Friday, December 17, 2010

Good Reading for Those Long Winter Months

I received the following email from Dale Chasse. Some of you may be interested in this. If so, you can contact Dale at drchasse@maine.rr.com...

"Say Bill, Through the years of building and remodeling I've come across and saved a few items I thought shouldn't end up in the dumpster. Here's a list,,,,,,,
You know of anyplace or anyone who might be interested in these rags.... Thanks, Dale

Popular Mechanics oct 65
aug 67
nov 67
feb 68
june 68
july 68
nov 68
dec 68
jan 69
may 69
june 69
july 69
aug 69
sept 69
dec 69
jan 70
june 70
dec 70
march 71
may 73
nov 73
march 74
april 74
dec 74

Mechanix Illustrated oct 68
jan 69
march 69

Popular Science july 68
dec 68

Sunshine Magazine july 74
sept 74
march 75

Street Machine jan 77
april 77
june 77

Super Stock sept 70
april 74
april 77

Car Craft dec 75
feb 78

Car and Driver nov 71
jan 72
march 72
june 72
sept 94
oct 94
nov 94
dec 94
jan 95
feb 95
april 95

Readers Digest july 74
Hot Rod oct 72
may 73
sept 73
nov 73
feb 75
june 75
nov 75
oct 77
nov 77
may 78
april 89
may 89
june 89
july 89
aug 89
sept 89
dec 89
jan 90
march 90
feb 93

Motor Trend may 89
aug 89
oct 89
dec 89

Motor Trends Guide to Chrysler/Plymouth 1990

Hi-Performance Cars april 73

Auto Buff sept 84
oct 84
march 85

American How-To nov/dec 94
jan/feb 95

Calenders Darlings Auto Parts 1993 and 94
Big A Auto Parts 1993

Joie Chitwood Flyer 1988

L C Andrews Building Supply Catalog 1961
and 1966

Northern Aroostook County Maine Phonebook for 1968

Showroom Brochures
1967 Chevy Impala
1967 Chevelle
Pontiac Lineup for 1971

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Thursday, December 16, 2010

How Cold Was It?

It was pretty darned cold this morning.

How cold was it?

I saw a politician with his hands in his OWN pockets...

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Snowy Boots & Sugar Cookies

(Reprinted by request)

As I sat alone in front of our Christmas tree in my living room (my wife and daughter had gone to an Evanescence concert), I decided to play some of the old Bing Crosby Christmas songs I had listened to as a child of the '50's. I closed my eyes, and a flood of sweet and bittersweet memories swept like butterflies across the meadows of my mind.

I could almost smell the balsam "Christmas tree" smell, and feel the dry warmth of the wood stove crackling in the night silence. The colorful lights that actually "bubbled", and "icicles" made of leaded tin and pewter. Mom had baked sugar cookies earlier, and the smell still lingered throughout the small rooms of the tiny house we called home.

Visions of Bing, Danny Kaye & Rosemary Clooney, dancing and singing at the Vermont inn, in "White Christmas". Dad carrying in wood for the stove, shaking off snow throughout his trip through the kitchen, and Mom none too happy with the mess.

And at 4 am Christmas morning, my older brother Eddie would awaken my kid brother Bobby and myself, and we would sneak out and get our ragged, long woolen stockings hanging from the bannister. Now stuffed with what in retrospect might today be called junk, each penny item was a true treasure. For the next three hours we would pore over the goodies, eat the candy, peel the orange, all the time yawning from precious little sleep the night before, as we held our ears to the vent in the floor, to hear if Santa was there yet.

My reverie was lost when the girls stomped in, shaking the snow off their own boots. And for a fleeting moment, I wished...I wished that if I could leave my daughter anything at all, I would leave her those very same, precious, bittersweet memories of a simpler time, a harder time, and a much, much treasured time. A time when the simplest things were the things that mattered most. And remembered longest!

And I smile to myself as the smell of sugar cookies waft through our home, the fire crackling in the parlor stove and the leaded icicles and bubbling lights on the balsam tree all tell me it was worth the effort to have the real thing. She may not understand it now. But someday, when she sits alone in front of her own tree, perhaps she, too, will be overcome with sweet thoughts of a simpler time, when the littlest things were the most memorable.

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