Bitsa

The Keed.

The world’s oldest Citation

It appears the world’s oldest Citation (pictured) has covered it’s last mile.
As I pulled out our driveway this afternoon (Sunday, January 14, 2007) to go to the mighty Canandaigua Weggers, the world’s oldest Citation had its front-tires on a dolly behind a Chevy pickup.
The world’s oldest Citation was previously owned by neighbors up-the-road, and they put it up for sale last spring: $500 (the picture).
Randy Willard (our mighty Mezz carrier) looked at it and passed. It was bought by our neighbors to the immediate south, apparently as a car for their kids.
It got quite a bit of use, and occasionally we would see it parked at Michael Prouty Park nearby when walking our dogs.
The kids would be inside doing who-knows-what — probably dispensing beer-bottles for us seniors to exchange. (“That’s five cents, man......”)
Come winter and it got parked; resting forlornly under a tree.
This afternoon we heard the muted rumble of a motor, seemingly in a car trying to slide around on the ice. It sounded like it was stuck.
What it probably was was the world’s oldest Citation being driven onto the dolly.
Got itself up there, apparently — just like our Dasher going to Goodwill on three cylinders.
I don’t know if it’s actually the world’s oldest Citation. A few weeks ago I saw another I was tempted to photograph. It looked older than the world’s oldest Citation. It was a silver two-door, and, like all GM silver paint, the hood had gone black.
The world’s oldest Citation was a four-door, and was an ‘86. The silver one was an ‘84.
Months ago, when owned by the neighbors up-the-road, the world’s oldest Citation was at Michael Prouty Park occupied by a fat girl reading a paperback. “The world’s oldest Citation,” I said.
She heartily agreed.

At Weggers I overheard some lackey bossing another. “Ya gotta move things along, or go home,” he loudly commanded.
As I walked away, I heard “here’s the scenario. Ya gotta move things along, or go home. It’s pushing 3:30. Ya gotta move things along, or go home.”
Who knows what they were talking about, but all I could think of was mighty Jack and his contractors. Think yer boss, and ya gotta be bossy. How does Weggers ever get to be the best place in the entire world to work?

Coming home I was followed by a glowering intimidator in a big black Dodge Ram pickup. His headlights were glaring in my mirror; he was right on my bumper — I guess I wasn’t going fast enough; like 152 mph.
He finally roared past, giving me the one-finger salute. Doing so meant riding on the other side of the double-yellow climbing a hill.
As he cut in front of me, sure enough, “W-04” on the tailgate.

At mighty Weggers I saw what appeared to be the Faithful Hunda — although I don’t think it was. It had hubcaps, and the Faithful Hunda’s hubcaps are still in our garage — i.e. I took them off long ago when rotating tires.
I circled around, to see if it had the telltale rust-mark on its tailgate, but there was rust all over. The tops of the wheelwells were rusted through, and there was lots more rust on the tailgate.
So it might have been the Faithful Hunda — sure looked like it, and the Faithful Hunda was not damaged much — but if so, the owner had got hubcaps for it. The rust looked like what it would be after another winter (last winter — and even part of the one before that).

At long last, my shampoo-brush is being consigned to the Flint landfill.
That shampoo-brush is 11 to 12 to 13 years old. The one I had before the stroke disintegrated shortly after I came home.
Oh, woe is me. The fact I can’t remember exactly when or where I got this most recent shampoo-brush is surely indication of failing memory; that I can’t possibly remember that mysterious Reading railroad-facility I never passed, and my memory of a toilet-paper roll-shaped water-tower atop the Scott-facility across Industrial Highway from the Philadelphia airport is obviously confused. (And I didn’t attend no prom; and if I had, I’d probably remember who I took. I took Linda Lily canoeing — that’s one date.)
The back came off the most recent shampoo-brush shortly after I got it, but the bristles were still fine, so I kept using it.
But recently the bristle-backing disintegrated, so that it was resisting my attempts to clean it.
So in the trash!
Shampoo-brushes don’t cost hardly anything, so my old shampoo-brush has been replaced.

Tonight we set up online viewing of our Chase-Visa statement. Nice idea. Means I can update my Quicken Visa account as charges are added to it, which means reconciling in no time — same as our checking-account.
But it wouldn’t work in IE; only worked in Netscape. I have to remember what browsers work with what sites: e.g. our checking-account only works with IE; Visa with only Netscape. When I order online, I use IE because Netscape often bombs, and sometimes locks up the machine. So Visa is a Netscape toolbar favorite, and CNB (checking-account) is an IE toolbar favorite. It’s the old curser-insertion waazoo. No curser-insertion under Netscape in the checking-account; no curser-insertion under IE in the Visa. Thank ya, Gates!

My brother Jack in Boston is a boss.
My brother Bill in Delaware bought a turbo-Volvo a few years ago, and proudly proclaimed it would do 152 mph.