You can travel east or travel west, but no matter where you go .... there you is. Good to be home, I am sitting in the kitchen at the kitchen table, the wife sez to me ….“Whadya want?” and I say what I always say when I am in a good mood.
I smile and I say …. Coffee, two sugars, no conversation.
Now, don’t send me any letters ... I like women, and on occasion they like me, I have no problems with the gender thing. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus ….. Deal with it. I like buses, along with the Beatles, The Beach Boys, Dodge Chargers, 53 Chevy panel trucks and Lone Ranger lunch boxes. If this makes me strange or different, so be it.
Another thing that makes me somewhat “different” is the fact that I can appreciate any and all kinds of buses. I just don’t limit myself to Eagles, I have a myriad of different interests in life, and my bus likes are included. We just returned from Paul Lawry’s TBR bus rally deep in the heart of the Sooner Nation. You can always tell when you arrive in Oklahoma, the kids start fighting, the wife gets cranky and YOU want to siphon some gas! We now understand it will be in the same spot next year and the name has been changed to ... Paul Lawry’s TBR bus rally deep in the heart of the Sooner Nation. (Pay attention people, there will be a test later and you don”t want to be lost again)
The thing I found interesting at this recent hookup (meeting) was the diversity of the coaches and the people who owned them. A cross-section of buses and people in America who restore, maintain and rebuild them. This is why I am now, and will always be, a strong supporter of mixed (model) rallies. You see everything there is to see and as we all know variety is the spice of life.
For instance:
We met a couple from Wyoming who were Italian Americans with a French dog (Poodle, a REALLY BIG poodle named Jack) and they were not in the Witness Protection Program. Some folks with a real nice looking MCI Challenger who live practically in our neighborhood here in Oklahoma. A couple of people who came all the way from Washington and another from Reno, the biggest little city in the world just off the loneliest section of highway ever paved ... U.S. 50.
We received a eye test in the casino, and it was only three hundred dollars. Walked across the room to buy a newspaper and spent another seven hundred more. The wife and I did not do all that well, we figure it is because the numbers and symbols on the wheels spin much too fast, and that leaves little time for us to “wish on them.”
Is life great or what?
I understand one bus participant actually won two grand, but later it was discovered that he had “invested” three grand to do it .... Later he was spotted wandering back to the campground at 5am and had evidently just attended church services as he was seen muttering something like .... Oh my gawd, Oh my gawd .... It appears that we checked in on the loser’s side of the casino, but I am hear to tell you, “we held our own in the buffet section.” Was invited to another participants home in New Mexico who said his driveway was an 18% grade and I would “have to back up it in order to get to his house.”
I-DON’T-THINK-SO.com
The potluck dinners were outstanding. I ate some of the best Gumbo and Vegetable stew, devil eggs and home-made cookies on the face of the planet. Why not .... My doctor doesn’t own a bus and he wasn’t there. Even took back a little meat to Jack (the HUGH poodle) which he consumed quickly, but still remained aloof afterwards. He sure is hard to make friends with.We met one guy with a 47 model Flixble parked next to me, who used to work with my backyard neighbor ... Small world eh? (I am sorry the photo is so small, don't really know why, just came out that way)
Met a really neat guy named David from deep in the heart of Texas (Lubbock) who joined FMCA back when the earth was still warm (his number is 571) and as he is a pharmacist by trade, he was able to explain to me why the sixties were so good to me .... at least I think that is the way I remember it?
Most of the meet was an “Open Agenda” type of endeavor. Like a fly at a picnic, I just buzzed around and irritated the fizz out of everyone I could find. Didn’t take a lot of pictures as I left the camera at home and I am not technically up-to-speed on these new jobbies where you look thru the back to see what it is that you just shot .... In other words, old school.
It was a real “edumaycayshun” for me ...
I saw my first “pink paint job” on a Detroit Diesel engine tucked into the back of Driving Miss Lazy .... I now understand that I have the wrong transmission ... the absolute worst oil leaking no horsepower engine manufactured in North America ... I run the wrong tires and have the best looking wife a weird dude could ever hope or expect to have .... Even had my picture taken in my brand new jacket, with the ##%**!!#!@ tag still attached to it ... the blackmail letter hasn’t arrived as of todays’ mail ...
So ..... In other words, good food, great people and strange doin’s. If you weren’t there .... You should have been.*
BCO
*Any resemblance to anyone living or dead, was most likely on purpose but please do not hold this against us ... the bolt lock on the bus was broken and he got out! My wife Yoko, made me post that. See you all next year ... we will be right up front in the first row or in the back of the lot if I get lost again. Look for us, I will be the guy spreading the rumor that I am too good looking for my height and getting 13 mpg.
Shouldn’t be all that hard to spot.