Family Archives

June 27, 2014

Sarah and the Mileage Log

I’ve written before about how Dad was the consummate record keeper who would produce handmade pocket journals where he would jot down notes of the day’s happenings and document every penny he spent.

I got an email from Son Matt asking if I had a blank mileage log book because Wife Sarah had filled her’s up. I usually keep a couple in the bottom of my sock drawer for such an emergency. When she came by to pick it up, I expressed some degree of surprise because right after they got married, Matt tried to get her to keep car records, but she resisted.

Finally, she admitted, they bought her a new car and she gave up. “Steinhoff me,” she told Matt. She wasn’t sure if this her third or fourth book in 14 years.

Click on the photos to make them larger.

Dad rubbed off on me

I’m not sure at what age I started keeping a mileage and expense log in my car, but I know I was doing it by the time I moved to Athens, Ohio. I definitely was doing it by the time we moved to Gastonia, N.C.

Gastonia Gazette reporter Joel Groves must have been sucking air for a story in the doldrums right after the holidays because he interviewed me for a piece on driving expenses. I notice in the photo that I not only kept records like Dad, but I was beginning to emulate his hairstyle. That’s a serious comb-over starting to happen. I didn’t realize until just now that my part had slipped to just above my ear.

Sure would like those prices today

The story pointed out that I used my car for business, so I had to keep careful records for tax time. When the story was published on Jan. 9, 1972, I was driving about 30,000 miles a year, most of it chasing photos. Here are some of my expenses:

New wiper blades and a headlight – $9.10.
Quart of oil – 85 cents per quart (40 cents if bought by the case)
Generator – $39.61
Typical maintenance – oil filter, $2.95; four spark plugs, $5.40; points, $2.90; air filter, $2.85; new belt, $3.10; labor, $18.
Four radial tires – $150
Two snow tires and two tire rims for them (for ease in swapping tires) – $95.83 plus $32.40.
Fuel – $998.90 (24 mpg with AC, 28 without AC)
All told, including car payment, insurance, tag and expenses, I spent about $249.24 a month on my car.

June 23, 2014

“That’s FOUR-FIVE Years”

“I had a post all ready to go when I checked my Facebook messages. Son Adam had tagged Wife Lila and me: “Happy anniversary you crazy kids.”

Lila had been working on a quilt and hadn’t seen the message. When I read it to her, she looked sort of mystified for a moment, then said, “Tomorrow’s June 23. That’s 45 years. THAT’S FOUR-FIVE YEARS,” she added, holding up four fingers, then five fingers.

“Wow,” he said.

We usually forget the date

We have a long history of not remembering our anniversary.

It’s been a good FOUR-FIVE YEARS (that’s 45 years, not implying four or five good years out of 45). I guess I should put the Big FIVE-OH in my calendar. That’s a real biggie.

June 19, 2014June 19, 2014

Many Sheets to the Wind

Wife Lila and Hilary, my former chief lab tech, were talking about clotheslines on Facebook the other day. Lila said, “I couldn’t do without mine. Whatever doesn’t have to be ironed goes on the line. On a breezy day, sheets dry in 10 minutes and look like they have been ironed.”

Hilary, who lives along Taylor Creek at the north end of Lake Okeechobee, said she hasn’t seen a clothesline in years, probably, she thought, because her homeowners association prohibits them.

Florida is a Right-to-Dry state

I pointed out to her that Florida is one of at least 19 states that prohibit restrictions on clotheslines under Florida Statute 163.04 which deals with “energy devices based on renewable resources.” Lila shot this video of Grandson Malcolm running through her laundry way back in 2007. The story with that information was written in 2012, so your state may have been added by now.

Want to buy a cheap clothes dryer?

Thinking about clotheslines made me remember a mailorder scam I read about from the ’50s. A wiseguy posted a bunch of ads offering to sell low-energy clothes dryers for $20. Some of the people who sent in their money only to receive a clothespin in return mail complained to the U.S. Postal Service about being ripped off. The feds said they were sorry, but a clothespin qualified as a low-energy clothes dryer, even if it’s not what they THOUGHT they were buying.

[Editor’s Note: notice how Grandmother Lila starts to call Malcolm by Son Adam’s name at the 50-second mark?]

June 14, 2014

Family at Kentucky Lake

I was looking for some appropriate Father’s Day photos when I ran across these shots taken at Kentucky Lake. My green Datsun has 1974 Florida tags, so this must have been the summer of 1973. I bought that car in Gastonia, N.C., just a few days before I left for Florida in January of that year. Brother David, whose driver’s license was so fresh the ink hadn’t dried, was drafted to drive it while I piloted a U-Haul holding all our possessions.

The dealership agreed to have someone man the service department on a Saturday to do the initial 600-mile service, so David and I went out to put as many break-in miles as we could. He was a little uncertain about driving a manual transmission, so I told him, “Just get it in high gear and don’t worry about shifting until we need gas.”

Wife Lila buzzed along in her yellow VW Bug herding us like wayward cattle. She did great until we hit West Palm Beach where she turned right off the turnpike instead of left toward civilization. I managed to honk her down before we all ended up as alligator bait.

A trailer for togetherness

The first trailer Dad and Mother had on the lake was tiny. I don’t know how we managed to stuff six of us in there. We must have had to synchronize turning over.

Trying not to smile

Dad had this funny way he’d stick his tongue out when he was trying not to smile. He’s obviously pulling somebody’s leg, probably Wife Lila’s.

He couldn’t hold it forever

Eventually, the smile would bubble over. Mother’s still trying to maintain her composure, though.

A happy couple

We had a lot of happy hours on that lake.

Dad died there of a massive heart attack while he was building a sandbox for Grandson Matthew in 1977. I’m sorry he was taken from us so early, but I’m glad it was there and not in some hospital surrounded by beeping machines.