A SUGGESTION FOR GARY DEAVER, THE NEW MAYOR PRO-TEM

1. Learn how to jump and down and imitate a local used car dealer, "What a Place!"

2. Start giving away the new gold dollars, they are smaller than Eisenhower dollars and don't weigh as much.

3. Frequent arenas where JQH hangs out.

4. Read about Sheila Wright, dog owner in the Springfield Community Journal.

Oh heck, Gary, just be yourself and try to live down the fact that you weren't elected unanimously. Why was Ralph even running again? How old is he? Is he drunk or just acts like it? More importantly, why did John Wylie and Denny Whayne vote for Ralph? Of course Ralph abstained. Reminds me of the Iowa guy who ran for city council and lost by one vote because he thought it was too egotistical to vote for oneself.....

Allright, so we complain about the Council having all these unanimous votes and now I'm complaining because two guys voted for Ralph. I can see it now, in the aft chambers, Carlson says we gotta quit these unanimous votes, people are beginning to talk, they will think we do all the discussin and cussin in private away from prying eyes, we gotta have some dissension. I know, Denny, you and John vote for Ralph.

License Office Downtown ..... changes

Recently, well almost 30 days ago, my wife and I bought a Cushman truckster, a little three-wheeled vehicle with an OMC 2 cylinder motor. We bought this Cushman because gas keeps going up and it gets great gas mileage. We figure it is just the thing to run about town in, like to the hardware store, to the grocery store, to visit my mother, etc.

It has a steering wheel like a car, gas, brake and clutch pedals like a car, a gear shift lever like a car, doors like a car, windshield wipers like a car,,,,,you're getting the picture, it is like a car except it has three wheels.

I went to the downtown license office this afternoon to title the machine. I have been going to the Glen Isle or the Fremont office since Blount privatized them and because they are not downtown...don't get me started on that....but since I went to the post office (I like the post office on Chestnut better than the one on Glen Isle...well actually, I like the post office out by Kohl's the best, but it is too far to drive out there and the one on Chestnut is closest to my house. There used to be a post office sub station in the Pricecutter on Campbell across from Maschino's but it is no more, now THAT was convenient!)

Anyhow, since I was downtown at the post office, and it was getting close to fine time if I didn't get this title switched over to our name, I decided to go to the downtown license burearu.

So I go through the ordeal of finding a parking spot and walked up the hill and into the canyon between Heer's and the License bureau office. (Let me tell you, a mighty wind was blowing, my friend,in the passageway, a mighty wind was blowing.) I walked into the license bureau lobby and found that the office had been moved to the second floor. The building has the slowest elevators. Luckily this was a slow day, but can you imagine what it is like at the end and the beginning of the month?

I wnet into the second floor office. There were probably 15 people sitting in those fiberglass chairs that look like Eames chairs and that maybe worth something on ebay, but they are cheap knockoffs adn they are not. I looked and thought to myself, "this is gonna hurt," when all of a sudden a woman called out, "What are you here for?" "Car Title," I quickly replied.

I bypassed the Eames lookalike chairs entirely and went directly to her desk. A deeply tanned woman with cleavage was talking with her and getting something out of a desk drawer, paperclips I think. Her cleavage was deep but that wasn't what was distracting me, it was her tan, she looked almost orange. I think she ran the place because I later saw her when I was talking to a guard on the ground floor, she was carrying a fedex envelope and said goodbye to the guard. He seemed to know her.

Why did it move to the second floor. I asked the clerk, (I got in without a line but one quickly formed behind me, I move slow.) She sidestepped my answer with a question, "Isn't it more convenient up here?" I didn't want to spend my afternoon engaged in verbal jousts with a non-state employee conducting state business.

I titled the vehicle and paid the sales tax. I have to get a motorcycle license plate and motorcycle inspection sticker because it is a motorcycle-tricycle.
The clerk gave me a business card with the name of a company that can perform the inspection. She also told me I had to have a motorcycle endorsement on my driver's license.

I took the building's slowest elevator down to the lobby again. I asked the guard a question: "WHO DECIDED TO MOVE THE OFFICE TO THE SECOND FLOOR???" He said you ought to be here at the end of the month when people are getting their plates before the fines kick in, it's a mess he said. He told me there are two more offices in Springfield, adn this one had been downsized.

I asked who owned it, he said he thought the same lady who owned the ones in Springfield also owned the ones in Nixa and Ozark. MMMM>>>>>would that be Shane Shoeler's wife? I know I didn't spell his name correctly but who cares, I'm not a newspaper. This is a blog, we don't have to have all our facts correct.

I decided while I was in the building, to go into the testing room and take the motorcycle written test. I knew I hadn't studied for it, but I have been driving for over 40 years, I have a CDL A with all the endorsements and besides, how hard could it be.

I went through the door. The guy behind the desk affirmed that I needed a motorcycle endorsement to drive the Cushman. I could take the written test there, but I would have to go somewhere else to take the driving portion of the test...like Ozark, Nixa, Strafford, etc.

