A mighty tail indeed, oops, tale indeed!

Good t day to you.

Mike

On 11/26/04 5:10 AM, "Stephen Steele" <steeles@HORIZONVIEW.NET> wrote:

> Listees:
> It IS Friday, so...
> Oh, what a wicked web we weave. It's a Thanksgiving story... not Allison's
> Restaraunt nor is it Alice's Restaurant (which has RBusC if not RVC); but it
> is a long convoluted tale hardly worth the telling, let alone the reading...
>
> There we were at my sister Gretta's house for the last of the rounds of
> Thanksgiving Day's Last Stuffing (Since we lost both of our parents, our
> family now has a ritual of going to the in-laws, AKA the "other"
> Grandparents, and then meeting up with the siblings at the designated time
> and place for a repast of gargantuan proportions which can only be matched
> anywhere by the previously mentioned in-laws).  All had gone well, the
> wrinkles were all out of our bellies. Oodles of noodles had disappeared.
> Buttons strained at midriffs. The bird had been sacrificed and the pumpkin
> pies were well near gone. Empty Cool whip bowls lined the counters.  All was
> right with the world. It was, however, almost the Thanksgiving Day
> dinner-that-never-happened and it would have been all to blame on the VW
> psychosis that many of us share. I sat reflecting on the events of just
> hours earlier.
>
> Not everyone was there yet, I had to run out to retrieve something from my
> car when I happened to really look at the mess that I have created.
> Snaking around Gretta's cul-de-sac was a line of cars all there avoiding the
> driveway that my anally retentive brother-in-law Al scours after every
> family dinner{oil drips!!!}  The line was ALL VWs !!  Five Jettas, three
> Golfs; three of the eight were diesel.  Now I have to admit that four of
> these were my sons'; but I am proud to say that two of my older brothers now
> have VW diesels as daily drivers AND it was a day so they were driving them.
> SO I had to run back into the house and grab my camera to record for
> posterity, in 3X5 color prints not 8X10 glossies in B&W,  all the glory of
> that string of Teutonic tinkering that is so representative of my
> Scots-Irish heritage...
> we are TIGHT!
>
> Now I need to digress and back up a little and perhaps even be a little
> redundant.  I said above that I had created that mess, which is not quite
> the truth.  I can really trace back to the source of my VW psychosis to a
> distinct time and place and can lay the blame directly and squarely upon the
> shoulders of my brother Fred. It was around Thanksgiving in 1967 when he and
> his new bride, Gretchen, arrived at our parents' house with a brand new
> convertible Beetle. It was small and yellow and shiny and so well built; not
> anything like Al's two-toned '63 Che*y two hard top Impala or Mom and Pop's
> '65 Impala or other Bro-in-law Dave's '67 Chevelle with the 327 and
> shackles.  While Al's car was definitely squeaky clean and shiny (he is AR,
> you know); this VW was perfect. Brother Mike had a Corvair, and earlier had
> owned a beater '60 Volvo (which I and an older nephew had borrowed/stolen
> one night...but that's a whole 'nother story). Anyway, while those were cool
> cars they were NOT like this car. I do believe it is/was the only new VW
> ever bought by any of us and I know it was Fred's first new car.  It was
> during the following summer that Fred let me "baby sit" the Beetle when they
> went on a postponed honeymoon in Europe.  I was smitten.  Aside from a
> really dumb move of buying a '74 MGB right out of college as my first car, I
> have nearly always had VWs since. (End of digression.)
>
> Back to Turkey Day'04,  earlier I had received a phone call from Son#1.  He
> was on his way down for Tday when his '84 Westy's dash lights came on (see
> "SonofaVanagon OXS and...").
> I was at the in-laws' and he gave me the necessary out for a hasty post meal
> departure.  I really like this Son!  While my in-laws know of my VW
> ways...they just don't comprehend or understand them... they're of French
> decent (no CA flames pls). After arranging for Miss Colleen and Son#5 to
> have a ride, I met up with Son#1 at the shop and we quickly determined that
> the alternator was undercharging his battery. We switched the alt out with
