F-150 redux

My first F-150 was an ancient hillbilly rebuild I bought around '96 or so. She was a early '80s model with the short box and the step-side and a 302.

The left front quarter panel proclaimed it an F-100, while the right front quarter panel said F-150.

Like I said, a hillbilly rebuild.

The rebuilders had also kitted her out with plush velour seating and a pop-up sunroof. My cousin Faye took one glance at the interior and declared, "Elvis lives!"

Nevertheless, she was my daily driver for a couple of years.

That driving included many trips back and forth to Guelph where my children lived.

On one of those trips, taking the children back to Guelph in the middle of a January blizzard, she gave up the ghost about half a mile north of Alma.

Me and the kids hiked it the half mile to the restaurant in Alma, where the kids had pie and ice cream while I called up my dear father on the pay phone.

Hey Dad, if it isn't too much trouble, would you mind fetching us and maybe giving my truck a tow to the service centre in Alma.

Dad was happy to oblige. He showed up at the restaurant before the kids were done their second helping of pie and ice cream.

He had a new F-150 Supercab 4x4. The kids cosied up in there while we hooked the ten foot tow strap to my truck, and down the road we went in that January blizzard.

Unbeknownst to me, Dad had his own idea of where to take my truck, and it wasn't that Alma service centre a half mile down the road. It was the shop of one of his cronies, twenty miles down the road in Guelph.

I'll admit I had a bit of a panic attack when we sailed by the Alma service place, but I had no idea...

My truck was dead, meaning the power steering was dead, the power brakes were dead, there was no heater, so my breath was fogging up the windows so I couldn't see anything...

And my dear Daddy was towing me through a January blizzard on a ten foot tow strap like it was a regular Sunday drive!

He was passing cars in that blizzard!

I clung to any remnants of hope only because I knew my dear children were warm and cosy in that tow vehicle, while I was blind and frozen in the vehicle being towed.

But we made it!

Every piece of shit tells a story

I'm not talking about that foil-clad envelope in an envelope I just sent off to LifeLabs to verify that I don't have any of 23 varieties of ass cancer. And by the way, is that a gross undertaking or what? Seriously, I have yet to figure out a way to stifle my gag reflex while I'm scooping samples with those miniature popsicle sticks that come with the kit, no matter what I've tried.

No, I'm talking about something else entirely. With apologies to Adam Sandler, I'm talking about the fleet of piece-of-shit vehicles that festoon the property. It was a very lovely spring-like afternoon here at Falling Downs, and I wasted it splendidly sitting on the stoop surveying my empire, and I have to admit, every piece of shit tells a story.

Take the old Allis Chalmers back-hoe, for example. That was fully functional when my dear father dropped it off here five or six years ago. Dad was a real estate guy, but he had a hobby that let him out of the office. He'd spend his free time building various roads to nowhere throughout the acreages that he owned.

To that end he had a dozer and a dump truck and the old Allis. When he got a newer backhoe old Allis showed up here at Falling Downs on a float. I dug a few random test holes, smoothed out the roadway into the Bass Lake marsh across the road, and used it to clear snow once or twice.

Then I parked it, and it's been parked ever since.

Just like the Ford Escape has been parked for a year. This is an older Escape, when they still looked like SUVs, unlike the new ones. Originally bought it for the tires. It was wearing a decent set of off-roaders that I thought I could use on the F-150. Got the whole vehicle for less than a new set of tires. Used it to collect firewood around the woodlot for a couple of years, but it turned out those tires weren't rated for the larger F-150.

Then there's the Mustang Fifty. It's been in the fleet for seven or eight years, and I don't believe we've put five thousand miles on it. Once in awhile I like to go for a spin in a car that pushes you into your seat when you stand on the gas, and the Mustang does that in spades. The longest trip it's ever been on was from here to Bayfield.

My favourite piece of shit is the 2005 Subaru that's become the daily driver. It's old and ornery, much like me, but I've come to love it.

It's authentic. You know you're driving a real car. No back-up cams or blind-spot alerts with this puppy, and the manual transmission means you actually have to know how to drive. She's my fourth Subaru. Two of the other three got well past 400 thousand kilometres.

This one will eclipse them all.

Anyway, you can only drive one car at a time. I'm getting older (and you are too) and I think I'm going to start paring down the fleet this year. I haven't even mentioned the 500 Ninja or the Ford 4000 tractor or the GM SUV...

After all, I can still tell their stories when they're long gone.


I'm thinking of trading the entire fleet for a new F-150.

Wiggins chokes, gives up b'ball to play for Leafs instead

Apparently the rumours that Wiggins was offered a tryout with the Maple Leafs after his inexplicable choke against Stanford are unfounded.

What the hell went on there? Stage fright? You wouldn't think so. Wiggins has had enough money games behind him that you wouldn't think the pressure would make a difference.

Maybe he just had a bad day.

Hopefully it's not a remake of the Carl English story.

Not that Carl has done that poorly for himself. Yes, it was a humiliation for the ages to watch that draft where Carl never got drafted, but it was the twats at CBC who engineered that, so don't blame Carl.

Carl just wanted to play hoops, and that's what he's been doing, and he's made a great living off of it. Maybe not a first-round NBA draft pick kind of living, but definitely a better living than virtually anybody he left behind in Newfoundland.

But for some reason I don't see Wiggins playing in Spain, regardless of his meltdown the other day.

Which was the exact same day that I fired up the F-150 for the first time in months! Yup, she's sat there under a snowbank since November. For a good part of that time there was no sign of her - just a bump in the big snow berm that accumulated in front of the garage.

A few warm days lately have melted enough snow that I could see a bit of red peeking though that snow berm. Three tires were flat.

But we got that taken care of and we're off to see the Leafs beat the Red Wings tonight!

And I hear Wiggins has got a spot on the D!