It's A Mystery 

Out behind our house is a wetland, and a woodsy spot with trails that are mostly used by the Lindbergh High School Cross-Country team.  We walk those trails regularly with dog in tow (or while being towed by) and are familiar with the ways and their denizens.  I think I mentioned before that the land had been deeded to the County as a passive park, which left us in the great position of having a permanent green belt behind our house.  Eventually the Soos Creek trail will run through on the way from Lake Meridian in Kent and the Cedar River Trail that starts in Renton.

Much like the story of Peter and the Wolf, everything inside our fence is safe country, for the most part, and outside is a scary place patrolled by packs of coyotes, the occasional bobcat, gray squirrels and rabbits, lots of rabbits.  Crows, woodpeckers and barred owls can be seen, and we have even had pileated woodpeckers in our back yard attacking the suet cake feeder.

As this story goes, I was walking the old dog, Harley, one day, and as we worked our way down the steep side of the hill I noticed a rusty hunk of metal half-buried in the bushes just off the trail. A closer inspection revealed that it was a Ford three-speed transmission, with a cast iron bell housing still attached.

Like all neighborhoods, this one has a history.  Before WWII it was a marshy, logged-off swamp.  My brother and I used to ride our bikes from Top Hat down and across the Kent valley to visit one of our buddies who had moved to the new Cascade Vista development.  One of life’s little ironies is that my wife and I lived in that neighborhood in a rental house for 19 years before we bought the one which we now occupy.  Some time in that distant past, somebody parked an old rig on top of the hill behind my neighbor’s house and took it apart.  Most of the pieces of sheet metal are still there, unrecognizable due to rust and disintegration

I took a few pictures of the transmission and shared them with my buddies from our Thursday lunch group, most of whom are old car guys.  They got rather excited about the possibility that this part could still be used someday.  That was all I needed to hear, so the next week my wife and I went out there with a hand truck and drug that old hunk of iron back up the hill from where it had lain for an unknown period.  I figured, since this land was now a park, it was our civic duty to remove litter and garbage any chance we got.

But beyond that, it becomes an issue of value.  Something like a car transmission is made up of many parts, starting with a series of castings, the gear box, the tail shaft and the bell housing, inside of which are gears, shafts, synchros, bearings and all the other small parts that make it work.  All of these parts are cast from iron, forged from steel or cut from stock by machinists and other skilled trades people from foundry to factory.  At every step in the way people laid their hands on it and added value to it.  If the results of all that labor is thrown down a hill to rust away, the accumulated value is lost.

The other modern wrinkle to the old auto parts story is the internet, which now make available all those old part numbers and makes it easy to trace almost any part back to the original application.  That is where this individual transmission becomes very interesting, indeed.

It seems that, back around 1966, Ford needed a new three-speed transmission to install in their V-8 powered trucks and full size cars, and this RAT model is the one they came up with, known as a top-loader after the tin cover on top of the gearbox.  The funny part is, about that same time GM was having a problem with their transmissions being too weak to handle the increased horsepower generated by the small block engines they were making.  Their new version was not ready, so for a couple of years they bought the transmission from Ford, bolted on a different bell housing and tail shaft housing to match up with the GM power trains, and there they were!  That’s why if you dig deep enough you will find charts that show the same transmission was used in Ford Broncos and F100 pickups and also the 1966 Pontiac Catalina, a thought that the GM fanciers in the never-ending argument about which is better, Ford, GM or Mopar, must find extra galling, and of which the Ford folks never let them hear the end.

This story is still open, so we don’t know how it ends, yet.  I did pull the top cover off and expose the inner works to the sun for the first time in many a year, and found much yuck and eww, but also saw a complete, possibly rebuildable transmission that was all there.  The only lingering mystery is why someone saw fit to pick up an 80 pound chunk of cast iron and steel and throw it over the edge of the hill.  I can only suspect much beer was involved.  :-{)}

Tales from Banti Creek

 

Tales from Banti Creek

 

There is a special place tucked in along the banks of the Yakima River below a steep slope that overlooks a small valley carved out by the river as it passes by what became the town of Cle Elum, Washington in recent years.  The gravel road that winds down the hill has a sign at the entrance announcing the neighborhood of Banti Creek.  I’m sure the creek is down there somewhere, if only evidenced by the wetland marsh on either side of the road as you approach the homestead.

