Back to Last Months Brick Swap

This entry was started on Thursday June the 18^th. Finally I got it finished up…..

Got home from the road Monday evening. WHEW! This past month of back to back road trips has me tore up. Bill headed back to Florida early Wednesday morning, so I have my house back to myself again. First thing I did was to turn off the air conditioner! I was a nervous wreck hearing that compressor cycle all the time!

For the record let me rehash the “Brick Swap” in Hastings, OK.This entry covers Friday, May 22, 2009.

It was a 190 mile trip from Dallas to the host Hampton Inn located in Burkburnett, TX. I left the Motel Six around 10:00 a.m. I wanted to give the traffic a chance to clear out. I planned to have a leisurely trip this day. The traffic was flowing easily as I headed north. There was no rush to get to the hotel early so I poked in the little towns that were by-passed by the main road.

Business 81 into Decatur.

Decatur, Texas was my first stop. I had to stop and backtrack to get some pictures of the “Petrified Wood Station” a landmark in this Texas county seat. What a testament to the motor courts that once dotted the countryside in the early days of automotive travel. The day was heating up. I tried to put myself back in time to the 1920’s traveling to Decatur over rough roads in a Model T Ford and stopping here for gas and refreshment…..

The downtown Decatur area was under a great deal of construction. The city square proudly boasted a magnificent stone court house. I poked around in some of the antique shops actually finding a Coffeyville “Sunflower” brick. I had the shop owners fascinated explaining the brick swap I was headed to. I overpaid for the brick, but I like to think I was supporting a small business, and it gave me souvenir of Decatur.

Headed north I was getting hungry. Exiting the main road I passed the crossroads community of Alvord. On the southwest corner of the crossroad intersection I spied a café with lots of vehicles parked in front. That looks good to this boy. I pulled a “U” turn on the deserted road and parked on the side of the building. Being a local place, I felt all heads turn and look when I entered. The waitress said to sit anywhere. I picked out a spot under a ceiling fan and got a sweet tea right off the bat. It was served Texas style in a HUGE glass with LOTS of ice.

I love eating in these places. My waitress was a friendly “Texas Girl’ who called me “Hon” and told me that I had to get the specialty of the café, the hamburger plate. I’m a pushover when I get a recommendation in this fashion. My lunch turned out to be a huge burger (cooked medium rare) with fresh home cut fries. The burger was half wrapped in waxed paper making it so easy to hold and eat. What a delicious lunch. My iced tea was kept topped off….. I swear I was sloshing when I walked back to the truck!

I arrived to the Hampton Inn right around three in the afternoon. A number of my friends from the Brick Collectors Club were in the lobby. I knew what this meant; a lot of the rooms were not made up yet. Fortunately my room was ready. It was heaven to crash onto a comfortable bed in a cool room.

The gathering tonight was about 30 miles away just over the Oklahoma border at Tab’s ranch. I left the hotel after a cooling shower to rendezvous with the other brick collectors at Tab’s place.

Driving over the flat empty countryside brings home how huge this country is. I printed out the directions from Google maps for the detailed directions. Out here using the mileage between points is more accurate than trying to count on non existent road signs. Tab had a placard at the intersection of his road greatly simplifying things.

What a spread he has put together. I had a great discussion with Tab’s sister and brother in law who explained to me how Tab at age 14 went to work and began to buy up land for his own place. There was a separate building housing the brick collection. Being an old time collector this collection had many rare bricks that never turn up any more.

Burgers cooked on the grill and the fixings that normally go with them was dinner. I’m sure getting my share of beef! But, these burgers were also delicious. These get-togethers are always so interesting. There is such a cross section of people who are in this organization. One of the mottos of the IBCA (International brick Collectors Association) is “some of the nicest people you will ever meet” are members!

I left before it got dark as I did not want to be driving on the country roads at night. Before turning onto the main county road from Tab’s I had to stop and snap a few pictures. The sun going down on the expanse of prairie and a huge field of what I’m assuming are “Black Eyed Susan” flowers nearly as far as the eye can see.

Getting Back into my Routine

Thursday was a great rowing morning in the river. The humidity was WAY down. The only bad part of the row was I forgot my do-rag. By the time we were ¾ done the sweat was running into my eyes making it nearly impossible to follow the stroke seat.

I had an 11:30 appointment for an eye exam. I’m losing the dental and eye benefits of my health care plan as of July 1^st. I hate seeing doctors, but figured I better take advantage of this soon to be lost benefit. My eyes have been good (I only need reading glasses) and it had been some four years since my last exam.

