Adventures of Boy and Girl: Car Shopping

Pressed down, Shaken together

Luke 6:38 NIV

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

This scripture has been mentioned at church two weeks in a row.  Each time I hear this scripture, I can't help but watch a mental video of a memory from my childhood.

The church I would have called my home church before I got married (at which point my wife and I together chose a home church) would have been 1st Assembly of God, Atlanta, Texas.  This church had a long rich history in that community dating back to the beginnings if the city.  At the time my family joined the church, the pastor of the church was a firey old man named Leon Morrow.

Getting back to the point, the above mentioned scripture was one of the scriptures that Pastor Morrow used. Each time he used that scripture, he couldn't help himself and would yell as he quoted it. Pastor Morrow was a small man and his suits always looked way too big. His hands were losing a battle with arthritis and he showed his age which I believe was in the seventies when I knew him. As he read/quoted that scripture, he would hold his hand out to his side as in a worshipping fashion, twisting his wide open hands. He would begin to yell out the words of the passage and eventually his eyes would close. Additionally, as his blood pressure rose, two blood veins would become visible on his forehead creating a "v" in the center of his face. I have many, many memories from my time at that church. I couldn't help but write down this memory since both times our current pastor read this verse, I heard Leon speaking the words in my head. vers

Blog app

So I recently discovered that the site I randomly blog on now has an app. Here is just a random blog to test out the app. Nothing fun. Just testing. 

Up & Running

Friday morning: I’m not sure how it initially started, but it is going. I remember telling my oldest son this past weekend that if he wanted to go running, he would need to do it at 5:00 in the morning because that was the time of the day where the temperature was less than 100F. Monday morning, I roll over and am startled by my son standing at the edge of my bed asking me if I am ready to go running. “What? No, I’m not ready to go running. Maybe another day, Bud.” I am sure he was sad when he walked away, but slink back into the dark and off to his bed he went. A couple of days later, the same thing occurs. This time when he wakes me he asks if today is the day we can get up and go running. This time while mentally a little more coherent to what he wants to accomplish, I am physically not up to it. The night before had been a late one and 5:00 came quicker than I needed it to. Thursday at work I started thinking about how my son was reaching out to me, asking me to lead and encourage him to participate in exercising activity. As a junior high and high school student I participated in many different sports. Cross country was my favorite followed by track and field, football, baseball and chasing girls. Zak has taken a liking to basketball and baseball. I continually push him to be better and offer pointers on how he can be better. “What if I turn him off to personal improvement because I am not participating in exercise with him?” Thoughts like this plagued me. I determined that the only real way to get him going is to get up and lead him. He has always been large for his age. Not overweight, just taller or faster growing than everyone else in his peer group. The last thing I want to do is give him the wrong impression about exercise which could hurt him later on in life. We got out of the US Navy three years ago this month. Since my separation from the service, things have picked up pace. My family grew to include 5 children and a large dog. I drive 25 miles one way to work every day (and if I come home, 25 miles back home). I decided to further my education by getting my MBA (which hopefully I will complete next spring). The school work has taken away any extra time I thought I might have had. I do the best I can to give my family any extra time not spent working, schooling or sleeping. Personal time is a rare commodity around my house. So all that being said, I kinda felt like not only was my son trying to take my advise and get better but maybe he is reaching out to his extremely busy father looking to bond. So bond we did. I told him last night that as hard as it would be, I was going to get him up at 5:00 so we could run some laps around the neighborhood. He was good with that and at 5:00 I poured myself out of bed to prepare myself for a run I hoped turned out better than I expected. Zak got up and got dressed faster than I did and was ready to go. He really has no clue about distance running (distance being anything farther than home plate to 1 st to 2 nd to 3 rd and back home). I haven’t measured it, but I think that my block is about 300 yards for one lap. I walked him around about half way and started leading him in stretching. He constantly asks questions. Most of them are memory type questions. Tidbits of information that hand out on a frequent basis which he likes to turn around and quiz me on later, “Dad, you pointed out some signs on the road the other day. What did they mean again?” or “Why do you think the Wii game Crash Bandicoot is called Crash Bandy-hoot?” These are questions I have answered several times before. Most cases I have already answered them that day. I let him talk and then ask him, “Zak, how many laps do you think we should do?” “I think we should do 5 laps.” I okay it and after stretching off we go. I failed to mention that Maverick, my 85 lb black golden retriever/poodle mix (Golden Doodle), wanted to go with us so I have him on a leash running too. We near the end of the first lap and I can hear Zak starting to breath hard. Maverick and I were taking it easy on Zak. We would have gone much faster, but we didn’t want to burn him out or leave him behind on the first trip. As we cross the line, I say, “There’s one lap.” And around we go for the next lap. As we are nearing the end of lap two, Zak says, “Dad, I lost count. Is this lap 3 or 4?” I give him a laughing response and tell him that we are coming up on two laps. As we get about a third of the way into lap three, I ask, “So, Zak, do you think you can make it to 5 laps?” “Oh yeah, Dad, I think I could probably do 10.” I tell him to calm down and let’s just worry about 5 for the moment. We make the turn you could call the “home stretch” part of the lap and Zak stops to walk. Now he told me during one of the previous laps that his PE teacher had told his class that once you start running never stop. You can continue to slow down if you like, but don’t stop. When I notice he is walking, I encourage him to keep going and I slow down to his new slower pace. As we cross the line indicating the end/beginning of a lap I tell him we can walk. We do a cool down walking lap and then stretch some more. Then we head home. I’m not sure how he felt, but even as short and as easy as this morning’s run was, I felt great. I sent him off to the shower as I, myself prepared to clean up for the day. I think that I will start getting up and working out again. The wife is working pretty hard to convince me to finally pull the trigger on a treadmill for the house. I have wanted one for quite sometime but have never quite been able to swallow the grand needed to purchase a quality device. I think a M/W/F morning jog will help both of us out. Who knows, the wife might join us too. After all, I am just making laps around the house.

