Sweet ride eh?

My ol' man is nuts.  

It's friggen awesome.  

First we got our kid baptized, then we went to the smash-up derby!

And that's how we do things around here in Mennonite country.

(Annyong did a very sincere, short and sweet testimony, and I am amazed over and over at how honest, good, and smart she is.  One nice lady complimented me on bringing my daughter to Jesus but I replied that it really was my daughter's decision... after all that is one major component of the faith.)

(We even had a few special-guest-loved-ones join us for church!)

(Also there were several broken axles, a couple of minor fires under the hood, and a couple incidents of one car leapfrogging another.  I took a picture but my iGadget appears to be snubbing my MacBook so I can't get it here.  Sorrayyyy.)

(Nobody got hurt.  A lot of Caprice and Crown Vics got messed up pretty bad though.)



(PRAISE JESUS!)

Heard every year at the fall fair...

AC/DC  Shook me all night long  (or various dance mixes, I'm not kidding)

Thank God I'm a country boy

Cotton-eye Joe

The Macarena

The chicken dance

She thinks my tractor's sexy

Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses

Save a horse, ride a cowboy

Welcome to the jungle 

Redneck woman

And that's just during the 4-cylinder figure 8 race and demolition!  

Me, My Truck, and the Very Difficult Decision

Today, I called the insurance broker and told her to take the coverage off my truck.

Because

I won't be driving it anymore


Because


of THIS.

THIS

is a real drag, a total bummer, a huge disappointment, a stupid mistake, and a sadness all rolled up into one expensive problem.

THIS  is a little car accident I had at the end of June.

We weren't hurt but the other car was finished.  Being a total tank, my truck got out still going down the road as straight as it ever did, but less functional with that side smashed in, and a whole lot uglier.

I didn't blog about it because... well, come on.  You can see why, right?  Who the heck wants to admit on the internet that after 5 years of driving this brute that a stupid lane change ruined everything?  I sure didn't feel like putting that up on the internet.  I was going to fix it.  Well not me personally.  I am not good at fixing things.  I'm good at bodywork but I don't do it anymore. We figured we'd get a gently used door and panel, since parts for these trucks are easy to find, and after some hammering and welding and likely some swearing, we'd be able to get into and out of the truck from the passenger side again.

I drove it like this all summer.

Feeling even more paranoid than usual.

Telling myself we'd fix it.  Just not yet.  Soon.

Here's the thing: I LOVE THIS TRUCK.  I know it's not really anything special but I totally dig it.  I love its bigness.  I love the way it sits with the ass end higher than the front.  I love the proportion of the long box and extended cab.  I love the split bench seat, love the backseat, love the big black steering wheel.  I love the 350 cubic inch displacement, all 8 cylinders worth.  I love that it's over 20 years old.  I love that it's mine.

Here's the other thing: it's got a lot of annoying little things wrong with it.  Door handles, turn signals, things lighting up on the dash that shouldn't.  Some rust has poked through. Now the only working door won't close right.

sigh.



And... THIS.

Add it all up and the result is:  it's not worth fixing.

So I'm sad.

And slightly weirded out by how much importance I place on it... as part of my identity.

You know.  I'm the small woman with the big truck.  I'm the girl with the gnarly old beast that would make many drivers quake.  I can parallel park this sumbitch.  I can look down, literally and figuratively, on all those normal people who drive, y'know, cars.


I'm also ridiculously sentimental.  I have a hard time letting go of things.  I tend to name machines and other inanimate objects.  With me, it's not just a truck, it's a friend!


Well, so long friend.  There will be no rock-n-roll flat black paint job in the future, with bright shiny red rims to contrast, which is just as well since my ol' man scoffs at my big awkward truck and also I don't do bodywork anymore.  There will be no fixed up dash.  No new tailgate handle.

As of today, she's off the road.


even though I'll keep it around

cuz the township says we're allowed to keep a project or two

And since all the scrappers are gone now

I can just hide it under a tree

in case I need parts

like those nifty taillights

or the frame hitch

for my next truck....

The scrapper has left the property...

After four months of sweat and tanks of gas to get to the scrap yard... propane for the cutting torch... chains on the tractor... every scrapper in the yard is gone.  The yard isn't empty exactly, because the horse trailer project still waits for us and the old Pontiac waits for a new owner.  In the last week, the last two old Ford trucks went to the Great Scrapyard in the Sky.  

I won't say I hated to see them go.  My ol' Man's exact words were "Not a minute too soon."  He's been feeling the pressure to get the yard emptied.  Truth is, there is something ridiculously sad about sending a wreck off to scrap.