The exam was at a “chain” vision place. Gone are the days having the insurance covering Ophthalmologists and the like for routine exams. I had registered all my information at their on-line site to make things easier signing in. In trying to pull up the paperwork it was nowhere to be found. Their site seemed real shaky so I’m not surprised it did not save.

The optician who did the initial tests was very capable. She was my age so we had a lot in common. She was originally from Ohio so we were able to compare living between the north and Deep South. We shared a lot of common frustrations.

The doctor showed up and did the final exam. Everything was normal. My reading prescription was bumped up a bit, but my normal vision is still 20/20.

When the Dr. left, the optician explained that I could easily buy over the counter reading glasses. My insurance covers certain generic frames and basic plastic lenses to $80.00 I think. If I could put something together without it costing a fortune, I’d just as soon do that. I was warned about the lady in sales who tries to make you get every add-on possible. That lady was tied up with a customer. The receptionist and other optician were giggling behind the front desk, ignoring the customers entering the store. I’m so thankful my optician stuck with me and took care of all the paperwork.

This must be the norm in retailing now. Debbie complains constantly of how in the salon where she works the front desk is so unprofessionally run.

Back in the showroom surrounded by designer frames, I went to the meager shelf of cheap insurance covered frames. I found the perfect frames on my own. The optician who was helping me had to give her attention to this poor man whose glasses were not right. There were three other store workers huddled behind the front desk carrying on, totally ignoring the customers. This is a reason why I HATE shopping anymore…

Enough on this rant…….

I spent the rest of the day finishing up the digging and planting. I had to run the sprinkler before attempting to break up the topsoil. The ground was so dry; it was “harder than my heart”. When I was planting I was digging into mud, but it was easier than trying to break up the baked dirt. The only nursery plants I got were some knockout roses, lantana, rosemary, coleus, porchulacas, and basil. The rest I got from dividing up existing plants in the yard. This heat is real touchy for planting… hopefully everything will take.

The worst of the patio expansion started months ago is pretty well behind me now. From here on it will just be piddly clean up and organizing busy work.

Early morning in the backyard…

Today it was a humid hazy morning that Debbie and I did our morning walk in. For once we remembered to take our cameras. It never fails when we walk on the river there will be the most wonderful sunrise and we are camera-less! (I doubt if camera-less is a real word!!) The river was like glass and the sun was an orange blur through the haze. I wished I was rowing in the river instead of just observing from the bank. We have enough rowers to take out a sweep late this afternoon…..YAY!!!

Looking upstream into the sunrise from the Tuscaloosa side of the river.

Looking downstream. The dock and boathouse are located just before the bridge on the left bank.

Worn Out From the Heat

This boy is so beat up. Three back to back road trips and a house full of projects have old Jamie worn out. We are getting into summer heat now with the temperatures routinely in the mid 90’s and heat indexes in the 105°+ range. The perfect weather to sip iced tea under a cooling ceiling fan. Instead I’ve been digging and setting bricks in order to finish up the last patio addition project.

The brickwork is completed.

Debbie was so funny on our walk of the neighborhoods this morning. I was on a tear telling her of my Tuesday adventures.

The day started with a rowing session on the river. There were enough people to take out two sweeps. Our one older sweep "Big Sky Amigo" is functional but it has a lot of wood for the infrastructure. That makes it quite heavy to transport from the boathouse to the river. I helped to carry both boats to the water. We were drenched with sweat from moving the sweeps and launch before we pushed off the dock. We had a great row, doing drills concentrating on pushing back first with the legs, then opening up the back after the legs are extended, and then finally using the arms to pull back and finish up the motion. After turning around we rowed on the sixes using heavy pressure for half the strokes. I was beat by the time we got back to the dock.

I got to the Y at 10:45. I forced myself through a workout. Normally when I use the Concept II rowers I like to break down my sessions to two or three segments of 10 minutes each. After I warm up I try to duplicate times and strokes we did at the regatta, keeping the stroke rate at 33 per minute doing 1000 meters under four minutes. There was no way that was going to happen…..

Once home the bricks were sanded down and I got to work dispersing the dirt pile from digging up the new patio addition. The pile was hoed and broken up. She worst of dirt was sifted through an old screen to separate the pea gravel.

Then the grass had to be mowed and trimmed back. The back yard is finally coming into its own now.