Dream Cars

..................................So, I decided to put up a list of my dream cars. The Lotus is at the top of my list. I know that I will own at least one of these one day, but not all. It would be awesome to own them all. I think the one that I will end up with is the pickup. Mostly because I have the support of my wife on that one. She sees a practical side to it. I went to a dealership in Jacksonville, Fl right when this truck was released. The dealership had one showroom model and that was it. I have been in love with them ever since.

None of the others vehicles I like have any practical sides at all. Next in line is the GT-R. This car has been one of my favorites in racing games for years. Nissan finally made a real one and then made it available for us to buy here in the USA. Bringing up the bottom is the 370Z. I have only recently fallen for these cars as I own a Z31. There are many, many other cars out there that I am most certain would whet my appetite, but this is my top list.
....................................So, just a little history. I have loved the Lotus since I was a kid. I remember watching an engineering show, learning about how fast the Lotus would go and how it was made. I have watched the generations of Lotuses (or is it Loti) over the years. The model priced and shown here is my favorite. I know it is not American Muscle. It would actually leave almost everything that qualifies as American Muscle in the dust. This baby only has a 4 cylinder engine but can hit over a hundred miles per hour before the best American Muscle can hit 60 mph.

I love my Z. I like all Z's. I am not really a fan of the Z's of the 90's. In my opinion, the older the better. That kinda changed with the release of the 370Z. This car is beefy, cool and super fast. I am not sure how other car companies sell cars. Nissan makes several lines of cars that will cause other cars to stop and cry, but the other car companies manage to sell their cars for 2, 3, and sometimes even 5 times what the Z sells for. And Z's last longer.

The GT-R is just flat out AWESOME!!!! This car makes me drool just thinking about it. This car is a video game concept come to life. I read that it has been available oversea for several years now, but was just now made available over here.

912 Guam, Wake Village, Tx

On to house number two.

This house is located in a suburb of Texarkana, Texas. Wake Village is a small suburb that has all of the streets named for places, people, ships, airplanes, or battles from World War II. The street that I lived on was Guam Street. This was my parents first house to buy. I guess it was a good place to start.

It was a converted three bedroom one bath home. The third bedroom used to be the garage. I guess you would think that was cool if you don't mind the water heater being in the room that you sleep in. I don't know what my parents paid for that house. I do remember that the guy who sold us the house was someone that we went to church with. We used to play in the pews after services so that mom and dad could talk with the realtor.

I don't remember the move, but I remember getting the house ready.

My room (and Phillip's as we shared a room up until just before I left for the Navy) was decorated with antique cars. The walls had wall paper that came halfway up the wall, there was a wallpaper border, and then there were cut-outs from the wallpaper that were sporatically stuck to the upper half of the wall.

I don't remember what Bek's room was decorated in, but I remember her having a whole lot of stuffed animals and dolls that were put up in the corners of the rooms in corner hammacks.

We didn't have a dining room table for a while. I can remember having pizza on a large cardboard box in the dining room many times.

At this house we had our dog, Fortunatis McGruder (Nat) and aquired a few more dogs that came and went. We had Buckeye, who was my uncle Joe's dog. We had a black cocker spaniel. I don't remember her name. Lastly we had a small black dog, a pomeranian I think.

We lived at this house until I was in the sixth grade. I had been attending school in Texarkana because my mother decided to get her teaching degree and the school I attended in New Boston would not let her student teach there. The closest school that would allow it was Liberty Eyleau. This was ok as the schools that we attended we could walk to.

Back to the house. This house did not have any air conditioning. We had window units in every room and the heating came from a gas furnace that was in the floor. For years after we moved out of the house it was an inside joke that you got little boys Legos for Christmas so they could be fed to the furnace.