There are some special people who have built a cabin on a few acres of forest land in that valley, and what makes it a special place is that for many years they have hosted an annual party over a weekend in the summer that has become a thing of legend among those fortunate to receive an invitation.

At the center of the celebration is a whole hog, the roasting of which over an open bed of charcoal below a spit captured by temporary sheet metal walls is the featured activity of most of the Saturday.  The pigmeister oversees this process through the heat of the Eastern Washington summer as people show up on site and set up their camps where they may.  Dinner that evening is a giant potluck to which nobody arrives empty-handed.  The minimum donation is a bag of charcoal briquets for the pig and a roll of toilet paper for the outhouse in the woods.

There is a trail that starts by one of the neighboring permanent houses, marked by carved bears on either side, and wanders through the woods to the bank of the river.  Part of the magic of the site is that every year the river is in a different place, motivated by log jams that form spontaneously during the winter months and force the river into different channels every time.  Upstream a little way is a fisherman’s dream of shallows and pools and a rocky beach that allows for sunbathing and wading, for those who can stand the icy cold waters coming down from the mountains to the west.

At dinner time, when the bell is rung, we find out how many people showed up this year, and it’s always more than you’d think, given that everyone is out doing fun stuff all day.  Coolers open to disgorge a veritable feast of side dishes of all types and cultures as the diverse crowd brings out their specialties to share with everyone else.  Over the years, we have witnessed the growth of children into adults as the adults turn into elders.  We have seen 60 foot high Doug Firs become exposed on the opposite bank of the river as the timeless dance of slowly falling water eats away the soil around their roots until they become part of the log jam or float downstream on their way to the Columbia.

After dinner, the crowd gathers around the picnic tables as the evening’s entertainment spontaneously begins.  There is tradition to follow here, as well.  Anyone who wishes to tell a joke or a story must straddle a log on a teeter-totter plank while wearing a mariachi hat on their head.  This applies to everyone from young to old, and what follows is just one of the stories that has come out of the gathering.  There may be others as time goes by.

Sven and Oly

Sven and Oly were the best of friends who grew up in Ballard (pronounce Bollor by those of the Scandihoovian tradition).  Oly was the idea man, quick and short, who always had a plan, while Sven was tall and taciturn, happy to go along with anything Oly thought up, even over his own misgivings about the chances of success of a given idea.

One day Oly caught up with Sven as he was leaving Hattie’s Hat after breakfast.  “There you are, Sven,” he said.  “I got us a quick job to do today!  I was talking to the Parson at the Lutheran church and he hired us to paint the steeple!  He even gave me the money for the paint, so let’s go to Limback’s and get the paint, then we can get started!”

That sounded good to Sven, so off they went.  Of course, any good job needs planning and forethought to be sure it comes out all right, and a planning session needs a few beers to stimulate the mental activity to get the right ideas in order, so they started at the Sloop tavern on Market Street.  That went well, if a bit long, and they discovered after they finally got to Limback’s that they may have spent a bit more on beer than they should have.  Oly allowed as how they could just buy water based paint so they could  thin it from the hose at the church to be sure it covered, and off they went.

The steeple was higher than they thought, and, after a while Sven looked at the remaining paint in the buckets, then up at the remaining shingles on the steeple and said, “I don’t think we have enough paint, Oly.”  Oly climbed back down the latter and topped off both buckets from the hose, and back to work they went.

The same thing happened again a while later, so Oly topped off the buckets again from the hose and mixed it up with a stick.  As you could imagine, by that time the paint was getting pretty close to translucent, but, since the money was all used up they had no choice but to keep going.

