Notes from Pappy's diary

Hon, did you hear that thud? No, says the wife. I'm watching college football Saturday, and I did hear something. Should I investigate? So I got up and looked in the kitchen, nothing there. Checked out the bathroom, nope. Florida room and laundry room look good. Oh well, probably next door.

A couple hours later, I got up to go into our bedroom to get something and .......what the hell happened here? Something is not right. A brilliant deduction on my part. I'm so proud of myself. :rolleyes:

Eight feet of closet shelving had crashed to the floor. Now you gotta remember, we hardly ever throw anything out and some of these clothes haven't fit us in a century. Anyway, the racks were definitely overloaded and the poor brackets said ENOUGH.

So we will now be renting a U-Haul truck, just kidding, to haul out old clothes to the nearest Goodwill store. Some of the clothes they will probably sell as antiques, but at least we will have gotten rid of them.

Just got back from Lowes and I hope I got everything I need to put shelves back up. There will be lots of room in the closet as I'm down to 1 pair of pants and a T-shirt. (Kidding again) but I can't believe the amount of clothes that were in this poor closet.
 

That old snow shovel came in handy Pappy!:)
messy_closet.gif
 
I have the same closet shelf and it did the exact same thing a few months back. WHY do I keep all these clothes??? There are at least 20 "fancy" dresses in there that I will never,ever wear again. Heck,some I never even wore in the first place! We won`t even get into the fact that some don`t even fit anymore.....

My sister also has an aorotic aneurysm and goes through the same testing every year. She and my BIL were in a bad car accident on the way to my grandson`s wedding last year-we came across the wreck on our way to the wedding-and their car was hit hard on my sister`s side. My biggest concern was knowing that she had this aneurysm and being afraid that a hit that hard could cause it to rupture. She refused to go to the hospital though as she didn`t want to miss the wedding....grrrrrr. But during the reception she wasn`t feeling too well,so we got her to go get checked out. She was fine,and that Monday she had her regular yearly appt. for her scan so was checked out and no problem. Hers is very close to a 5 so they do watch it closely.
 
Must be going around, Mrs. Robinson, my neighbors fell down last month. We now have a lot less clothes in there.
I have an appointment with my heart doctor next month and will find out if it has gotten bigger. Yes, a 5 is getting real close to having something done.
 
Your closet doesn't look bad at all Pappy, I wouldn't even share a photo of mine. We also have clothes and other stuff that hasn't been worn for years, have gotten rid of some, but not nearly enough. Funny, for two people who wear either jeans/cargo pants and tee shirts everyday, you'd think the closet would be nearly empty. I'm always throwing stuff on the top shelf, like sweat pants, then curse when they roll back down onto the floor. :playful:
 
Pappy, you do have a neat closet. Same thing happened to me a couple of years ago where I reside now, but, it wa, in part, due to a leak that maintenance had come in to repair and didn't secure the wall and racks properly. They had to come back and reinstall the fixtures as well as re-plaster and paint that section. Not that it matters, this closet is about a third of the size of my previous closet so it's overflowing even though many of my tops and bottom pieces are folded and stored on a separate storage free standing shelf unit. I really do need to purge my closet, AGAIN!
 
Back in 57, my wife came to Aberdeen, MD, to be with me in our very first apartment. I was attending school at Aberdeen Proving Grounds for the Army.

That is my wife standing by the old 49 Ford in front of the house with the two little rooms upstairs which was our place. Nothing special about this house or the landlords son who was constantly tossing a baseball around. Once in awhile I would catch a few for him, but sports weren't big on my list at the time.

Before we left to move to California, his mother told us the her son was going to play for the Baltimore Orioles farm team. We con graduated him and said our goodbyes to land lady who was a very sweet lady. She had helped us out many times.

Anyway, a few years passed, finding jobs, raising children and the usual family stuff. One day my wife told me to read the sports section. The part about the Orioles. OMG...there he was, the land lady's son, Mrs. Ripkens boy. Seems that we actually had lived with a famous ball player downstairs, Cal Ripen Sr.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    50.7 KB · Views: 46
Great story, Pappy. Once the little billys learn what their head and horns are for, they never forget, especially if they're behind you.
 
