The man who owns a '56 Chevy; a school bus goes off the road; dusk horse raises its tail
Friday, December 18, 2009 at 4:02AM ;)
This is Bill, who lives two houses down Sarah's Way in the opposite direction from the one I took yesterday. Bill owns, rebuilt and maintains a very sharp looking, smooth-running, classic 1956 Chevy that he bought for $100. He painted it black and red/orange and when you see it coming down the road, it catches your eye right away and you wish that you were riding in it, Buddy Holly on the radio, that you were young and had a pretty girl clinging to you, nibbling at your ear, giggling each time she almost makes you crash.
Perhaps next summer, I will build a blog post around that Chevy. I know there is a good story in it.
Almost nine years has now passed since my first black cat, Little Guy, the one who passed straight from his mother's womb into my waiting hands, stepped out the back door on a day with three times as much snow as this one and disappeared.
I was devastated to lose that cat and I went up and down the street, knocking on every door to see if anyone had seen Little Guy.
For weeks afterward, whenever he would see me walking past, Bill would ask me if I had found my cat. He always looked very concerned. I know he was keeping an eye out for that cat.
I still appreciate that.
;)
Bill blows the snow off his driveway.
;)
A cottonwood tree, bent down toward Tamar.
;)
Muzzy and a snowplow.
;)
As I walked one way, this school bus came driving the other. Shortly after it passed, I turned just in time to see its right wheels slip off the shoulder of the road and then slide right into the culvert.
Anyone who lives up here long enough will do this kind of thing sooner or later, probably a few times.
It can be embarrassing, but it must be worse when you have a busload of students.
;)
One of the students looks out at me.
;)
As St. Bernards do when people get into trouble in the snow, Muzzy comes to help out. Unfortunately, he forgot to bring his little barrel of brandy.
It's a good thing, because the driver shouldn't be touching brandy and the kids were all too young.
If someone had brought a dog harness, we could have hitched him to that bus and he would have pulled it right out.
But nobody had a harness.
;)
I walked on, leaving the bus and kids in it to be rescued by the school district.
;)
Margie is in town with Lavina and Kalib and will be staying with them overnight in their new house. She left some bills on the counter for me to pay. Along the way, I saw this guy on a green snowmachine waiting for a green light so he could cross the road.
When the light changed, the left turn arrow turned green for me, which meant this guy's light was still red. As I began my turn, he gunned his throttle and shot straight across the road directly across my path. Maybe he was not waiting for a green light at all, but only for a gap in the traffic passing in front of him so that he could run a red one.
I believe this falls into the category that Melanie AND Lisa* calls, "soooooo Wasilla!"
;)
This is what it looked like in front of Wasilla Lake.
;)
This person got stuck on the divider.
;)
A school bus passed by without mishap.
;)
I took my coffee break at the usual time. After I stopped at Metro Cafe, I took the long way home and passed by this horse as darkness drew down. The horse raised its tail and then dropped something.
*updated to include both coiners of the phrase: see Lisa's comment
Reader Comments (8)
Ah, the old "schoolbus in the ditch" days. We grew up ten miles from town and we were the first ones on that old yellow bus. Our route was long and so we were also always the last bus to arrive at school. The very best winter days were the days the driver either backed into or slid into a ditch and we had to be rescued and we got to miss the first half hour or so of school. An exciting thing for children. Poor Edgar, our driver. It was not fun for him.
horses don't have thumbs so i hope you helped it pick up whatever it dropped.
This one has been bugging me for a while, but its only fair to note that both of your daughters coined the term "thats so wasilla."
Sorry, Lisa. I guess its because Melanie planted the term in my head when we were in India and I wanted to get one of those colorful, artsy-painted trucks they have over there and bring it home and put in our yard for people so that people passing by could be amazed. Your sister said, "that's so Wasilla." As she was applying the term to something we were seeing in Chennai, India, it just stuck strongly in my mind from that point on.
Anyway, I have corrected it and will try to do better in the future.
Whitestone - I almost always had to walk to school. I am jealous.
Dahli - actually, picking it up would have been a good way to warm cold fingers, but I did not even think about it.
A favorite thing for me and the kids on my bus was being held up by a freight train....but being that we were headed for my Catholic all girls school with a nun on the bus all we did was say more prayers and ...sing more songs!
ooh, love the shot of the blue horse. and to think how worried i am about our predicted first snowfall here in suburban philly. sposed to begin in an hour. i've got my writer's group where i'll present a new poem about swimming and after that the funeral of dear ann tucker. hope lil me can manage like all you snowbirds do in alaska.
Where is Bill today???
ManxMamma: That would have been wonderful - to be stuck in a bus, watching a freight train go by! I would have prayed for God to get me off that bus and to put me on that traiin, see where it might go.
Ruth: I hope you are having a lovely time in the snow.
Michelle: Here I am.