I have a top section of an old power pole that is used as a bird feeder base and scratching post for Daggy and Stump. Its original location was in the middle of the new patio. I relocated it to the other side of the yard. It has been quite a while since our last rain. The ground is now rock hard. It took forever to dig a hole for the power pole with the two handled post hole digger

At about 6:00 I came into the house to chug down water and cool off under the ceiling fan in the bedroom. When you are drenched with sweat the cool house feels almost cold. When the air conditioner is running standing over the floor vent in the Utilkilt brings back memories of Marilyn Monroe. Mercifully, the heavy canvas does not fly up like Marilyn's flimsy dress! The Hunter ceiling fan in the bedroom was stopped! DAMN it!!! I was so pissed over this one. Back when I first bought this house in 1996 I splurged and got a Hunter Original Ceiling fan. Homo Depot had just opened up in Buffalo and at that time they only carried Hunter ceiling fans. The "Original" fan was on sale. I'm sure I have the receipt on file, but if I remember right the price was in the $300.00 range It was top of the line then, heavy as hell, manufactured to the same specks as the old fans, and the only fan that was still made in the USA. It has a constant oil bath to lubricate the works that insures many years of care free use.

The fan that stopped is a current Hunter Original fan only about five years old, manufactured in China. It is not of the same construction or quality of that first fan of mine. I need a bedroom fan so that stopped Original Hunter fan was taken down, and replaced with the first Hunter fan I bought back in 1996. That fan has been in constant operation for over 10 years with NO trouble at all.

Another project will be to tear into the stopped fan and see what needs to be cleaned out and lubricated. It is always something…..

By this time things are getting dark outside and I have not even had supper yet. Gary called. He was babbling away trying to get me aggravated in his “passive aggressive” way. Finally I had to tell him that I was doing everything in my power to keep sane controlling things I had a chance of controlling. Anything else right now I’m not messing with. “I’m hungry and need to fix up supper. Let me sign off.” was how I ended our conversation.

Hearing these stories Debbie said how all the pieces fit together. “You get so involved in these things and then when the weather heats up you get so crabby!!!” She is so right. Once these current projects get finished up I’m taking some down time to just sit back and RELAX!!!

That will include getting caught up with my poor journal. Thee are some three half written entries that need to be completed. I'm a month behind!!

Craigslist Fire Hydrant

A fun search tool I’ve been using for a while is to use the Google search engine to scour Craigslist for treasures. Type Craigslist into the Google window and then put into parenthesis the article you are looking for. Google will check all the Craigslist listings for your query. I use my “oddball” searches for this method. Thursday afternoon I was playing around in this fashion using “fire hydrant” as my search. Mother of Pearl!!! I turned up a listing for this Ludlow Hydrant in Buffalo, NY!!

Doing a check of the phone number on the ad I was able to ascertain this was located not far from where Gary lives. I called him right away and talked him into picking up and paying it for me if it was still available. I called the ad and spoke with the owner. Yes, it was still available. I explained how I was in Tuscaloosa, AL, but my friend Gary would be picking up and paying for the hydrant. I told her I would let Gary contact her in the matter, as there was little I could do 1000 miles distant.

Gary called me Saturday in the late afternoon to relate the adventure in picking up this hydrant. I was laughing so hard. Gary was on his way to tune a piano when he stopped to get this hydrant. It was located in the back corner of a terraced back yard filled with stuff. Fortunately the owner had a hand truck to move the thing up to the driveway and assisted Gary in lifting it into the van.

This man asked how it was going to be shipped to Alabama. “That will be real expensive to freight” he said. Gary replied that I was going to plan a road trip to get the thing…The man got mad then saying to his wife they sold it too cheap!

Gary’s next stop was to tune a piano for Mike and Holly. I’ve not seen Mike in 15 years or so. Gary explained how he had a fire hydrant in his van for me. I can just see the bewildered look Mike gave to Gary that was further intensified when told this hydrant number three for my collection!

Poor Gary was waiting for Sean to return home so he could unload it from the van when he called me. Believe me I know how heavy those damn things are! Now my mind is working overtime planning the next road trip that could be as early as Monday back to the hometown…….

Speaking of heavy… my poor truck was groaning under the crushed limestone I picked up from Scotty’s. It was a good thing I did not have to travel too far. That truck was really groaning. I don’t think I have ever overloaded so.

With the crushed limestone foundation pounded into place I was able to start laying bricks. This is the most time consuming aspect. Because I’m using different bricks, each brick has to be set and leveled. Also, because I’m laying these bricks with the names showing also raises problems. It is so good to finally see progress on this project.

I’ve been chuckling to myself for the past few days on how crazy my life of the past few days must look to those on the outside. What Cornelius said comparing my life to the “two Edies” from GrayGardens was so true!!!

