Confessions of a Grandma

  April, 2013   A nice lunch with my daughter and the two kids at Fire and Ice Restaurant in Middlebury, VT, was a good way to celebrate Mother's Day.  We got together on Saturday to avoid standing in a waiting line with hungry children. My son was not able to attend.  He spent this weekend taking the motorcycle safety course. Now there is a perfect Mother's Day gift--the idea that your child is contemplating a motorcycle.  So what if he is in his forties and doesn't actually need my permission. I hope it was a wonderful day for everyone.

What is it? What's it worth? Have you seen the number of shows that follow a similar theme to American Picker?   They are meant to be, I'm guessing,  the next step beyond (or down from)  Antiques Roadshow.   People hit the road to track down a barn full of junk that just may have something of value buried within, or they bid on packed storage sheds in the hopes that they are filled with precious, resale-able stuff. That's a big part of what Mike did for a living although they didn't make a TV show about his working life.  Back then, lots of folks would have called him a junk dealer.  He and his partner had a motorcycle shop that repaired, restored, and sold antique American made motorcycles.  Probably the bulk of the business was selling parts to anyone who was looking to restore their own vintage bike.  That meant hunting down those parts to have on hand. It's not that glamorous.  I can remember spending an entire da...

The sun came out yesterday and the temperature climbed all the way up to 80.  Such an unexpected gift.  Mike pulled a steak out of the freezer and got the grill ready.  I went out and dug up my vegetable patch.  Different priorities.  The pictures are from a last week supper.  Mike thought his burger with BLT was so beautiful it should be used for a TV commercial.  He thought my rice loaf with veggies should be scraped into the bin.  So judgemental--it was really delicious. Mike has gone to Pennsylvania for the next three days--to an antique motorcycle club swap meet.  He is taking some of his collection to sell. If he sells this poster, I will really kind of miss it.  On the other hand, the oil cans he wants to sell... We have another piece of land to sell--2.75 acres in Florida.  It doesn't look like we will  have the luck we had with the VT land.  Right now, you could buy some land and build a house in Florid...

The wind has been blowing like crazy here--with great clouds of pollen rolling past. Our car is yellow but even though I had the option of getting a car wash when I was filling the gas tank today, I decided to wait until next week. We'll be taking a long drive to Eustis, FL tomorrow for an antique motorcycle meet. Mike is no longer in the old motorcycle business, but going to some of the meets gives him a chance to keep up with old friends and acquaintances. I won't have all that much interest in looking at antique motorcycle parts and listening to tales of the glory days, but it will give me a chance to do some exploring of that part of the state. I'm especially looking forward to spending a couple hours in Mount Dora--so close to Orlando and yet so far, far away. I was ruminating on gas stations, because if you read A Slower Pace as I do, you know that Linda has a way of writing about things that just get you thinking about things like that. Today she wrote about the old...

Wow...all that space in the garage! Mike sold the last of his motorcycles, the red 1949 Harley with sidecar. It's new owner came and got it today. We sold my sportster earlier in June. So I guess that part of our lives is a thing of the past. Not a big deal for me, but Mike did make his living with antique motorcycles. That made it work instead of a hobby, even though he did restore a number of bikes for himself, so it's understandable that he's glad to move on to other things in retirement.