Back in 57, my wife came to Aberdeen, MD, to be with me in our very first apartment. I was attending school at Aberdeen Proving Grounds for the Army.

That is my wife standing by the old 49 Ford in front of the house with the two little rooms upstairs which was our place. Nothing special about this house or the landlords son who was constantly tossing a baseball around. Once in awhile I would catch a few for him, but sports weren't big on my list at the time.

Before we left to move to California, his mother told us the her son was going to play for the Baltimore Orioles farm team. We con graduated him and said our goodbyes to land lady who was a very sweet lady. She had helped us out many times.

Anyway, a few years passed, finding jobs, raising children and the usual family stuff. One day my wife told me to read the sports section. The part about the Orioles. OMG...there he was, the land lady's son, Mrs. Ripkens boy. Seems that we actually had lived with a famous ball player downstairs, Cal Ripen Sr.


...getting my Jr's and Sr's mixed up. :) This him?
cal-ripken-kid.jpg
 
This really ticked me off.....

I mentioned, in another thread, that we looked at new cars Saturday. After test drive and two hours of negotiations, we decided not to take their deal as the price was just too much.

Anyway, one of the first things the dealer does is take car keys to inspect it while we are talking with salesman. Ok, no problem here, I understand this. But after we got home, the dealer still had my credit card so back we went. Ok. This was annoying but stuff happens.

Sunday, I decided to clean out glove compartment, as it was chuck full of papers. I found my Ins. card but registration was gone. We looked high and low for reg. but nowhere to be found. I had just got a new one two weeks ago and started blaming my memory on what I had done with it.

Yesterday, Monday, we get a call from salesman that my registration was at the dealers. I told him that we were worried sick over this and what the hell were they doing taking my reg. out without my permission. Thursday,my car goes in for service and I amgoing to tell them a couple of choice words.
 
I might think about going elsewhere for service.....good you stuck to your guns on price.....the last car I bought we had X amount to spend, we went to seven different dealers and found a couple we liked.....each was close to my X......then we decided on one to get it was 11 dollars more than I had said ....told the dealer make it happen or I walk..."overt 11 dollars" Yep he made it happen and I wrote a check for X and drove away....that was three years ago and now are saving up for the next one....
 
We got down to just $16 apart. Started at $70 more. I told them going in, what I could pay, being on a budget, and they wouldn't meet my price. As we were walking out to my car, the sales mgr. called out, take off another $5. I told the wife I feel like I'm in a pawn shop. We drove away.:cool:
 
Buying a new car is a real "psychological" game between the dealer and the buyer. When I first got out of the military, back in the late 60's, I took a job as a car salesman for about 4 months while I was sending out resumes, etc., waiting for a "real" job. THAT was an education. Every morning, we had a sales meeting where the sales manager would offer "tips" on how to "fleece the flock" of buyers. Then, when I landed my career job as a high end computer tech, I serviced some of the major auto plants and saw, first hand, how much it actually costs to build a car/truck.

The profit margins vary widely, depending upon the type of vehicle. The small econo-boxes, listing for under $20,000 have a slim profit margin....usually in the 2 to 5% range, whereas a loaded pickup truck can have a profit margin as high as 40%. A small Ford Focus, for example, listing at $17K, might only have a $500 markup, whereas a loaded Ford F350 Diesel, with a sticker price of over $70K might only represent an actual $40K in manufacturing and dealer costs.

A good rule of thumb, on an average family sedan with a sticker price of $30K, probably has a real manufacturing/dealer cost of about 25k, and allows the manufacturer/dealer a reasonable profit. A good point for negotiation on such a vehicle is to take the sticker price and subtract 20%, as the price you will be willing to pay. Anything more than that leaves a smile on the dealers face. Thanking the salesman for his time, and walking out, will invariably result in a call a day or two later with a far better price than they will give you during the heat of negotiations.

Insofar as a dealer taking your registration, etc., and making you come back to get it....I would Never visit that dealership again.
 
Out of necessity I sold cars for 6 months and I'm ashamed of some of the things I did to innocent buyers
just to make the sale. I've hated selling ever since.
 


Back
Top