Laying out the bricks. Those gel kneepads are a Godsend!!!

The finished section: The odd sized bricks are from last brick swap I attended in Wellston, Ohio.

Visitors from the other side???

I think it is safe to say our area is out of drought mode. This has been such a wet and damp spring. I can’t remember the last time my yard was so green. This wet has put a damper on the latest patio project. The ground is so much easier to dig, but it is not fun laying out forms in the mud. This is a job I dislike immensely to begin with.

Finally I dug out the last of trench late yesterday afternoon and began the aggravating process of leveling out the forms. Once that all gets poured I can start digging out the lawn. I currently don’t have enough bricks for the entire project. I can see this being a “work in progress” for quite a while…….

Tuesday morning while we were rowing, Ted installed the new ¾” pipes to the racks we made up. We parked the new shells on them and they worked! What a relief. The one bad thing was when figuring out the length of the pipe; we did not take into account when the shells are rigged up. Jason suggested the pipe be eight feet the same as the bottom supports. When we go that route we will have to jump to 1” pipe. More aggravation….but that is way in the future…..

My sinuses have been pumping out fluid on overtime for the past few days. Monday was so bad I was working with Kleenex stuffed up my nose to help stop my nose draining all over. I’m not alone as most of the crew out Tuesday morning experienced the same problem. Conditions seem to be improving though.

I’ve developed a friendship with a Cardinal since I started working in earnest on the latest brick project. This bird will fly onto low tree branches and annoy me till I throw a handful or two of sunflower seeds onto the patio for him to gobble up. He shows up regular as clockwork now. I was clearing up my tools at dusk yesterday and put out some seed for my new friend. I was sitting crossed legged setting up a shot with my camera to try and capture an image of this bird. I felt a nudging against my left side. That must be Stumpy giving me head butts; no wonder the Cardinal will not descend to the patio. I reached around… nothing. I then looked and checked. Stumpy was asleep on the stone bench at the other side of the yard. There was nothing that could have nudged me.

A friend of mine lived in this house as student in the 1990’s. He has told me how the one of the women who also lived here felt spirits. She always kept the basement door locked. She would wake up in the morning and find pennies that had been pushed under her bedroom door. I’m not sure if it was somebody from her church or the university who came and affirmed there were indeed spirits here. The house was “cleansed” and the pennies stopped.

I’ve felt presences here before. They are friendly so I’m not going to get crazy. The next time I head to New York I’ll stop and have a reading at Lillydale. To see if I can learn anything.

This is a wonderful psychic community. Back in the spring of 1995 I stopped and had a reading. The medium I saw was amazing. When she entered the room she started to sneeze, her nose began to run, and her eyes turned red and watery. She asked if I had bad sinuses. My answer was “yes, they are terrible.” She then explained she was fine before entering the room, she picked up on my rotten sinuses.

She then explained how she “read auras”. I sat across a table from her. She took a large piece of drawing paper and used pastel chalk for her reading. I have this paper tacked to the wall of my workshop…

She then interpreted this for me. Some of what I was told and the reality follow:

I would be changing jobs: Late on this one. I had just transferred out of a department I had worked in for many years to a different job.

There will be a great deal of building in my future: Maybe in my past. I was finally finishing up on the restoration of my old house I’d lived in for 17 years. My remodeling days were soon to be history. The last thing I wanted was to do that again!

I was surrounded by death in those I had lost, but this was not a negative effect on my life: Here she was correct. I had lost an address book of friends during the AIDS crisis. My Aunt Fran died in Jan 1994, my mom in December 1994.

I was allowed to ask one question regarding the spirits surrounding me. I did not really have a specific question. I just wanted affirmation things were well with my mother who died the previous December. “There is a picture of your mother in a gold frame. She wants you to hang it by your bed” I was told. There are not many framed pictures of my mother, especially in a gold frame. But, I knew just the picture she was describing to me.

This picture of my mom (on the right) and aunt Fran was taken on Long Island Sound by mom’s cousin Criss. Aunt Fran is clutching a chocolate bar! (Criss is still kicking and will be 101 this year!)

Little did I know then in less than one year’s time from this meeting: I would be making plans to change jobs, sell my house and move 1000 miles away and begin restoration of another old house! She was right on after all.