As they got close to the very top, a strange and wondrous thing occurred.  The sky, which in typical Seattle spring behavior was dotted with billowy cumulus clouds broken by sunshine, suddenly turned dark and threatening, but just over the church steeple, nowhere else!  As they hurried to reach the top before the rains came, there was a sudden rumble of thunder and a flash of lightning that shocked both of them out of their wits!  That was followed by a giant voice that came down from above.

It bellowed to them, “Re-paint!  And Thin No More!”  :-{)}

Count Your Blessings

 

Doing the dishes, like I do every single morning, is a meditative philosophical act.  And, when I say “doing the dishes”, I mean the old fashioned way, with both hands in a tub of hot soapy water with the scrub brush hanging on the wall next to the window sill and the drain rack on the counter to the right.  I think the hot, soapy water is the reagent that leads to deep thoughts and philosophical moods, and the repetitive, mindless motions allow one to stay in the present while gazing at the feast of activity in the back yard out the window – the birds flocking to the suet cake, jays landing on the deck roof to snatch the peanuts she tosses up there for them, while the hummingbirds flash through the scene to one of the feeders on either side, which they guard with impressive displays of tail feathers.  The fuzzy-tailed rats with good PR, otherwise known as squirrels, congregate on the deck roof and wolf down the suet cake while sneering at me when I complain.  When our dog, Bella, passed, so did any fear remaining in those rodents.

Why do I do the dishes every morning, you ask?  Pure self-interest is the answer.  I learned years ago that, if every time she decided to bake some delectable concoction  in the oven or whip out a delicious meal on the stove top, the dishes would magically be cleaned and returned to their places the very next day, the result of that would be more goodies.  And so it has turned out to be, a fair trade in any book, I say.

We had a dishwashing machine in the kitchen when we bought this place in ’97, the first one ever.  I remember the seller referring to it as a “dish storage device”, which I soon learned was true, and when the seals inevitably failed out it went to make room for recycling bins.  After I retired the first time we had to reconsider our domestic routines, and I wound up with the dishes.  Now I own them.

There was a guy on Facebook a while back, some general, and he was asked what the first thing was he got done every day, and he said, “I make my bed.  It’s simple, it’s easy, there’s a right way and a wrong way, and that way, I start off every day with an accomplishment.  Some days, that’s the only part that went according to plan.”

Doing the dishes is my equivalent of what he said.  I have also observed that the sound of me doing the dishes while she relaxes in the next room seems to have a beneficial effect on her general contentment, and therefore also mine.  It could be a self-reinforcing cycle that never ends, but I always seem to run out of dishes, eventually.

And so it goes in the never ending struggle to find meaning in life, and take pleasure during even the worst of times in the simple things that matter. Count your blessings. :-{)}

I Saw a Robin

 

I saw a Robin

With a hawk in hot pursuit

Flying for its life.

 

I saw a Coyote

Running through the neighborhood

My cat in it's mouth.

 

Now this pandemic

Has us hutched up in our dens

Nothing you can shoot.

 

Death is all around

As we strive to stay alive

Wear that silly mask.  :-{)}

Our Bubble

 

As vintage motorcycle enthusiasts, restorers, racers, afficionados, hobbyists, whatever we want to call ourselves, we live in a pleasant little bubble, largely concerned with the past.  Our motorcycles were built in the past, and any history of racing victories and legendary performance is pretty firmly in the past as well.  Newer technology has caught up with us, and many of our favorite brands have disappeared, but we don’t care.

We don’t care, much, that our collections have been and are continuing for the most part to lose value at all levels, especially for the oldest models with inadequate brakes and acceleration that confines them to only the most occasional of outings, like the IOVTT.  That’s all right with us.

It would seem that our enthusiasm is indifferent to world economies and trade issues, and the connections we make flow around the world.  I bought a stack of factory manuals from various British manufacturers one time at the ABATE swap meet, about 18 of them, and it turned out that many of them were re-patriated back to England (at a healthy markup), and I have bought bevel-drive Ducati valves from a guy in Amsterdam when nobody in this country has them.

