My Corvair

A couple of days ago, on my favorite morning news show, they demonstrated a car that can drive itself. Very helpful and pretty amazing, and it reminded of my first car which sometimes seemed to have a mind of its own.  You remember Corvairs?  There was even a book written about them, Unsafe at Any Speed.  I bought my 1961 Corvair, used, in 1965 for $800.  It was my first car and I bought it, practiced driving it, and then got my drivers license, in time to finish my last college courses and start my first year of teaching.
Such a nice car, until it turned on me.  I was driving back to Ball State one Monday morning after a weekend at home, when I took a curve a little too fast, and before I knew it, my car had spun around, rolled over and up on its wheels again, and I was sitting in the car in a field, looking through an open space and watching my windshield rocking gently on the ground in front of the car.
Two weeks before, my mother had sent me money to have seat belts installed in that car (they weren't standard back then) and I walked away from that accident with only a tiny scratch on one knee.  I walked to a nearby farmhouse and use their phone to call my father and tell him what had happened.  His first words were "Are you ok?" When I assured him I was he said "That's all that matters."  I always loved my daddy but never more than at that moment.
He came and picked me up, drove me the rest of the way to college and then proceeded to fight my battle with the insurance company.  They wanted to total it and give me $400.  That got my daddy's German up, since he had never in his life had a claim on his insurance policy, which also covered me, and he thought that 50% depreciation in less than a month was pretty steep. So he asked what other options we ahd and they said they would pay to have it repaired so he said "Fix it."  It cost the insurance company $2,000 but I ended up with a rebuilt car which I drove for the next six years, until my husband and I traded it in on our VW camper.  By then it had well over 100,000 miles on it and I could see the road through the rusted out spot in the floor board on the driver's side. But I never had another accident in taht car and, with the engine in back, it turned out to be a wonderful car to drive on snowy roads when I lived in upstate New York.

I received a random act of kindness

As I was standing at the back of my car this afternoon, raining drizzling down and starting to fall more heavily, unloading the groceries I had just purchased, a sudden gust of wind caught my shopping cart and propelled it away across the parking lot.  I caught it before it had rolled too far and was back at my car when a lovely young lady came up and started helping me unload my groceries into my car.  She said "I saw your cart get away from you, and since I have an umbrella, I thought I'd come and help."  How nice was that?  I feel like I was really blessed by this kind gesture today and am excited about the prospect of paying it forward.

remembering Peter, Paul and Mary

This evening I attended a concert/talk by Peter Yarrow, formerly of Peter, Paul and Mary.  It was the annual fund-raiser for the Indiana Center for Middle East Peace, and I found Mr. Yarrow's comments on bullying and protesting for good causes very interesting.  He is very involved with an organization called Operation Respect.  You can learn more about that at www.operationrespect.org. While I appreciated his wide ranging comments and his new song "Don't Laugh at Me" I must admit that the real pleasure of the evening for me was listening to the strumming of an acoustic guitar (no loud amps, thank you very much) and being encouraged to "sing along" to classics like "leaving on a jet plane", "Blowing in the Wind", and of course, "Puff, the Magic Dragon".  If you read these titles and instantly started humming the melodies you are of my generation.

a curious contradiction

I had my furnace serviced today (its annual check-up) by a serviceman who has been here before and who represents a good reliable company.  After he finished his work he informed me that everything looked good, in fact the filter was unusually clean.  Everything was good, good, good.  But then came the zinger "You know" he said, "your furnace is 15 years old.  It's approaching the end of its life."
"Really?" I said, "our old furnace lasted for 30 years."
"Well, you know" he replied (wait for it...) "They don't make them like they used to."
Why not?!!!

I love people with an upbeat attitude!

In our Bible Study group this morning one of the ladies announced that she and her husband are celebrating  a total of 100 years of marriage.  He was married before for 47 years, she was married for 48 years, and now they have been married to each other for five years. All of their extended families got together this summer to celebrate.  How great is that?
Another lady (she and her husband are both in their nineties, and both still driving, in good health, and very sharp people) mentioned that they are starting to think about moving into assisted living.  She said, and I quote, "Statistically, we kind of have to face reality."
i want to grow up to be just like these ladies.

a lesson to live by

I heard a report this morning on the news about a lady who survived cancer at 82 and is an inspiration to her children.  She's now 99, doing just fine, thank you, and asked the secret of a long life said "Take life one day at a time, enjoy it, and be sure to laugh."  I so agree.

Gingerbread and Applebutter

I'm baking gingerbread this evening and it's a lovely experience on so many levels.  It fills the house with a spicy good essence of autumn aroma and it tastes wonderful.  Even better, in a way it;s the culmination of the applebutter experience for this year. I love a warm piece of gingerbread split in half and slathered with applebutter.  Yummmm.  Try it.  I'll be serving it to a group of women coming to my house for a meeting tomorrow and I hope they enjoy it.