I may continue on Etsy for awhile. Not being able to type quickly made it very difficult to list items and do the correct amount of tags. I also I'm planning to focus on some type of specialty items for the stores. If you are in the market for vintage items or just want to browse, go to Etsy and search for Decortiques or Thriftpickers.

The 1956 caddy

I traded for the 1962 Pontiac Catalina while we lived in Akron Ohio. I felt the payments on the 67 Galaxy were too high. The Catalina was a four-door sedan, however it had a 389 engine with tri-power. The car would get up and go and was a lot of fun at the traffic lights. It was a real sleeper.

In 1967 we moved to Atlanta, Georgia. While in Georgia I traded for a 1963 or 64 Oldsmobile 88. In 1969 or 1970 I bought my second new car, which was a 1970 Plymouth Duster with the slant six engine with a standard transmission. My wife did not drive so the three on the column was not an issue. Overall the duster was a nice car although very basic.

In 1972, a new job brought me back to Ohio. Someone at the store I worked at gave me a 1955 Oldsmobile. It did not run, I was going to fix it and drive it as I liked old cars. It made a very nice yard ornament as I never had the time nor money to repair it. Another car I could not afford which I would love to have was a 1939 Lasalle sedan. The lady who owned it worked for Buckeye Mart and said the car once belonged to Gov. Bricker. I did not buy the car because I could not afford it.

In 1974 or so we moved to Jackson, Ohio. My wife had learned to drive and we bought a second car. It was a 1957 Plymouth four-door sedan. My wife loved the car, it had a push button automatic transmission. Another interesting fact with the exhaust manifold leak, giving it a unique sound. At some point the torsion bar broke making the car another junkyard candidate. Also while in Jackson I traded the duster for a 1965 two door Thunderbird. I really like that car. In 1975, we bought a new Pontiac Catalina. We sold the Thunderbird. We bought a car to replace the Plymouth because I was traveling, we bought a 19 something Vega. I think it was a 1971 station wagon. I drove that car round trip Jackson to Athens for about eight months. The engines in those cars were aluminum and were crap. I sold the car to a guy who needed a good body for his Vega.

While in Jackson, I bought one of my dream cars. I just liked the styling of the early 50's caddy's. A friend of the family had a 52 when I was younger and I always wanted a car like it.  It was in 1956 Cadillac sedan. It needed a lot of cosmetic work that never got done.  The car drove well and was a lot of fun. I owned this car from about 1977 to sometime in the 80s. I drove the car from Washington Courthouse,Ohio to Sandusky, Michigan. Eventually the car needed some engine work which I could not afford, so I sold it to a local car lot.

The next blog will continue the car saga.

The History of my Cars

In 1966, I took a job with a Woolworth company in Marietta Ohio. Since at that time I did not own a car, I went to Marietta on the Greyhound bus. I worked at the Woolworth store as a manager trainee and receiving manager. One of the employees found out that I did not have a car and sold me a 57 Rambler station wagon for the princely sum of $75. Looking back, it was really a good deal. I drove the car for a considerable amount of time. Being young and foolish I had no fear of taking it on the highway. I drove it from Marietta Ohio to Columbus Ohio and from Marietta to Sandusky Ohio.

Most of the trips were to Sandusky where my future wife resided. This was about 200 miles one way which I made usually two times a month. The other feature that I found useful, was a front seats folded flat. I do not remember how long I had the car, it was less than a year as I was only in Marietta about a year. The car gave up the ghost one weekend  trip in Sandusky. Again lacking the funds to have it repaired,  it went to the junkyard. I made the trip back to Marietta on the Greyhound bus. It took around 12 hours,  it seemed like forever. I got back to Marietta in time to go to work.

My next car with a 1951 Chevrolet two-door. I only had it for a couple weeks. I bought it for $75, drove it to Sandusky one weekend, where the muffler went out. When I got back to Marietta I sold it for 50 bucks, I should have had it repaired.

My next car was a 1967 Ford Galaxy 500. My dad pretty much picked it out and I was happy with it. It was a nice green, power steering, power brakes and of course the radio.After I had it about two weeks some clown pulled out front of me. I was okay, the car suffered a damaged front fender and hood on the driver side. I owned the car until about 1968 or 69 when I felt I could not afford to continue to make the payments. I was married and 67 we moved to Akron in 67 and then Atlanta,  Georgia in 68. We traded the car for lower payments on a 1962 Pontiac Catalina.

My First Car

The first car I owned was a 1953 Chevrolet utility sedan. The utility sedan was a two door car with a plywood board in the back were the seats would go. The car that I had was originally a telephone company car. Back in 1963 my neighbor sold it to me for the price of a tire he just put on it. The cost was $16.

I placed a couple of galvanized buckets in the back for seats and my sister told all her friends that I had a car with bucket seats. When they had the chance to ride in the car they were not impressed. Eventually I was able to buy a set of seats at a junkyard.

The car had multiple colors of paint showing through, my dad told me to get a painted. I found you cannot put a primer on in the sun with a brush. I drove around with a rust red primer on for a long time. Dad and mom went on vacation and I was told to have it painted by the time he got back. I selected a beautiful Rustoleum red paint. My dad was not happy with my color selection. He said it looked like a fire engine and wondered if I was going to a fire somewhere. Mom said to dad, you told him ti paimt it but you never said what color.

One day taking my brother to the swimming pool on Hall Road in Columbus Ohio, the hood came loose in wrap itself around the windshield. That was an exciting ride. I also found how hard it was to find a new hood for a utility sedan. Nothing in the junkyards fit. So, the rest of the time I owned that car it had a huge dent in the hood and a very rough paint job.

After owning the car about a year of the clutch went out. Not having the money to repair it, the car went to the scrap yard. The next car I owned was a 1957 or was a 59 Rambler station wagon. That story we will be told in the next blog.

Witches

Many years ago we burned witches for practicing magic. We did not get all of them. There were thousands and we only burned a few hundred. Well, the witches are still here. No, they are not the nut cases you see on TV talk shows or the ones you read about in the tabloids.

You must understand that most witches are smarter than us " normal" (whatever normal is) humans. After a few of their friends were roasted, and the not how we roast people today but burned at the stake, they realized that there was no future in the witch business. So the witches the world decided since that was politically and religiously incorrect to be a witch, they would change how they did business. Sometimes it does not pay to advertise.

First thing they did was change their name from witches to inventors. Let me say now, not all inventors are witches, but quite a few are witches. The way you tell the difference from a witch inventor and a regular inventor is that item uses magic.

A Tupperware lid uses no magic. A door lock is not magic. The original mechanical cash register and was not magic but then the witches took control of NCR and changed us over to magic cash registers.

Orval and Wilbur Wright were witches. So was Alexander Graham Bell, Marconi, Morris, Bill Gates, and anyone in the entire computer industry are witches. Can you truly believe electric and a bunch of switches will make figures move on video games. Computers without many moving parts  can do magic things. A piece of paper can be copied and sent anywhere in the world seconds. Magic.

So you see witches have used magic to take over the world. When they invent something, they worked their spells on the item, then they tell us how it works.

What most people do not know is that physics was invented by witches to explain the magic. I don't believe we need to burn these witches, for the most part they do good work. The spells are usually good. When you computer fails it's just a bad spell.

I just thought you should know the truth about witches. Don't waste your time trying to figure out how computer works, and airplane flies, or how electricity gets to your house, it's just magic.