other dog

They're running out of room inside the building. These are probably sitting outside waiting for a little restoration work, or maybe just a touch-up, but the ones that are inside are pretty much packed in there like sardines already.

I remember seeing that truck around Appomattox.

I went to the Keystone Truck and Tractor Museum today. I walked out back to look at a C model I saw out there, and it looked very familiar...thought i'd seen it somewhere before, but I couldn't place it- then it hit me! It's the one that's in the "Mack-Driven for a Century" book. I compared the pictures when I got home....and yep, that's the one all right!

The story behind the hat is that Old Bill, "The Diesel Gypsy", asked me to wear it, so I did. I'll try to make a long story short- He told me several years ago that he had the hat, somebody in Australia had sent it to him. He was preparing to move from Elliot Lake to Blind River because his wife had been accepted into a nursing home there, after being on a waiting list to get in for several years. He was "downsizing" in preparation for the move and getting rid of some things. I hated that he said he threw many boxes of pictures in a dumpster- I would have loved to go through those! So anyway, he told me he was going to send me the hat, but only if it fit me. He asked me what size hat I wore, and I didn't even know- caps are pretty much "one size fits all" you know. But I assured him that it would fit, so he sent it. This was only the second time i've worn it, the first time being at the Winchester, Va. ATHS Show a few years ago. I talked to him on the phone a few weeks ago and when I told him I was thinking about going to Macungie he said to "wear the hat, and take some pictures". So I did. It's a really nice hat too, an Akumbra, made in Australia, got a little bulldog on it and a gold "Mack" emblem. I never wear it, just keep it in my truck memorabilia cabinet.

And, on a serious () note- I bought that pit barrel smoker a while back, and yesterday I cooked a meatloaf in it. I bought a big pack of hamburger that was in the reduced bin because it had already turned green. Got a 1lb. pack of Italian sausage, and mixed them together with a bottle of John Boy and Billy Grillin' Sauce, a couple of eggs, bread crumbs, top secret rub, and a chopped onion. I took a package of bacon and made the lattice thing and covered the meat loaf with it. Then I put in on the smoker. I used an aluminum screen thing I got at Wal Mart to put it on, I think it was to grill fish with, but it worked well, it has a finer mesh than the grill grate. later... more later... Wow, it was good- best meatloaf I've ever made.

Newest edition group photo-

OK, how about this one then-

but wait, there's more!

"spare the rod, spoil the child"...as somebody famous recently said "I never got an ass-whipping I didn't deserve"...can't remember who said it, but anyway, I never got one I didn't deserve either, and I did get a few. I remember the old "go get me a switch- and it better be a good one!"

Happy birthday!...am I late?

Dave (maint1) was there too, I went over to the Davemobile but didn't see him around anywhere. I did get to speak to him earlier in the day though, he was the first person I saw that I knew. His chair was empty, but his pipe was laying on the ground.

newer edition-

OK, Let's add a few names names to faces- gee, I ran out of room pretty quick there...

happy birthday!

I delivered there, actually at Neville Island, but the address is Pittsburgh. Oddly enough, we used to load plastic pipe- uhhh, pipes- in Binghamton, N.Y. and take it to Colfax, N.C. I have also loaded those coiled plastic pipes in Knoxville, it was yellow, i'd guarantee it was at the same place!

I got there Friday to surprise everybody, and the surprise was on me- I couldn't find anybody to surprise!

(...any similarity to any real people is entirely coincidental and unintended, this picture is strictly for entertainment purposes only and not intended to be taken as real in any way...)

Naw, those dinosaurs have been there as long as I can remember. I'm with you with the GMCs, I told Vinny when we were talking that the big tall sleeper on that red cannonball kind of ruined it for me because it wasn't original, but to each his own. I liked the blue Tackaberry one better, it looked like it would look new on a dealer's lot, and the old green one- that one looked like it would look when it was still working.

I tried to burn him a disc of the Macungie pictures, but every time I tried it said "Windows can not read this disc, please insert a readable disc into the disc tray". And they're the DVD+R discs that i've always used for pictures, and now all of a sudden the computer doesn't recognize them?..stupid computers (Freightrain,2006). I e-mailed him a link to the flickr pictures anyway.

I saw 1958FWD and Large. And I saw saw this...I have no explanation. I saw several big Mack trucks at Metals USA in Ambridge, Pa. Bulldog on a Dodge. Another girl in another car at another red light. A boat- it used to float around in this little pond, but it hit an iceberg and sank. All the passengers and crew escaped without harm. And check this monster out- it was in the road on 699 just a little ways from here. We were almost home from Macungie when we saw it in the road. I don't know what's going on with turtles, but i've seen lots of them in the road this year- not the usual terrapins, I mean big snapping turtles. I saw three in one day that had been hit in the road a few weeks ago. After the photo shoot I picked this one up by the tail and put it in the field where it was headed to in the first place...hope the old fella made it, he was a big one.

And now...the rest of the story! The real pictures of the week- I hired a painter to paint my picnic table. She put a whole gallon of paint on one picnic table, but she did a great job. I just wish she had waited for it to dry before she sat down. I saw another load of onions. Nice looking onions! Of course I saw a girl in a car- at a red light. I saw a girl by a car in a parking lot. I saw dinosaurs too- Another girl in another car- A moth.

This was the big attraction in both of those GMCs-