New Year. Old Man.

 I got nothin'! 

That's what I said when I started this on the 27th.  Now it's the last day if the month so let me tell you about my new year thus far.

I tested positive for COVID on Christmas Day.  The only effect right away, in addition to a low-grade fever, was not being able to taste my coffee.  Heeding the recommendation of a few family members I began the five-day regimen of Paxlovid.  Ingesting six pills a day in two groups of three, left a taste in my mouth like sucking on a penny (don't ask how I know that taste), that no amount of brushing or drinking various liquids could mitigate.  A few days after I finished the pills and felt almost a hundred percent, I tested myself again. POSITIVE!  No physical evidence at all this rebound round.  Another week an all was negative and still is. 

I visited Louisiana last week to connect with Kelly's family.  Even though they were up for Thanksgiving, it felt right to spend some time with them on their turf.

That's pretty much it.

I'm feeling my age.  Something this morning triggered a memory of working on a Model T Ford coupe back in the late '50's with my high school buddy Dick Foster.  He had located the car in an old barn a few miles out of town. The body had been separated from the chassis but both were in the same barn.  Dick offered the owner of the place ten dollars for it and it was his.  We pumped up the tires with a bicycle pump and  towed the chassis to Dick's shop,  He then borrowed a hay wagon and tractor from one of his cousins, and we went back for the body.  The body was in great shape once we removed many years of dust and hayseed.  The chassis was another story.  The property owner's kids had played on it, tearing some of the seat fabric, and mice did the rest.  The seats were fixable, but the kids had also taken a hatchet to the core of the brass radiator and that was not.  

We went to work cleaning things up, replacing some parts on the body that had suffered too much wear and giving it a new coat of black paint. though it didn't really need it. We removed and disassembled the engine and were happy to find it in good shape. While it was out, we scraped and painted the frame and replaced the mouse-chewed wiring where needed.  We reassembled the engine and painted it red before setting it back in place.  Then we were stuck. This thirty-five year-old machine needed its radiator replaced so it sat in Dick's shop.

Until one summer evening after work on Lawson's dairy farm, 

I decided to take an alternate route home.  I crested a hill on a road I hadn't ever traveled before and saw, up in a meadow along with rusting farm machinery, a Model T Roadster.  I pulled into the drive just as the farmer was coming out of his barn.  After exchanging greetings, I asked him about the roadster.  He told me it was rusting away. "Gonna sell all that up there for scrap." he said.  I asked him if I could take some parts from it.  "Whatever you want.  Ain't no good."  I grabbed my toolkit and hustled up the hill, returning twenty minutes later with an intact brass radiator!

We sold the coupe for $3500.00. I believe.

I learned a ton about cars from Dick over the next few years then I went off to college and we lost touch. He died of cancer quite a while ago.

Part of what brought that memory is the realization that the Model T Coupe we worked on came out of the factory 100 years ago!

If you've read this far, I admire your tenacity.

Until next time,

Namaste