He also told me that since I was adding an endorsement to my license, and it had been over a year since I took the HAZMAT test, I would have to retake the test to keep the endorsement. "Oh man," I said, "That's a tough test. I failed it twice before I passed it and I thought I was pretty smart."

I took both tests, the motorcycle written test and the HAZMAT test. I flunked the motorcycle test and passed the HAZMAT test. Go figure. He suggested I go outside to the study area, study and come back in and retest. I did as he suggested.

I failed the test again.

WHO DECIDED TO MOVE THAT OFFICE TO THE SECOND FLOOR?

What's it all about, Alfie?

jsut some rambling thoughts:
Boy Blunt is big in the Romney camp.
Guilianni comes to Springberg to host a meal with Roy B.

What is going on here?

Back home from Pennsylvania

Got in last night (Monday) about 9:30.
Total trip was 2595 miles.
Going over Appalachia Mountains got caught in snow squall.
Barely made it up a hill, spent the night in school parking lot atop Mount Storm.
Cold!
then a big truck wrecked going down the hill, killed the driver, so we sat on top of the hill until it got cleaned up and road cleared.
Stopped at flea markets and antique malls and goodwill stores on the way home.
Spent the night in motel in Cincinnatti, Ohio.
Spent the night in Walmart parking lot in Tell City, Indiana.
Man cheating on his wife or wife cheating on her husband, big fight in the parking lot at 11:00, two cars and yelling and screaming.
Huge parking lot and they fight right outside our trailer.
3 cop cars came and hauled them off to jail.
Spent the night in East St. Louis motel.
wonderful trip.
We like the trailer, tows like a dream.

Yeahup, gonna git me a laptop and wifi and blog on the road.
Some photos for your viewing pleasure!
Jim

We came across highway 50, stopped for breakfast in Gormania, WV, ate at a little cafe, the locals all said, "Why highway 50?" I said, "Cuz it's not the interstate."
Jim

Off to Pennsylvania

My wife and I bought an old Airstream trailer last month.
1978 Airstream Sovereign, 31 foot, rear bath.
It is in Conestoga, Pennsylvania.

The ice storm is over, My Mother has her electricity back on after staying with us for the duration of the outage.

Our kids are all in warm houses with electricity.

So, we are off to Pennsylvania on Tuesday morning after my wife gets off of work.

It will be a 2,000 mile trip.

I took a test trip to St. Louis Friday night to feel out the truck.

We have a 24 foot pontoon boat that had been pulling from the cabin to the lake with my son's jeep cherokee, then I tried to pull it with my S-10.

Ended up buying a 1985 Chevrolet 3/4 ton pickup for $1400.00,,a buy!
Until I replaced the windshield wiper motor to get it inspected, replaced the heatercore so the heater would work, patched a hole in the secondary gas tank, replaced all the light bulbs, including the headlights, replaced the transmission, put four new tires on it, put a trailer hitch on it so our daughter could go to northern Missouri to pickup a horse, replaced the loud mufflers with quiet mufflers and tailpipes, and on the way back from St. Louis, on the side of the road by Waynesville, I replaced the thermostat.

Tonight, I re-patched a hole in the gas tank, checked all the fluids, put some belt dressing on the fan belts and vacuumed out the interior. Now I got $2400 in the truck. I hadn't planned on doing all that work, all summer long the truck made the journey from the cabin driveway to the boat launch ramp, about 1/4 mile round trip.

We have never been east so this should be quite the adventure.

We hope to antique shop on the way up there and camp in the trailer on the way back.

A couple of years ago I bought a big combination bus/truck to turn into a motorhome. It didn't work out because the motor was under the truck, not enough room for possum bellies.

I looked at a couple of greyhound conversions, bid on a 28' foot trailer off of ebay that was in Bolivar, bid on a 22 foot airstream in Sarcoxie, lost both those bids at the last minute.

When we found this airstream, I called the people up, got lot's of pictures, and made the deal.

So, we are all set to go! We got eight days to get up there and back. Reminds me of our travelling days when we were first married, we lived in a travel trailer and travelled a midwest circuit, from Louisianna to Canada and back.

I got a tool kit, a pocket knife, a ring of red and a loaf of bread! Yahoo Mountain Dew.

My wife told me last night that when I pass over, my daughter wanted to know if she could have my collection of Ozark memobilia. Certainly I said, the son gets all the trucks.

My fleet: 2001 S-10, 1998 Honda Accord, 1985 Chevrolet Scottsdale 3/4 ton pickup, 1960 Crown, 1954 Chevrolet 3800 grain truck, 1954 Chevrolet 3800 dump truck, 1954 Chevrolet 3800 Wayne bodied short bus, 1953 3600 Chevrolet 3/4 pickup and a 1991 Ford Escort that our daughter drives. All of them are licensed and insured and road worthy except for the dump truck.