Never Buy New - Mend and Make Do

Going back to 1976 when I got called back to GM from over a year lay off, things were pretty tight financially. My job was buried deep in the bowels of “building eight”. At that time there was a maze of conveyor lines for parts, fixtures, and the assembled cores to ride on. It was a dirty, oily, noisy area. Clothes generally did not fare well when you had to run a “clincher” like I did. My friend Al ran a clincher on the opposite side of the supply line from me. We used to have “contests” to see who could make their clothes last the longest. It got to the point where we were putting patches over patches. This drove our co-workers crazy. Whenever we would get deriding comments on our attire we would just answer back, “Ma always said, never buy new, mend and make do!” That would drive them even crazier. My poor mother hated to sew: nothing could be further from the truth in her case. My dad used to tease about the time he asked her to sew a button on his shirt, and she told him to buy a new shirt!!

I was saddened that one of my Great Aunt Bess’s monogrammed hem stitched sheets finally bit the dust, getting a huge tear. Aunt Bess has been gone from this earth for nearly 50 years now. My mother would never use these sheets because they were too “good”. Well they have been good enough for this boy to use! I could not bring myself to rip this fabric into rags. Instead I was able to salvage enough good material from that old sheet to make up three pillow cases! I was just shy of getting four because the remaining fabric had a couple tiny holes starting….

Sunday I worked some in the yard before the bad weather hit. It was just before daybreak when I loaded up the wheelbarrow with the busted up concrete from my latest project. Over a block and around the corner was a half full open construction dumpster. The hardest part of these projects is getting rid of the debris. The streets were deserted as I made two trips over with the concrete. I don’t need to have the neighbors seeing me wheeling that crap down the street in a wheelbarrow! I don’t need the authorities to see me either. That would be all I’d need, get busted for illegally dumping

Going through old pictures I found this shot of me in a rowboat from 1959. I was seven years old at the time. See I’m a natural at the oars!

I was thinking of how Cornelius “read my beads” a few weeks ago as I was tuning up the Singer treadle sewing machine to stitch the pinned fabric together this morning. It has been quite a while since I’ve used this old machine. It took a lot of oiling and adjusting to get the stitches flat and even. I was chuckling to myself as I hemmed up those pillow cases. This is not the life of a “normal” middle aged male I’m living.

May: Brick of the Month

I’m so far behind in my writing. With the first of May it was time to change out my profile picture for the “Brick of the Month”. May’s brick is a cream yellow paver brick. It was acquired from my first brick swap in Paris, Illinois back in 2007. My now good friend Jean in the Brick Collectors Club saved this for me. It was made in Empire, Ohio by either standard Clay Co 1928-29 or Standard Fire Brick Co 1903-1919.

Jean is such a knowledgeable “bricker”. She has a wonderful collection and always lets me know where the good bricks are during the swaps! We have mailed bricks back and forth using the flat rate boxes. The post office workers silently groan when they see me in line!! They never know when I’ll be sending off heavy parcels!

Speaking of bricks, I’ve been working on the expansion of the back patio. It is so good to be working with the brick saw again! There was a section of the patio where there were a bunch of odd angles and heights. That has been broken out and will evened out. There is always some kind of brick project going on here!

The broken out mess:

The first reconstruction and addition:

This first work used many of the bricks from the last brick swap in Wellston, Ohio. I can see these bricks now and relive the history behind their acquisition.

My rowing crew is still basking the 2^nd place we earned in last Sunday’s race. I’m so glad we carpooled together. It was a great opportunity to bond. On the way home it was Alison, Peter and I in Alison’s car. We listened to all kinds of eclectic music as we talked.

We were out of the Chattanooga traffic when Alison asked if I were dating or seeing anybody. This was the moment of truth. Do I come out in the open or do I hide in the closet? I answered Alison, “Well, you probably figured out I’m gay. I lost my partner Ron, back in 1992 to AIDS. I’ve buried an address book of people and am so numb emotionally, I doubt I’ll ever have that kind of relationship again.”

Alison is in her upper twenties and Peter is 39. They had no idea what it was like to live thorough those dark years of the 1980’s and early 1990’s as a gay man. I tried as best I could to explain those times. We are on a much closer level now. By showing how being gay does not mean you are an “oversexed barfly” and can contribute in a positive way to life, helps to take away the ammunition for hate and intolerance used by the extreme right.

The country is in such a different place than it was even 20 years ago in acceptance of being gay. I did the right thing.

We are really into spring now. The Confederate Jasmine is in full bloom. The sweet smell of those blossoms is everywhere. The old box fan is working now in my bedroom window pulling that fragrance into the house as I type this out.

Here is one of my pillars draped in the jasmine. You can see the fire plug from DefianceOhio to the right….