This had been a useful truck up until a few years ago.  When its owner got out of the snowplowing biz, he brought the two black Fords out here with the intention of doing some kind of project.  But good intentions are hard to keep up with once jobs and kids and mortgages happen to a guy.  He chose to spend his time and money on his wife and kids instead of difficult old trucks.  He made the right decision.  It's hard to let go though, and I know that.  The transmission from this one and the engine from the other truck are still here; he'll be picking them up soon.  Once a gear head, always a gear head.  

I grew up with stuff like this in the backyard.  Only back then it was stuff from the 50s and 60s.  

I knew that it was, and is, actually possible to take an old wreck and turn it into something that can be driven.  It's just that it takes huge amounts of work and money and time.  I'm not willing to sacrifice any of those things anymore.  

But I'm still fascinated by an old truck with a rotten floor.

In 1981, you could still get a truck with a plain bench seat, rubber floor mats instead of carpet, and a steel headliner.  It was practical and all about WORK.  No cupholders, nothing... fancy.

Although it still boasted some mighty spiffy fake woodgrain!!

(Notice the CB holder beside the radio.  As my kids would say, "old School.")

Yeah I'm sure in its day it was a bitchin truck, with that row of clearance lights on the roof and whip antennas, it was a mean ol' 4x4.

So anyways, it and its slightly newer brother, languishing behind the hill for years, are outta here.  

It's the end of an era.

(And the beginning of a nice, empty piece of land at the back of the property.)

Hi my name is Heidi and I'm a tack addict.

This whole idea of my daughter's to start riding English instead of Western has started to feed my insatiable hunger for more gear.  I love the tack shop.  I am so finickity picky about my tack, wanting every bit to be free of green slobber --- good luck! -- and all my reins to be soft and smooth and pliable.  I hate dust in the cracks and the carving on my saddle.  Almost all of my tack is second hand, or as I prefer to say, "broken in."  I have picked up more tack and general horse gear lately in order to reach my certification.  Had to get a lunge rope with no chain, a lighter lunge whip, a crop, new spurs, a new bit and reins, and leg wraps, to practice the bandaging part of the stable management test.  I mean, I HAD TO get this stuff.  And I got so much of it used, so it was like half price, like I AVOIDED SPENDING twice the amount.  I may be crazy about horse-related items but I'm also famously cheap.  And the only thing better than good used tack is free tack!  

I took Girl and a friend to the local Greenhawk franchise this afternoon.  Once we oogled and awed over the new shiny blingy gorgeous stuff, we headed back to the giant USED section.  Oh my.

It was one of those rare good deal days.

She found a pair of purple suede half-chaps for $30.

(She contributed to this purchase, which is only fair.  Also she is obligated, no choice, no whining, no excuses, to give me free barn help whenever I ask, no matter how physically difficult or tiring or dirty the work is.  Plus I don't want to see any dust in her bedroom!)

I found a full cheek snaffle for $10.

A set of leather braided English reins for $13.

(I have a bad feeling that the bridle is too big for our Little Lady but we'll see.  We've got good reins and bit anyways, right?)

Winter paddock boots for $32.  Yeah I already have knee high winter riding boots, but this way, if Girl wants to ride with me, we have two pairs.

Plus I scooped a curb chain out of the FREE box!  

I also bought a brand new hard bristle dandy brush for Phoenix.  It's purple.  I don't care if Bucky thinks it's kinda gaaaaay to use purple stuff on a gelding.  He's a horse.  He does not care what colour saddle pad I use on him.  Besides, he looks gorgeous in purple!  It really sets off his dark brown spots.  It's the colour of royalty and Phoenix is my prince.  

So I spent some money, but most of it came out of my secret cash stash.  It's all good stuff.  I'll use it well and happily.  You know, in the future when I'm teaching lessons I'll need lots of extra stuff, enough to fit different horses and different riders and...

Oh who am I trying to kid.

I just love tack.

I love cleaning it, I love the smell of it, I love dressing up my horses in it.  I love organizing my tack room (which is really just the back of a wall and shared with a Honda 4 wheeler and a 72 Buick Skylark) and I would rather spend a day lovingly hanging up bridles and sweeping cobwebs than putting away dishes and vacuuming the couch.

Proof: I found my camera last night.  It was under the couch cushions.  This is a clear indication that I do not vacuum often enough.

But there are three pairs of clean riding boots at the front door, and two sparkly clean, soft bridles with shiny bits hanging where my purse should be.  On the next hook, where my coat should be, there's a bag containing an eggbutt snaffle, a pair of nylon reins, and a curb strap, all stuff that I've replaced with my *new* stuff.  There's a place for all of it in my tack room.  I've got an old green tack box to hold my growing bit collection, and a hook for extra curb straps, and a collection of extra reins in another trunk.  You must always have extra reins.  I am ready for anything.  

