The Watering Hole

Howdy folks.

Great weather today. Sunny, dry, @ 79°A with 10-20 winds from the south. Still had some standing water in the yard yesterday that now appears gone. Yard still soft and mushy, but it is drying out. Will give it another day of drying before mowing tomorrow. It needs it.

Thoughts this read about the Creature from the Sandpits was entertaining, bringing a smile to my ugly mug.

I own two 20 lb propane tanks for my grill. Both tanks are in excellent condition, having never been exposed to the weather. Unfortunately both tanks need recertification. Spent way too much time on the net and phone trying to find a place that will recertify the tanks. None of the local welding gas places offer that service. Checked with several propane distributors that previously offered the service. At one place, the office gal wasn't much help. Another place suspended the service when the pandemic started, closing the fill station at their distribution center to the public. Finally found a place about 40 miles away that will recertify the tanks for $10 plus the cost of refill propane. So, 80 miles round trip and about $15 - $20 for gasoline at today's prices. I get that direction sometimes for other business, so will try to combine chores to to efficently use my time and gasoline dollars.

This area has a well established, wide spread natural gas distribution system in the immediate urban area, so propane distributors are a bit distant being located in the more rural areas. Plenty of propane fill stations and exchange stations nearby, but they don't recertify tanks. I don't want to exchange the good rust free tanks that I own for someone else's tank. Often, exchange tanks look great, but if you look closely, they just have a mop and glo paint job over the rust. Exchange tanks can be a rip off, as they don't fill them to 80% full capacity as when you have a tank refilled. Exchange tanks are only filled to about three gallons of propane, about 60% full, where as a tank you have refilled will be about 4 gallons or a bit more.

In my quest to find a place to get my tanks recertified I discovered that the pandemic and labor shortage has changed the propane distribution business in this area. The big distributors have numerous smaller satellite facilities. Use to be that you could walk into those places and get small tanks refilled, pay on your account for bulk delivery, get a tank recertified, etc. Bulk propane delivery trucks would dispatch from the satellite yards.
Many of the satellite yards no longer have a staffed office or fill service open to the public. Pandemic social restriction and employee shortages resulted in services being centralized at corporate offices. Lack of a sufficient number of propane truck drivers resulted in fewer drivers servicing a larger geographical area. Drivers that formally serviced a specific area, may now dispatch to several areas. The satellite yards are now frequently used only as bulk storage yards for delivery trucks to resupply when they are servicing that area. My brother in the Big North Woods recently had a bulk tank fill up at his home. Normally the propane company would respond in a day or two. This time it took a week. Kid showed up at 7:00 at night and said he started his day two service areas distant. Said he was putting in more driving hours than legal. Said the company can't find any drivers.

Many years and a long time ago, when I was in much better shape, I was clocked by radar at bit over 57 kph in a 48 kph zone on my Fuji road bike. 36 mph in a 30 mph on the American scale. Road was fairly level. I road everywhere and a lot on my bike in those days. No ticket as I had noticed an LEO I knew working the radar gun. Stopped and asked if he would czech my speed as I was curious how much I could make. He obliged. I'm sure I've been faster downhill, but was curious what I was capable of on the flat. I wasn't a serious rider in equipment, technique, or training, just liked to ride for fun and transportation.

Fastest in a ground vehicle was 137 mph in a 55 mph zone in my friends '72 Vette, that had just a little bit of werk on the engine. Pegged the speedometer at 120 mph a few times in a '66 Plymouth and a '72 LeMans. None of these events happened in Mexico, but did happen in my younger irresponsible stupid days of youth. Don't try this at home.


No speed or red light camera traps around here of which I am aware. I think the Kazoo area has or did have some, but not sure of the current status. I believe there is an effort presently in the legislative werks to ban such contraptions in the state. In a community where I formally werked when the light turned yellow or red, rather than stopping, the first thing you did was czech the rear view mirror to see if it was safe to do so. That high density stretch of 50 mph road was notorious for tail gating light runners. I intentionally ran many lights in an exercise of self preservation.

Phil in Alabama said:

I was an expert/foolish chance taking boy back then. I only got busted in daylight. Police never caught me at night, I always managed to escape, and it's a wonder that I didn't get killed. It took some of my friends crashing and nearly dying to shock me into being more concerned for life than some stupid street racing thrill. It isn't "fun" anymore when you're broke all to pieces and on the verge of bleeding to death.

Click to expand...

I finally got a bit of sense knocked into me in '76. Light poles and a LeMans at 85 mph don't mix. Happened in the front of the Sheriffs Dept. Car was totaled, bent into a U shape with every window broken. Drive shaft was on the hood and the metal light post laying across the roof. Pulled the concrete base for the light post out of the ground. Got out and attempted to push the light post off the car and got zapped as the wires were now energizing the pole. Probably should have been killed, or seriosly injured, but basically walked away with bumps, bruise and a few scrapes. Probably should have gone to jail as well, but only got a ticket for careless driving. The Good Lord was watching over this fool.

Wreck happened on a curve in which numerous previous accidents had previously occurred. Curve was a bit irregular in that it banked, flattened, maybe even a bit negative, then banked a little bit again before straightening out. Was a case where they had rebuilt and realigned the road. The irregular bank was where they transitioned the new road back to the old. Back tire caught the curb at the transition, car went airborne sideways into the pole. They probably should have replaced another 30 feet of road to make the curve consistent. Not trying to make excuses for my foolishness, wreck never would have happened had I been driving sanely. They didn't replace the light pole, as it had been clipped a couple of times previously. There continues to be wrecks at that location including several fatalities usually as the result of excessive speed. Unfortunately I gained a bit of notoriety from the wreck. That curve was sometimes referred to "Wolfman Curve" as that was my nickname at the time. I'm thankful it wasn't called "Deadman's Curve", but then I wouldn't have known anyways.

Gerald this made me think of you.

Seen yesterday

All these years later and my friend David still has small bit of rocks and metal work to the surface of his arms and pop out, like a pimple. Him and another buddy were driving home from the drag strip, naturally inebriated, straightened out a steep curve and wrapped a 455 Pontiac Trans Am around a huge oak. The guys in the ambulance pretty much squished what was left of one arm up and twisted rolls of sheets around it in attempt to keep enough blood in him to keep him alive. They said that blood was running out the door at the hospital. He and his girlfriend both had a whole bunch of broken bones; the other friend, who was the one actually driving, didn't get hurt badly enough for a hospital stay. Car hit the tree on the passenger side.

Those techs in the ambulance were not the give it up sort, they were absolutely determined that he wasn't going to die on the way to the hospital that night. I cannot praise the folks who do those sorts of jobs enough. They're there and then gone and you likely never see them again to even shake their hands and tell them thank you. Without people like that a LOT of us would exit this world much sooner.