We don't have rights, the government can't pass laws to take away rights.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/011807.html

Chilling reading.

ice storm

Unless you don't have any power, like my 79 year old mother, it doesn't make any difference.

The CU guys and tree trimmers came down my street at 2AM on Saturday, using battery operated chainsaws so they wouldn't wake people up.

They were courteous, polite and friendly. And they gave me very good advice on repairing mast head at my son's house. (I got a licensed electrician to do it).

We have a gas cook stove and gas logs in the fire place. And a gas hot water heater. So, son, his wife, two grandkids, daughter, her husband, and my wife and mother made it through the storm.

I put the coleman lantern on a ladder outside the front picture window and we played board games all evening long. It was fun. Well, we had a lot of food and beer too.

It is almost over, my Mom is still without power, she is still with us. I took out to all the thrift stores today, goodwill, DAV, salvation army, we ran her regular route. And I got to park in the handicapped spaces! (she has a blue windshield placard).

Maybe her lights will be on tomorrow.

The Hanging of Suddam

a friend writes:

But speaking of spectacles, wasn't the hanging of Saddam Hussein a doozy? As video of his march to the gallows appeared on the Internet, and then stopped abruptly after he was noosed, I mentioned to a friend that somebody, somehow would capture the rest of the story in moving pictures, if the price was right. And sure enough

As a news consumer and student of capital punishment, I was quite curious to see what it looked like to see a man literally come to the end of his rope. The outlaw few minutes that appeared on the Internet, although a muddled and incomplete piece of videography purported to be the rest of the story of Saddam's journey to the end, was nonetheless a grusesome tableau.

But that aside, there are other important questions from inquiring and skeptical minds that beg for answers. Was the purported cell phone video an actual account? Did someone get paid for it? By whom and how much? Was the gallows housed on property in the hands of the United States government or not? Who built the gallows, and how much did it cost?

A friend and I discussed these things at length last night in the context of gallows humor, and decided that the hanging apparatus was probably built by Haliburton or a subsidiary under a no-bid contract for an exorbitant cost to the American taxpayers.

And, in the end, the whole ordeal was a metaphor for the madness and botchery of the Iraq war. As the president of the United States himself said about Saddam's hanging, apparently with a straight face, it was not dignified.

Gangs No Longer Problem in the Ozarks

Grand jury dissolved.
end of discussion until tax increase appears on ballot.

Springfield First Night/Cruising the Square

Last year, on New Year's Eve, we took a bus load of people downtown to watch the fireworks. We parked in a lot below the baseball stadium, I think it was Harry Cooper's parking lot.

Afterwards, cruising the square, One particularily inebriated woman got on the bus and requested a ride home. We took her home.

By doing so, we broke rule #1: Never open the door of the bus.

Halloween night we took a bus load downtown and I openned the door of the bus on South Street because a uniformed police woman was knocking on the door wanting to check id's for alcohol possession. My view of her was blocked by the door, but I did see the Sam Brown belt and attachments.

I openned the door, she entered the bus. As soon as I saw the cleavage, I knew she costumed as a cop, and a very good costume too. It took forever to get her off the bus.

Remembering rule #1, a bunch of us went downtown Sunday night to view the fireworks. The parking lot we parked in last years was blockaded by security car. We ended up parking on Trafficway by the ice rink.

This was the first time I had been to Jordan Valley Park. It's ok, grass and concrete and some big blocks of stone we stood on to watch the fireworks.

I left the bus running to keep the heaters going to keep the bus warm.

It was nice to quickly get into a warm space when the fireworks ended.

People like the bus, lot's of cell phone camera pictures of it and horn honking.
Maybe the horn honking was because I was half a lane of traffic?

Our daughter had this theory that if people didn't respond to her happy new year's greetings to those outside the bus, they would have a horrible hangover in the morning.

Cruising the square, South Street was blocked from Walnut to McDaniel. Also, in front of the old bicycle shop was a big fire truck and several ambulances and police cars with lights flashing.

At Walnut and South, one reveller in a party hat came up to the bus and wanted to know if we could take him to Battlefield, he needed to get there in a hurry. Private Coach was our reply.

Lots of girls in miniskirts walking around downtown. One forloan looking young lady was walking down McDaniel, almost to Jefferson (by the Bell building) holding her shoes in her hand. She raised her hand halfheartedly to hail us, sorry not this year.

Rainbow sherbert, pink and blush champagne make a tasting punch.

There didn't appear to be as many people downtown this year as last year, but the weather was a lot colder.

A couple of highlights of the Xmas season, taking a high school friend and his Cobra Chorus carolling. We themed the bus out as "Special Bus for Special Singers" and cruised the neighborhood.

Xmas eve, after dinner, all the grandkids, nieces and nephews get in the bus and ride through the Elfindale light show, singing Christmas carols. My 78 year old mother rode with us this year.

Next planned outing for the bus, other than picking the grandsons up from school on Thursdays and Fridays....if the district won't provide bus transportation, I will....is St. Patrick's Day parade!