I do not have a problem. I have no problem with my problem.  I hardly spend any money on my habit.  Some women spend more on their make up. I only cut my hair once a year.  I'm very low maintenance, I just want to be well equipped.  C'mon, this makes me happy.  I could stop any time I want, but I just don't want to stop.

It could be worse.  I could be addicted to buying more horses.  THAT would be a problem...

The Wheels are Turning.

Jethro just drove past the house, on his way from the bank, to the highway, to work.

The pavement is wet, the truck is extremely loud on account of the engine not actually being connected to the exhaust pipe, and, well, he's a small town dude in a pickup truck.  He pulled up to the stop sign at the corner, waved his giant hand at me (from my bay window I can see the corner clearly) and then squealed them big snow tires and rumbled down the street.

Ahhh yes.  Just being our uncouth selves, here in this nice town.  

Today, while he's playing with electrical wires and things at the studio, that big ol truck will be getting new brakes, and a new engine pipe!  This is very exciting for me, because I really like brakes.  Brakes are so good.  I like brakes on horses too, but on trucks it's just really important. A working exhaust system is equally wonderful.  Not only does it keep your jaw from vibrating against your skull as you drive -seriously, it's not just loud, it's skull-shakingly loud - but a nice tight exhaust creates back pressure, which means more power.  A V8 with no exhaust is gutless, meaning you have to step into harder to make it move, and you go through more gas.  Need I say that I do not need to be pouring any more gas through that monster?  So it may sound cool, and bitchin, at least that first BARK  after turning the key, but let's just say it gets old fast.

Back pressure, and power, and brakes... this all makes me think of riding horses too.  If my horse is all stretched out, I might have less control of his body, and might not get a good stop out of him.  But, if I can run him collected (back pressure) then he's right there when I need a transition.  Transmission of power, back to front... I must not wear spurs when driving.  

I'm so excited about getting the truck fixed!  Maybe later this week we might be able to get the left turn signal fixed!

And the door handle and pull strap! 

Maybe even the interior light!

Weatherstripping  around the door?

I wonder if my mechanic will be grossed out by all the horse hair and dog hair and gravel and pine needles and possible tiny microscopic fragments of manure???

My rubber boots are still behind the front seat, but I'm doing town stuff today.  I don't need to wear barn boots to the bank, although that would be funny.  Same same, different pile?

The slick lil Jetta sits in the wet driveway waiting for me, with my gnarly old saddle stuffed into the hatch.  Jethro had to move the saddle out of the truck so he could fit the radial reciprocating skilsaw into the cab.  He's had enough vocal tuning and has turned his attention to iso-booth construction.

Me?  I gotta go take my saddle to the bank, and then let it ride along to Zellers to buy some longjohns.  

After that... me, pug, and computer.  Couch.  Words, words, words.  It's been spinning around in my head and it's time to put it in gear and get rolling.

The wheels are turning.

YEAH, I CAN TELL YOU'RE JEALOUS OF MY HOT ROD.

That's why you're checkin it out when I roar past.

I know it.

You just jealous.  

(Git yer own exhaust leak, man.  Don't be coveting now.)

My truck eats exhaust systems

So I was on my way outta town yesterday morning, out to the Little Valley to fill in a riding lesson.  There are a ridiculous amount of stop lights and subdivisions and strip malls and gas stations on this road now.  There's a lot more town here than there was two years ago.  And a lot more traffic.

I stepped on the gas at a green light and thought, "Hmm.  Someone's got a noisy V8 nearby."

I stepped into it a little harder to get up the hill.  "Hmm,"  I thought.  "I think it's my V8 making all that noise."

Top of the hill, next intersection, right up by that horrible Waaaalmart megahellmall?  Yep.  That's definitely an exhaust leak under my truck.

By the time I crossed over the big highway and through the next light, it wasn't just an exhaust LEAK but a FULL ON, MUFFLER UNHOOKED, STRAIGHT OUTTA THE ENGINE PIPE RAW UNFILTERED ROAR.

It's been well documented here on Hick Chic that sometimes it's kinda fun to drive a pickup truck with the full on roar.

But yesterday, the buzz was pretty short lived... by the time I got to the Little Valley ten minutes later,  I was picturing dollar signs floating out from under my truck!  

I'm thinking, "Didn't we just pour some money on this a couple years ago?  Like in my world, a two year old muffler and tail pipe combo is still brand spankin new???"

When I got home I did what any self respecting, farmer raised, tomboy, recovered gear head would do:  I left it running in Park, laid down beside it on the driveway, and tried to take a look.  The muffler looks fine.  Pipe is good.  The engine pipe doesn't look great though, and the noise is clearly louder at the front.  I can't remember if the engine pipe got replaced when we got this shiny new motor put in last year.  

