Family heirlooms

Going through my grandparents’ belongings, I learned a lot about their lifestyle and standard of living.

For instance, their everyday plates, saucers and cups were “Platinum Wheat,” a brand of which one received a new piece with the purchase of food dry goods.  Same for their forks, spoons and knives.  Even one of their antique lamps, converted from kerosene to electric, was once free with the purchase of ten gallons gasoline.

Much of their furniture was purchased secondhand, at thrift stores or such.

Such, indeed, was the life of a chief warrant officer and his wife in the middle decades of the 20th Century.

Lowcost life in the lower half of the state of Florida.

Drove a Dodge Dart for a long time.

Entertained themselves and their neighbours with self-produced staged shows, taking the productions to local community centres, senior centres and nursing homes.

He fished and smoked cigarettes until emphysema put him on an oxygen machine.

She made experimental floral arrangements for Federated Garden Club competitions until old age put her in a wheelchair.

A happy life together.

Comfortable.

What more do we, can we, will we ask for?

Milieauxatrix

13537 days to go.

On the all-in-one Soundesign dorm room stereo system plays an audiocassette of 1970s electronic music — Klaus Schulze or some such, even though the cassette tape box is labeled Deodata/Weather Report — the cassette pulled from a moldy tape holder shaped like a briefcase, containing copies of music by Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Doors, the Police, the Tubes, Adam Ant, Isao Tomita, ABC, The Who, Toots and the Mehtas, Muddy Waters, Douglas Adams(Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), Johann Sebastian Bach (Brandenburg Concerto #4), Jimi Hendrix, Модест Петрович Мусоргский (Pictures at an Exhibition), 50 classic radio commercials and self composition of mine on electronic music synthesizer.

The room now contains a mahogany bedroom suite from Sears, Roebuck and Co., out of Knoxville, TN., along with my grandfather’s sea chest and boxes of assorted memorabilia from a bungalow in south Florida.

While rearranging the sets of states of energy to make room for more, I found two mini-posters from my Southwestern Book Company days, meant to be displayed in your car or room as inspiration while selling books in the hot summer sun:

“MENTAL TOUGHNESS
IS ESSENTIAL FOR SUCCESS

And Mental Toughness is not something you are born with –
it’s something you develop, one day at a time.”

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“The credit belong to the man who is actually in the arena, whose
face is marred by dust and sweat and blood … who knows the
great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a
worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end of triumph of
high achievement, and … if he fails, at least fails while daring
greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid
souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

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I also found:

  • a stack of bumper stickers, including “I SAW SLUG BOY” and “WE’LL GET ALONG FINE AS SOON AS YOU REALIZE I’M GOD”;
  • books such as Dad’s copy of THE LIVING BIBLE and my copy of “Unfinished Tales” by J.R.R Tolkien;
  • a ragged STAR WARS beach towel from 1977;
  • souvenir clay drinking cups from Greece;
  • purchaser’s coupon book listing monthly installments of $59.16 sent in 1957 to Singer Sewing Machine Company, 35-41 Kings Highway East, Haddonfield, New Jersey, by Mr. L. B. Hill of 534 Garren Ave., Norfolk, VA., with a repair bill of $85.60 ($1 for Bobbin Wonder Ring and $79 for service) on 2/3/98 by Expert Sewing Center, 1900 Tamiami Trail Unit 109, Port Charlotte, FL 33948 (Carrousel Center) for Richard L. Hill, 7940 Sydney Ave., North Port, FL

Will all of these fit on the spaceship and what is the cost in energy, both food and fuel?

Fuelage, mileage, silage, signage

According to the keyring that came with my rental car agreement, I have been driving a 2013 Nissan Altima 2-door, black paint car since the 22nd of March.

I figured, since I have no vested interest in this car or the manufacturer, to investigate the car’s road worthiness.

At highway speeds, the bonnet or hood/engine cover rattles visibly.

There is relatively no difference in MPG results using either premium (91/93 octane) or regular (87 octane) graded fuel.

Examples:

Odometer reading/miles driven(City/Highway)/gallons fuel(Premium/Regular)/MPG

1003/304.6(cityC)/13.469(P)22.61
1350/346.2(H)/11.854(P)/29.2
????/498.1(H)/16.084(P)/30.97
2077/229.6(C)/10.651(R)/21.56
2477/397.2(H)/14.645(R)/27.1
2875/400.5(H)/13.718(R)/29.2

At speeds greater than 70 mph, the car tended to drift off the centerline constantly, requiring more attention than I like to give a car as a driver cruising on flat freeways.

On a positive note, the driver’s seat was quite comfortable throughout the two weeks I’ve driven the car, including the 14 hours yesterday.

Plus, I packed a whole closet and two suitcases in the trunk and backseat.

More as it develops…