This furnace was in the middle of the floor in a small hallway that everyone had to walk over. You could not go from one room to the other without stepping on or jumping over the floor furnace. It had a cover that was probably three feet by four feet with a waffle like grid. I wonder if my cousin still has a waffle scar on the bottom of his foot. I remember one winter he came to visit and didn't know about it, or didn't listen, and walked across it, burning his foot pretty bad. Anyways, the furnace was in a pit that was about three feet deep. Anything smaller than about one inch by one half inch would find its way into the furnace. Pencils, pens, crayons, and legos were often found melting and/or burning in the funace. During the summer when we didn't need it, there was a rug that covered it up.

My siblings and I spent a lot of time alone in this house. No, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Mom and dad both worked multiple jobs and we tended to be a home alone while they were at work. I remember seeing mom a few minutes a day so that she could give us a check for pizza.

We got a VCR while living in that house. It was this huge silver thing. The special thing about the VCR was that it had remote capabilities. Unfortunately for us kids, the remote was corded and didn't reach the couch. One of us had to sit on the floor near the television so that we could fast forward the commercials when watching things we had recorded.

I remeber breaking our first window while living in Texarkana. My brother and I were out in the back yard playing catch when I missed the ball and it went right through the window.

I am sure if I sit here long enough, I can think of another three pages of stories to talk about when thinking of the house on Guam Street.

The next house we lived in was in Atlanta, Texas.

Memories

Last year my wife's grandfather Truett Worley passed away. I only got to visit with him a few times as we lived several states away. His wife Betty has been sending out these emails where she is going through old memories, sharing them with her family. She says she is doing this so that everyone can know the Truett that she knew. She shares pictures, stores, lists of things they owned or did, and sometimes she sends out quizzes to see what everyone knows.

I thought that just for fun, I would start writing down some of my memories and I wanted to start with houses.

I guess that it is kinda spawned by the thought that as of today, I could be the owner (well, with a mortgage) of a new home within three weeks.

Well, without further ado and maybe no one to read, I start talking about all of the houses that I have lived in that I remember living in.

The first house I lived in is affectionately called the grey house. It is located in New Boston, Texas on what is left of my great-grandfather's dairy farm.

This house is a small two bedroom one bath that my grandfather built. This house is still standing, although it is currently not located where it was when I lived in it. The name of this house comes from the color of the outside. My grandfather used what he had and what he had was ammunition crates. The interior of the home had pieces of these ammunition crates nailed up as walls. When I lived there, there was sheet rock nailed over the wood. I learned about the ammo crates many years later when the home was turned into a storage shed.

There was nothing fancy about this house. The floor was always cold as it was just one layer of tongue and groove wood with linoleum or carpet. The house is pier and beam set on cinder blocks. The exterior of the home had shingles covering as much as possible. If you can imagine a quaint little home in the woods with the wood shingle siding look, that was our home except it didn't look cool. Grey shingle sides, grey shingle roof and to try and stay a little warmer, there was clear plastic stapled to the windows.

I don't regret or resent living in this home. It is my beginning. As I look at the home that my parents purchased last year and the home I will be purchasing soon, I like the view of where I started.

My brother and I shared a room as most brothers do. The first bed I remember in that house was a single twin with my head on one end and Phillip's head on the other. Later, we upgraded to a set of bunk beds that I believe my parents still have stored somewhere. Our room had the bunk beds, one dresser, a long toy box called a "barnabus box" two old wooden school desks and scores of toys.

At this time my sister was not born, though she would be born and spend the first few years of her life in this house as well. I remember my parents telling me and my brother that we could talk to our little sister by talking into my mom's mouth. She used to sit on the couch and lean her head back and open her mouth and we would tell Bek (my sister) stories about what we had done that day.

We lived in that house until I was in the second or third grade. I remember being in the fourth grade and introducing myself to a new student as living in Texarkana which is where we moved next.

About 15 years ago, one of my aunts decided to build a home near where the grey house was located. I guess there was to much history in this house to just tear it down, so the decision was made to move it. This was actually quite a large task. Several telephone poles were brought out and laid underneath the home. This was possible as it was pier and beam so you could crawl underneath it completely. The house was lifted, blocks removed and lowered down onto the poles. The rest looked like a country version of what the Egyptians did to move heavy blocks. Chains were tied around it and a dozer and two tractors were hooked up to pull it. We quickly learned that the house was too heavy and the walls were not strong enough to take the stress of the pull. So, we set out to lighten the load. All of the sheet rock was pulled out. This exposed the walls containing the stencilled ammo crates. Some complete walls, all appliances, and all plumbing fixtures were removed in the hopes of creating a lighter load. Eventually we were able to get it done. As the house began to roll across the yard on the poles, we would take one pole from the back and take it to the front. It was crude but it eventually worked. The house used to be about a hundred yards from my grandparents home. It now sits just about directly behind and is used to store various items including old appliances, hand tools and attic style keepsakes.

I will have to take a picture of it the next time I am out there as well as see if mom has any pictures of the house the way it used to look when it was in its original location.