Whatevs, man.  There's more money to be lavished on the old truck, money that is not happening right now, and it's looking like I'm going to be driving my faux hot rod like it is for an indefinite length of time.

Plus it needs new brakes.  

So watch out for me, everybody.  

Ah'm loud, and ah'm unstoppable!!!!!!!!!!

Yikes.

It's Hick Sheek Fashion Week!

One of my favourite subjects, other than my horses, kids, husband and my book, and Johnny Depp, is clothes. I love clothes.

Not like some girls love clothes though. I don't particularly like the mall. Price tags generally make me feel faint and woozy.




I love buying clothes at the local feed mill. John Deere hats! Wranglers! Roper boots! Work gloves...canvas coveralls...rubber boots...ahhhhh! I love that stuff.

Here's how this week will go:

Today-The basics of hick chic

Tuesday- what pisses me off about work wear

Wednesday- my favourite things

Thursday- Hick Chic Fashion Hall of Shame

Friday- CELEBRITY HICK FASHION SHOW!!!

I know! I'm as excited as you are!


The hoodie is one of the most important pieces of workwear. Unless you like having numb ears or hay in your hair, get one.





Or get this one.




Unless you're a guy, then don't get the pink one. Well I guess you could if you want to. Whatevs, man, I am not here to judge.

Besides, I'm working on my "Less Hatred, More Hay" masterpiece I'm sure everybody can feel happy about the world when wearing something like that.

The cap is another essential piece. I actually have this one, although mine is very worn and faded now! The kind with the mesh back is better for summer hot weather. Keep that in mind.



Keeps the sun out of your eyes, covers your hair, doesn't get in the way when you have to lean on a horse to pick up a hoof, and for those of us with long hair, a ponytail fits through the adjustment hole! It's the perfect headgear! Unless of course, it's cold and windy, in which case you need an earflaps hat which could be a whole blog posting on its own!

Don't forget the gloves! I wear gloves for everything- gardening, riding, sweeping, tractoring.

Here are my favourite work gloves:


I have seen pink riding gloves too. Maybe some day I'll get a pair.

I have a few very cool leather belts, but sadly, I've never had a classic belt buckle. I need to save up my pennies for this one.


I know. I'm not a farm girl anymore. But I was. I will be again. Sort of. So I say it counts.

Jeans. What a subject. There are the ones I wear to go out, as in, to a public place where people will see me, and riding jeans. Truthfully, I rattle around the house in some nasty old track pants. I have one particularly favourite hideous pair that my stylish daughter hates- they're green and purple plaid and she calls them clown pants. They're comfy. It's a farm kid thing to only wear the good stuff when you're out of the house, as in, off the farm, going to town, going out in public. It saves laundry, actually. See? Practical.

Before I get into riding jeans, check these out. They are lined in flannel!!!!


Oh happiness. I'm almost dizzy just thinking about it.

I've spent the last few months trying to get back to my Wranglers weight. I got them a few years ago and got hooked. I can't explain what it is about them that makes them special, but they really are better jeans for riding. I'm wearing a pair of Silver jeans lately, and although they do the job, I keep wishing I could fit into my Wranglers again. I do find the waist a little high. There's just not much room between my ribs and my hips. Other than that they're so comfy.



This is how you wear them- so long in the legs that they're all wrinkled up around your ankles when you're standing. There's a reason for this. When you're in the saddle, they'll be the perfect length to end up just at your boot heels. They won't ride up around the stirrup fenders.

And speaking of boots...there will be a whole blog post on boots. My life revolves around boots. Here are a few pairs that I don't have. But very much want.

Cute or what?




Hey! Y'know? Right?





Oh but wait!!!

Yeah!



I will have these. Some day, when my children's feet have stopped growing and I don't have to buy boots for them anymore, I will have a pair of these boots. I'll wear them everywhere. I'll wear them from April til November.


To top this off, I'd liek to share a few photos that make me very happy.

This guy rocks. Love the dog, love the stone wall, if I had a slicker like that I'd ride in the rain a little more happily, and it takes guts to wear a mustache like that, buddy dude!




I'm sorry, when your outfit is this cool, mud only makes it better.




I don't usually post photos of people I don't know, but these ladies are so adorable I have to. Those are some nice overalls and coats they're wearing.



I especially like the red outfit! I like the tractor too. I doubt I'll ever have use for a monster of a tractor like this. I hope they're having fun with it!

And finally, I like everything about this picture.




I like the horse's ears and neck positiion. Love that hat, the jacket, the vest. Nice deerskin gloves. Great hat. She has good hair too. She kind of looks like Sheryl Crow. I like Sheryl Crow because she, like me, has small 'uns, messy hair and a mole on her face. Yep, sometimes I like people because of physical similarities to me and what they're wearing. It's like I never left grade 4. Except that in Grade 4 I had no idea a person could look this good in Carhartt.

