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I used to have a chainsaw that ran really well. I still have it, but it has not functioned for some time now. I took it in for an estimate and they told me it was an odd brand (Sachs-Dolmar), and they did not have any idea where to get the parts. They also told me that the piston and cylinder were scored. Then they wanted me to pay them for the time they spent deciding that the guys who made my chainsaw were smarter than they were.
In its glory days the old Sachs-Dolmar would make short work out of any kind of a woodcutting project. As long as I kept the chain sharp. My brother Lyle told me of going on a firewood gathering project with some fellows from his church. After the first hour or so, the party changed from cutting wood and bragging on the merits of the various brands of chainsaws to a group participation act of trying to help one another make any chainsaw present cut wood.
Life for me has been all too interesting since I underwent surgery for total joint replacement on both knees. Since no one reading this is getting any younger, perhaps my experiences will be useful to someone else.
Several people have asked if they added to my height when they put in the new knees. The doc claims not. But I can now stand with my legs fully straight, a thing I could not do before, so I may well appear to be taller. The other regular question is why in the world I would have both knees done at the same time. The doctor recommended I do both at once. He said physical condition of the patient and whether one knee was noticeably worse than the other were the pertinent factors in this decision.
1 The number of women I have been married to. I intend to keep this one forever. Among other things, I’m too old to start breaking in another one. Number One tells me I’m so set in my ways that another one would not want me anyway.
2 The times my son Dan out-shot me at a sanctioned handgun silhouette match. The first time it happened I told him to walk home. In thirty seconds he had five offers of a ride home that included stopping for ice cream on the way.
Pop cans have changed over the years, particularly the method to open either pop cans or those containing “barley pop.” Those very much younger than yours truly think a “church key” is the key that unlocks the door of a house of worship.
I love to eat turkey. I know that the logic of the thought is faulty, but it seems to me the more turkey I eat, the fewer turkeys there are in the world.
It was 1968. I was freshly married and in college. The employment I found to go with the college and the new family left me working Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and attending college Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. My employer had a fair amount of farm land as well as a small feedlot and too many turkeys.
Overheard from a fellow who was married to a beautician, “It’s like being married to a chameleon, I never know what I’m going to come home to.” He went on to talk about asking questions only his wife would know the answer to before patting on the fanny the redhead who had been a blonde ten hours earlier.
Years back, Leo and I would occasionally hear the drone of what we assumed to be someone flying the night mail. I suggested to Leo, one time, that as discouraging as things were at the moment, it might be in order to sell the hay trucks, buy a twin Beach airplane and fly the night mail. Leo pondered it for some time, and then replied that in all the years he’d been involved in things powered by motors, he had yet to find one that would not eventually need to have a mechanic called to it.
Dan Mori was one of those fellows who was doing something all the time. He got a few more years of good use from a K-model International Harvester pick-up truck by transplanting the engine and transmission from a Ford Thunderbird into the old truck.
If I remember right, Vince Lombardi said it (if I have his name wrong, blame my son-in-law). The immortal quote goes something like this: “It doesn’t matter what the coach thinks. But if the coach can make the football player think that he can do a job, then there is no stopping him!”