> the one out of the '91 Caravelle which is being overhauled. It fired up and
> is just fine except for the dash lights are still on.  (The "new" alt had a
> D+ post for the signal actuator and that may be the problem... AC vs. no AC)
> Anyway, it was getting late and we needed to do the Last Stuffing at
> Gretta's.  So we hurried up and jumped into my Eco diesel and scurried on
> out to the scene o' the crime. Scene o' the grime would be putting it better
> (foreshadow).
>
> Arriving in the middle of the pack that is my family (10 siblings..three
> gone and two more not able to be there) I set about grazing on all the hors
> d'oeuvres as any proper thinking male should do.  The remaining family
> poured in and commenced to become loud and eventually all sorts of
> implements of digestion and consumption were placed around and over nearly
> every flat surface that would suffice as a table top. The feast was soon to
> be on.
>
> I was nabbed by Gretta to "do" the turkey... that is I was handed the sharp
> knife and told to do the honors of dissecting that bird into munchable,
> mouth-size morsels.  Somewhere into the ten minute ordeal, Son#4 came up and
> peered over my shoulder and proclaimed inadvertently to all that I smelled
> "like the shop" in a volume that shouldn't have be heard by all near and
> far.  It was.
>
> In typical reactive fashion known well by all you mechanics and wannabe
> mechanics out there, I looked over my hands and they WERE clean. But in my
> haste to get out of the shop and to the Last Stuffing I had left two or
> three globs of Zep hand cleaner (small, very small globs, I swear! Well
> maybe there was a little more than that, but not a lot) hanging from the
> hair under my left wrist.  What with all that hurrying and scurrying I
> hadn't really looked closely at my arms as I washed up at the shop.  Now I
> know you all know what and where I'm talking about.  Sometimes you get
> grease and grime on the back of your forearms or above your elbows or maybe
> even behind your ears and you "forget" to clean back there. Your S.O. tells
> you when you get in from the garage..."Dear, look at your self in the
> mirror" and you see that glob o' stuff on your face or in your thinning hair
> or where ever and you go to town washing up again.
>
> Well, I won't blame Miss Colleen for not looking me over closely as she was
> a little busy with the three year old, the other boys and their girlfriends
> and such. Not to mention all the fixing and fussing with all the women folk
> as the Last Stuffing was culminating into the feast that it is. BUT, what's
> a guy to do?! Here they were all staring at me and stiffing and smelling the
> air trying to detect just a little of that smell o' Zep, that eu d' shoppe,
> that GMC (garageman's cologne) that defines the oiliness and essence of
> grease monkeys everywhere.
>
> I quickly gathered my two wits together and whispered out of the corner of
> my mouth telling Son#4 to hush and go along with me.  "Oh you must be
> smelling that little burnt piece of skin there on the bottom of the pan" And
> then I ever so deftly (if i have to say so myself...and I do because no one
> saw me do it) I slipped a paper napkin along my arm and chucked t into the
> waste can beside me.  All eyes and ears and noses were following Son#4 as he
> bent over to stiff the bird. I really like this son, too.  Nary a sole was
> the wiser and the carving continued as before.
>
> And that readers is how I avoided being forever labeled as the chump who
> basted the Last Stuffing turkey with Zep... A fate as bad as the tale of
> Sister Marsha's banana flavored scalloped corn and maybe even worse.
>
> I warned you that it was a long convoluted tale hardly worth the telling,
> let alone the reading...  but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
> Stephen Steele
> Chillicothe OH
>
> '87 Westy      "Franz"
> '82 Caddy VW Diesel P.U.  SOLD
> '74 MGB  My first car...yep, I've kept it since '74
> '93 Chevy S-10
> '91 Jetta Diesel   My daily driver
> '02 Jetta Wagon VR6  Wife's car
> Ex Vans:
> '81 Vanagon  from 1985-1990
> '91 Caravelle  "Hans"...1995-2004 awaiting new engine
> '84 Westfalia  "Fritz" 2000-2004 now with Son #1
>
>