I need to save up some pennies...that Carhartt stuff is the best but it sure isn't easy on the wallet. It's worth it, though.

So what exactly is Hick Chic? For me, it's about wearing comfortable, well fitting, practical clothes that look good. And it's an attitude too. I don't need to dress nicely. I don't need to wear what all the glossy pictures tell me to wear, even if I do have a good time looking at those pictures. I know where I come from, I know what I like, and I know what I'm comfortable in.

yep, I'm a hick, no matter where I end up. And darnit, I'm vain enough to want to look good!

But not too good if you know what I mean!

1957 Pontiac Laurentian

I think you should click and enlarge these pictures. The textures are delicious.





We dragged it home about 20 years ago. It's a Canadian model, slightly smaller than the American Star Chief. Since then, we've taken off all the chrome, which is still under the dresser in my old bedroom at the farm, taken it off the frame, and repaired the gaping holes in the rear quarter panels. And yeah, when boys found out I had vintage chrome in my room, I became more interesting! Someday I'll tell you about the crowd at the shop when I was that age.

Dad called me the other night. The conversation went as it usually does: I say hello, he says YEAH and goes straight into what he needs to ask/tell me.

This time it was like this: "YEAH. A guy came in the other day and asked what we want for the Pontiac. He wants it reeeeal bad. He said he's got a buddy with a '57 Studebaker Hawk that he might be able to trade for it."

Now I must explain a few things, because as much as all of this is normal to me, I have to stop sometimes to consider that my upbringing may not have been considered all that normal by most folks.

My dad was a farmer/ backyard mechanic. He has painted hundreds of cars. I've owned four working vehicles in my life and the truck I'm driving now is the first one that was not intercepted on the way to the junkyard. The rest I just sorted ended up with, and my ol man fixed them up and we put them on the road. The first thing I did when I got my GMC was take it home to Dad for new fenders and wheel wells and a new coat of paint. This is the way it is. I grew up with several wreckers in various states of construction and deconstruction, lurking in the backyard behind the shop. I played in old cars. My sister and I pretended we were runaways and stuff, runnin from the fuzz in our hot car with four flat tires. Heck tires were a bonus. Some were just sitting on rims, or on the axles.

We got the Pontiac in a trade for a '62 Impala. It was a nice car. Wouldn't have taken much to get it going. But this one...when I was 12 I decided I wanted a '57 Chevy. Soon after I realized that every other car freak on the planet did too. It's one of the most beautiful cars ever built.



The Pontiac though, is slightly different. It's chunky and muscular.





So now, another dude wants to buy it. I've been ordering the ol man to turn everybody down for 20 years. He's been prepping the steel, getting the fibreglass front fenders and hood that came with it ready for primer. He's got the new frame stripped. He's been working on it. We've been collecting parts for it here and there, always on the lookout for a deal. But I'm really broke. This guy, whoever the heck he is, is dangling money in front of our faces. Supposedly.

Now for the shady Studebaker option. This is what kicks me in the gut. First of all, I don't get it. He's gonna trade his buddy's car? Does the buddy know about this?

That's not the real kicker though. You see, the Studebaker Hawk is the Car That Got Away. It ended up in a field upside down and I really don't want to talk about it. I wasn't even there and it makes me feel kinda sick. There are two things I always figured I'd do for my Dad if I ever get rich. One is buy his farm back. The other is get him a Studebaker Hawk.



This car is one rare bird. It's so unique. I have only seen a few close up in real life. Isn't it hard to believe that it's a North American car? I think it looks a little European. I've heard this car was ahead of its time. Dad regrets losing his.

I can't buy my Dad's farm back for him if I can't even afford my own farm. But let me tell you...it is very tempting to give up one of my material dreams to get him one of his.

To be honest I doubt this alleged deal. I can't tell you how many times in a week some tire kicker wanders in off the road and wants to buy something. They sometimes want to buy a horse too. He doesn't even tell me about all of those because he knows it royally pisses me off.

We have dreams of going to street rod meets and cruise nights in the old Laurentian. We'll do it up in black primer like a real early 60s street machine. We'll put cheap Canadian Tire seat covers on it because we'll run out of cash before the upholstery phase of the project. The two pieces of chrome trim on either side of the grille will still be missing. It'll get through the safety check and that'll be as far as it gets.

At least that's been the plan...

Last weekend, we were still cold...

...but this weekend it was in the high 20s celsius, which means wearing a sleeveless dress to a wedding was perfectly ok. It meant that I was too hot the next day when I was wearing my favourite plaid jacket to brush the mares. (I had to cover up though- the hair was flying. Some birds looking to make a nest will be very happy.)

