Find The Corvette

Life Is Good: Celebrate Life! And A Big Thank You To Springfield Public Works Department

Back in the late 1960's, my Dad had a bunch of flower stickers printed with the slogan "Celebrate Life" on them. I think it was the theme of the DDF --the Diocesan Development Fund. Anyhow, those stickers ended up in a whole bunch of places, not just on the back of automobiles.

A friend had a 1964 VW Convertible and we put stickers all over that bug. She sold the convertible to another friend who cut it up for a dune buggy. What was he thinking? Another sticker ended up the rear window of a red Ford Galaxie convertible that was owned by the old lady who ran the Brown Derby at Cherokee and Glenstone. Remember that store, it was a small store and was also the closest liquor store to our house on National and Sunshine.

When I first got the bus Plunge in 1992 or 1993 (I will blog soon on the origins of Plunge), we started putting bumper stickers from places the bus had been on the inside roof of the bus. It is pretty well full now. My Dad gave me the "last Celebrate Life sticker" to put inside the bus. He brought it over to the bus and we selected a spot on the ceiling for it, where it remains to this day. The photo above is of that sticker.

When I sold the bus to Lowell Davis (what was I thinking?) and he subsequently sold it to Sam of Precious Moments, neither of them did anything to the interior. One of those two did paint the outside and put a new gas tank on that makes it hard to put gas into it, but I am working on that. I bought the bus back in December, 2003 for what I sold it for and I will never sell it again.

"Celebrate Life". Grandson Austin wore a shirt today that had "Life Is Good" on it. Celebrate life, life is good. Be happy with what you got. The boys were skateboarding in the backyard last night as neighbor Jack and I visited with Mr. Cook and Mr. Miller.

We got to talking about the movie, "The Princess Bride" and memorable quotes from that show. (My favorite: "Never get in a land war in Southeast Asia.) Austin tells us his two favorite quotes, except they weren't from the movie.

Austin's favorite quotes:

"You will never win an argument with your wife or mother so don't even try."

"Everything tastes better in a styrofoam cup, except orange juice."

Last week we buried our Mother with our Father. John and I both took a lot of pictures. John's account, Mom's Last Bus Ride (Mom loved to ride the bus with the kids), is here. My account is here.

I haven't felt too much like blogging lately, although there is a plethora of subjects out there upon which we have an opinion: the square, county officeholders, R-12 school, "The City".

But I do need to make this comment: Public Works put up new speed limit signs on the three streets in our neighborhood. In the past I have blogged about sidewalks, public works and neighborhood meetings. (It is my experience that Public Works is a city department that works to accommodate the citizens of this city) The new speed limit sign was positioned close enough to the fence that I could not get my lawn mower between the fence and the sign post without removing the grass catcher. I called Public Works, got a hold of Dan Jesson, and he explained the reasoning for the sign placement (Public Works tries to put signs between property lines, as this one is). When I told him I couldn't mow between the sign and the fence, he said how about if the sign is moved 10' north of the fence. He must have been looking at an aerial photo of the property because I would mention a tree or a fence post and he knew exactly where it was and what I was talking about. So thanks to Springfield Public Works for listening to our neighborhood and working to accommodate us and for not once referring to "Vision 20/20" or "Long Range Plans".

I sorta like those speed limit signs that say "Kid Friendly" on them.

To Tell The Truth

From Wikipedia:
To Tell The Truth is an American television game show created by Bob Stewart and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions that has been aired intermittently in various formats since 1956, hosted by various television personalities.
The basic premise of the show consisted of a panel of four celebrities correctly identifyng a contestant (a "central character") from a choice of three possibilities, members of a "team of challengers." One of the contestants normally held an unusual occupation (a premise similar to the show's sister, What's My Line?) or had done something noteworthy, and it is this person whom the panel had to attempt to identify. Two of the people will tell lies, while the real person has sworn "to tell the truth.

To start the game, the host, along with the stars, read a sworn testimony signed by the real person on special documents called affidavits. Each of the three contestants claimed to be this person, and was interrogated in turn by the panel, who then voted for the challenger they believed to be the central character. However, any celebrity on the panel who actually knew or could recognize the central character would then disqualify himself or herself and abstain from voting, which would automatically be counted as a wrong vote for the panel.

Once the votes were in, the host would ask, "Will the real [person's name] please stand up?" The central character would stand, often after some brief playful feinting and false starts among all three challengers, and the two impostors would then reveal their real names and what they actually did. Prize money was awarded to the contestants based on how many wrong votes the impostors drew; the more successfully the challengers bluffed, the larger their final cash award would be.

1964 Red Corvair Monza Convertible

I've posted about this car before. John mentions this photo in his comments on that post: "There is a photo of Alphonse standing next too it with Mom in the drivers seat somewhere."

Yesterday, after Mom's services, as John, Ed and Tom were going through the box of pictures Jane dropped off at the attorney's office, they found the photo, still in the its frame. I had thought it was lost. It is a photo of my Mom and her Dad, Alphonse Carl Bansbach, with Mom's red corvair. The photo was taken in the driveway of our house at 1822 South National. The house was on the SE corner of National and Sunshine, now it is a parking garage. Anyhow, this photo has pleasant memories for me. Thanks, Jane, for sharing these photos with your family. I will see that you get a copy of this one too.

Great Jeep Rides, Part 2

Great Jeep Rides, Part 1

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day, be careful on the lake and watch out for wayward fireworks!We're going to the cabins!Our plans are simple: enjoy ourselves with Family and Friends, watch fireworks tonight from the boat, watch the race tomorrow night, and have a dang good time!HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

News Releases, Potluck and Pickles

I am wavering whether or not to stop my SN-L home subscription. The costs keeps going up and I can read most of what is in it, except for the ads, online. Of course I will miss pickles.

An then, of course there is the aggrevations of it getting soaked whenever it is tossed in the rain. Those little plastic sacks don't always keep the paper dry. I have gotten to be quite efficient at drying out the paper in the microwave.

Seems like most of the news is packaged press releases anyhow and I can read them online, if I wish, at Life of Jason's website. He runs them verbatim.

Couple of weeks ago I posted on some maps and some articles I found on the web relating to Springfield. This was a hard hitting series of articles, complete with visuals that must have touched a nerve for I received an email from Cheryl Whitsitt asking me to call her regarding this post. She told me this was the newspaper's property and I had no right to publish it and would I remove the links. Apparently she had also spoken to the publisher of the website because the links were dead shortly there after. I did remove the map because that appeared to be copywrited.

So, I can get my press releases from Life of Jason, I can get local news and commentary from blogs like Jackehammer and this new blog on the block: Stu's PotLuck.

But dang, I am going to miss Pickles!bus notes: a reader sent me this:

A news story the other days said General Motors has dedicated itself to building an electric.The story didn't mention the recent documentary film, "Whatever Happened to the Electric Car?", which explains how a few years ago the company built several of them and loaned them to several people in California to drive. The drivers raved about them, but GM abruptly canceled the project and refused to sell the cars to the eager loan drivers. Instead, GM forced them to turn the vehicles over to the company, which trucked them to an isolated desert location in Arizona, where the cars were crushed and cut up like junk.

I seem to recall these some of these cars showed up, without batteries, on ebay a couple of weeks ago. Any readers recall that also? I'd do some research today but I got to get ready to go bury Mom.

Firefall or Skatepark?

If the Parks can't afford to run Firefall any longer, how do they think can they afford to run the Skatepark?

Airstream Stuck In The Mud At The Fairfield Iowa Fairgrounds