Big difference from last weekend, when I was wearing a woolly earflaps hat. And a parka.




A week ago, the little mare was still covered in mud. The corral was wet.



My boy was wearing his barn coat to go outside and help Papa bust up some old lawn mowers for scrap. (That's a whole other story and yeah, I'll tell you about it.)




It's over. Today I'm doing yard work in short sleeves. It's time. I want to believe that the worst of spring is over and now we can have to part of spring that everybody talks about. The nice part. Bring it on.

(I'm having the worst Undiagnosed Attention Deficit problems in the last two weeks that I...wha? That's why I'm talking about the weather.)

EVERY WRECKER HAS A STORY, DON’T IT?

In its day, two decades ago, this car was legendary.

It was already about fifteen years old and had been seriously modified. It belonged (and still does) to my friend’s big brother. We’ll call her JS and we’ll call her brother RS since I can’t think of anything better to call them.

RS was one very interesting individual. He was about ten years older than JS and he was big. He did absolutely perfect imitations of Worf from Star Trek. He wore plaid shirts. He was the kind of born again Christian who took no crap from anybody and called it like he saw it. And he built some unbelievably hot cars, dude.

This was his car, a Buick Skylark. (Jethro and I are debating the year-possibly 1971) It was one of the fastest street machines in the area and that’s quite an honour, because our neck of the 519 area code was literally crawling with hot cars. In any small town on a hot summer night in the 80s, you’d hear them- no, you’d feel them- as they rumbled down the street, barely keeping those RPMs down to legal limits. If RS happened to cruise by in this car, it was like the parting of the Red Sea. Just get outta the way. He wins.

There was no mistaking it either. No other car had a colour anywhere near this. Even now in its permanently decrepit state, you can see that. RS told us that the paint was a total fluke. I’m not sure anymore if he ordered green paint and the shop mixed it wrong, or if somebody else wouldn’t take it because it was wrong, or if RS and his seriously edgy friends threw a bunch of paint in a huge drum and came up with this bizarre colour.



He and his two buddies had their own car club, just the three of them. They had a name and everything. Each of their vehicles had a name too. I can't remember those names.

I should ask RS about these things next time I see him. Or maybe not. A little bit of mystery only adds to the story.

In any case, being a small, goofy skinny teenager impatient for a driver’s license, I looked up to my friend’s brother with big wide eyes.

I hadn’t seen The Skylark in ages and assumed that it had been scrapped long ago. RS and my dad are still pretty good buds. I may have mentioned before that my ol man is the Guy With Five Acres and a Shop, and therefore ends up with a lot of buds and their stuff. RS has two pieces of stuff on my ol man’s five acres. One is a brown road worthy Skylark which shares barn space in the winter with my saddles and bridles and sweet feed bin. The other one is...The Skylark.

I couldn’t believe it when I saw it last fall. I thought it was lost and gone forever. I mean, sure, it’s a mere shadow of its glorious former self. But we car freaks, junk collectors, whatever you wanna call us, we have a hard time letting go of our legendary machines. There might be a part that can be pirated off of it and in a way our favourite car can “live” on a little longer. And some of us, of course, simply have an insidious mental illness that forces us to hoard every piece of crap we ever laid our hands or our hot little accelerator foot on.



Both RS and JS live in the same town now with their own families. JS has gotten over her car silliness but I don’t think RS ever will. He’s always got a project, like he always did before, and like my dad, will never run out of projects. I’m not really sure what’s in store for The Skylark. It doesn’t really matter though. We stood there with our hands jammed in our pockets as if we were admiring it at a main street Show & Shine, breathing lightly on it but not touching it, because in our minds it was still a lean mean shiny green pavement eating machine.

She's baaaaaack...

I have just returned from the armpit of the big bad city in my pickup truck.

I have my truck back. I have my truck back. I have my truck back. Thank you for playing that country song in reverse.

She's now running a REBUILT CHEVY 350 SMALL BLOCK V8, BORED OUT TO 355 CUBIC INCH DISPLACEMENT, THAT'S A 5.7 LITRE IN NEW-CENTURY SPEAK.

ruh uh uh uh. Hear me grunting over my spanky new motor. It's sooooo clean.

(You can tell I've been terribly urbanized over the last 15 years because we actually took it to a mechanic to do the engine swap. My first pickup's motor got changed with a rented cherry picker- yeah that's really what the hoist is called- in the gravel driveway of our rented house at the time. My ol man told me he'd never ever ever do that again. Well he's all soft, isn't he, he's got a nice warm shop with a hoist in his backyard. Lah dee fricking dah!)

Now I have to spend the next ten days breaking it in. This means putting as many clicks on it as I can, in varying RPMs, to get the motor all lubed up and running well. It's like a brand new truck.

The odometer says 323,000 km. (Sorry, not sure how many miles that is.) We all suspect that somebody a few years back turned the odometer back before selling it. The squeaky dash is a good indication.

But now it's 18 year old truck and it's like new. On the way up the highway it felt... different. Stiff. It seemed to take more foot power on the pedal to get it moving. After a half hour's drive it already felt more responsive.

Oh happiness. Don't get me wrong, I'm severely stressed about the money involved. This is several thousand bucks that we really could have used for other things....like property taxes... and it is not totally paid for yet...but it had to be done. The truck is actually useful again! I won't be constantly worried that the tired old 305 will just quit some day, just grind to a halt, and stop running. It'll be powerful enough to do the things that trucks are meant to do! I am also not very yhappy though, about the amount of gas it will take to do this fun "breaking in" over the next couple of weeks. If Jethro drives it into the city for work, it's going to cost about 5 bajilliwillion dollars in gas. Dammit.


Well screw it. You can't haul a horse trailer with a VW Jetta. I mean, I haven't tried, but I'm pretty sure you couldn't. I'm pretty sure...You can haul bags of oats and shavings in a nice little Jetta but there's always that risk of messing up the lovely carpeted hatch, whereas the truck is just purely meant for all kinds of nasty stuff. It's just the way god intended, okay????

So anyways, she's safely hunkered down beside my house after the maiden voyage with the new powerplant, and I'm all chest painy and finger jittery and leg shaky. I'll just be over here with my beer.

Damn, I love my truck.

My Third AND LAST Boyfriend!!

Three days before Valentine’s Day in 1987, a series of coincidences and circumstances met up and formed my future. It was like, totally cosmic, man. It was destiny. I mean, it was density.

I had switched to a high school in the nearest (somewhat medium decent sized) city, because I’d been very sick in the fall and missed the first half of my Grade 11 year.

My friend Biddie had just returned to Ontario from a year and a half in Nova Scotia. We were very relieved to know that we’d be going to the same school in January.

A guy I didn’t know yet had blown off his Grade 12 year because he was going to be a rock star. Instead he ended up eating a lot because there weren’t any gigs, maaaan. Guess what school he planned to go to.

Biddie and I met up in the hallway. She asked me if I knew this guy from her hometown, who hung around with her brothers. Lives behind the mill? Plays guitar? Fixes cars? I didn’t know him, but his name sounded familiar.

She decided that all of us had to meet, what with having Smallburg in common. It was pretty strange that I hadn’t met him. Turns out he’d gone to Rural District High School the entire time I’d been there.

Biddie and I walked through the maze of hallways that made up Middle of City High School to meet up with this buddy. She introduced us.

I remember details among blur. Biddie was wearing her black mini skirt and her very cool flat pointy toed black shoes with the little zippers on them. I think she may have been wearing fishnets too. She was killer hip.

I was wearing a long black shaker knit skirt- it was like a tube- and a blue plaid flannel shirt. I marched to my own drum, kids. I was hick- chic already back then.

The tall young fella was leaning against his locker with the laminated parking permit in one hand. He was wearing jeans, a blue sweatshirt with FLORIDA on it, a denim and khaki jacket, and giant huge canoe sized white Converse sneakers. He was kinda round in the middle, which was directly related to the demise of the rock star career and short but intense TV watching career. He had shoulder length dark hair, professionally cut into an incredible shag haircut. All spiky on top, longer around his face, and long at the back. He had that long oval British face, and tear drop shaped eyes.

Of course, I noticed immediately that his eyes were green and framed by those loooong eyelashes. He was cute. He was cool and casual and I liked him.

It was not love at first sight though. I was still deeply tangled up with boyfriend #2. There was no thought that this guy would have any place other than as a new buddy.

I asked him about his car. He said it wasn’t on the road yet. He was bunking at his sister’s place in the city until he got his car plated.

“What kind of car is it?”

“Oh... you wouldn’t know. It’s old...” he mumbled.

“No tell me! I love old cars!”

“It’s a Strato Chief...”

I yelped. “The one under the snow bank!”

He looked surprised.

“My dad was gonna buy that car, but when he called Buddy Byner somebody else already bought it!”

Well that was enough. I had proven myself as a cool chick in his eyes. I didn’t realize at the time that under his obnoxious attitude, he was shy. When this nutty girl told him that he’d bought her car he had a nice little ice breaker.

There was that boyfriend thing though. Danny was getting quite the nasty reputation around town. He’d moved in with a friend and all kinds of stuff was going down there. We fought constantly and it was getting ugly.

But I had a new friend. He never took a wrong step, never said a bad word, just stood by smiling. He offered to drive me home from school so that I wouldn’t have to take the bus for over an hour. It was only another ten minutes out of his way. He and Biddie and I spent our lunch hours together. The weather warmed up with spring and I slowly, painfully disentangled myself from Danny. My new friend hung around calmly, just kind of .... there. Smiling away, being a steady presence in my rolling boil of a life.

Being in his space was wonderful. He made me feel good about myself, after months of feeling all black hearted and cruel.

As we got to know each other, we discovered some interesting things about our parallel lives. We had so many mutual friends. We’d been at many of the same parties (like that bush party I keep promising to tell you about). I remembered looking out the window of my typing class and seeing his goofy red Chevette with the ridiculous high rise hood scoop. Our paths must have crossed over and over again.

Chances are I might not have liked him as much if I’d met him a year earlier. When he was 16 he started apprenticing to be a mechanic. Being raised by a total gear head of a dad, I would have been cool with that. I would have been cool with his rock band gigging too. But in those days when he was bombing around in his 4x4 pickup truck, finishing off a 24 case of beer all by himself, and getting free weed from his buddies, he would have been just another weed puffing beer guzzling 4x4 driving gear head. I mean, honestly, there were so many of them and I think any of us girls could have had our pick!

He’d had time to think. He’d come close to wasting a year of his life and decided to smarten up a little. Just a little. He was still obnoxious. But he was putting one foot in front of the other and getting it together.

So was I.

Spring turned into summer and everything was changing. He’d been out jogging every morning before school. He was getting good marks, and playing his guitar every day.

I was no longer somebody’s girlfriend.

I wasn’t taking the bus home from school anymore. Sometimes I got to drive the big ol Strato Chief. I got to put my foot down on the 283, and wait approximately five minutes until the Two Speed Powerglide finally clunked into second gear. The cassette player bolted under the dash provided us with tunes. Iron Maiden, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Diamond Dave’s solo record, because we were mad at Eddie for firing him. Aerosmith’s Permanent Vacation. Lots of Dio. Rush’s Hold Your Fire. Black Sabbath. Ozzy Osbourne’s Randy Rhoads tribute. And of course, copious amounts of Led Zeppelin!

Nobody’s ever accused the Artist Currently Known as Jethro of being a flirt... but he had his ways. Leaving the school one afternoon, walking across the green lawn, he said, “Hey! Let’s play follow the leader!” Then he grabbed the bottom of his T shirt and yanked it up to his chin. I had mine up to my ribs before I started laughing. He got me laughing a lot.

Everybody else saw something happening. I really didn’t want a boyfriend. Not again, not yet. I just wanted him to be there all the time. I got off the bus in the morning knowing that he’d be at school by lunchtime. I loved the half hour drive home from school and wished it was longer. It started taking a long time for me to get out of the car at 4:00. He started hanging around at the farm, checking out my Dad’s collection of interesting vehicles in various states of decay and reconstruction, and eventually, letting my mother feed him.

I met his wacky English parents. I sat in his room while he played guitar. He had the best T shirt and Hawaiian shirt collection I’d ever seen.

School ended. We started hanging around at the local quarry to go swimming. He’d drop me off at home with a little hug. Just a hug, because we were just friends. But the hugs got longer. We’d stand at the door just hanging onto each other.

Then he gave me a nice friendly peck on the cheek. And he’d get in his car and drive away while I stood there feeling his lips on my cheek for minutes afterwards, afraid to move and forget what it felt like.

By the time he finally kissed me, after the Canada Day fireworks, I thought I’d stop breathing, I thought the top of my head was gonna come off, I thought my toes were on fire. I thought my chest would burst open.

I was in looooooooove. Deeply, strongly, permanently, furiously, crazily, happily, insanely in love.

And that could only lead to a wedding and like, babies and stuff.

But as I come up on the exact 20th anniversary of the day we met, I’m still stunned by the way it all fell into place.

If I hadn’t been very sick, I would have stayed at Rural District High School while he went off to be a rock star.

Or if his rock star career could have led to some good gigs, and eventually writing and recording, and I never would have met him, other than possibly having posters of him on my wall, because he was pretty like Kip Winger. (But not as self-serious and less hairy.)

If Biddie hadn’t come back to Ontario, she wouldn’t have been there to innocently introduce two of her friends to each other.

If I hadn’t gone through the wringer with Danny, I might not have been ready for this guy.

And what if Buddy Byner had sold the Strato Chief to my dad????

It could get silly from here on in. I mean, like what if a young man hadn’t sailed away from England with his violin on his back and his middle finger in the air and landed in Canada, that sort of silly wonderings. But the point is, when all of these events swirled together and landed us in the same building, none of us knew where it would go.

Thank God.

(and Biddie.)