So when I read about the trade wars with China I tend to brush it off as irrevelant, mostly.  But Ebay, the platform over which I have bought and sold for many years now, has made it clear that such indifference is threatened.

It started with leather saddlebags.  The Harley aftermarket business, conducted largely on Ebay and other online venues, used to be wide and deep, with the low end occupied by horse bags made in Pakistan and the high end populated by manufacturers like Willie and Max, with prices up in the $300+ range.  Now, you type in “Harley leather saddlebags” in the search bar, and you get page after page of perfect Chinese made knockoffs at ridiculously low prices.  A set of Heritage Softail bags with all the studs and conchos one would expect is now $60.  All the aftermarket manufacturers are gone.

The Keihin CV carburetor, first introduced on Harley EVO models in 1988 and becoming the standard carb for all models until fuel injection took over in the mid ‘00s, used to be pretty valuable, with good used ones around $125 and new ones over $300.  I just noticed that that market has been destroyed.  You can now buy brand new Chinese made knockoffs that are probably from the same source as the factory ones for $60, with free shipping.

How about a nice new muffler for my Moto Guzzi Breva?  I can choose between an Italian-made Mivv set for $4-600 or a brand-new knockoff from China for $56.98.  Which do you think will still be available next year, and what does that say about the value of any inventory a small shop might have accumulated?

The entire aftermarket business has severely contracted, with one distributor after another being swallowed up by a fish with a bigger mouth.  One publication reported that in 2018, China produced 34.9% of a $7.1B worldwide market.  I couldn’t get further details from them without shelling out $4500, so they must have had a high opinion of their facts, anyway.

It’s been going on for years.  One list I found from 2014 says Tucker Rocky merged with Motosport Aftermarket Group (MAG) that year.  MAG also owns Vance & Hines, Kuryaken, Progressive Suspension, Performance Machine, Mustang, Renthal, DragonFire and Roland Sands Design.  MAG also owns Motorcycle Superstore and J&P Cycle.  Surprise, surprise, it turns out that an anonymous company titled LSI is the majority owner of MAG and owns Tucker Rocky/ Biker’s Choice.  Can you see the octopus behind the curtain?  Think any of the decision-makers at those companies even ride motorcycles?

Anyone who has flipped through a J&P Cycles catalog lately knows how thin they are getting, as the bean counters toss anything that doesn’t sell fast enough, along with the idea of supporting restorers with aftermarket parts.  We’ve seen the same thing in local Hardware stores, as McLendon’s, which was bought out a few years ago, and has walked away from the idea that they should stock everything anyone might possibly want ever, just in case.  Now, you walk in there and half the time you walk back out empty handed.  And people wonder why Amazon is taking over retail.

What will save us is true unobtanium, the parts that were produced in such small numbers that there is no aftermarket and will not be one as they slip under the eyes of analysts looking for another market to destroy.  The rarest pieces get to the point where there is no sum of money that will pry them loose from the tight fists of the crotchety old-timers who are sitting on them.  I remember selling a busted-up Matchless G80 racing engine to a guy one time.  I asked him what he was going to do with it, and he said, “I actually don’t have a use for it at all, but there’s a guy in Anchorage who has a transmission that I want, and he will trade it to me for this engine.”

That’s how the future will go for vintage motorcycle enthusiasts, in my opinion.  The important thing to me is that the piles we accumulate, some of which contain truly precious things, at least in someone’s mind, must not be lost to the indifferent whims of our heirs, who may or may not realize the value of them.  In my case, where the pile was less valuable than the square footage it took to store it, and where I knew a guy who was active in the business and had a good chance to put some of those pieces back in service again, it was easy.  I dumped everything on him.  But for most of us, given how much time we have left, it is a good idea to think about such things from time to time, and come up with a plan that will carry our enthusiasms into the next generation.  That is where we find immortality.  :-{)}

Hidden Reality

 

Now that we know, it should have been obvious all along.  The leaders of the Greater Galaxy, meaning the Milky Way - a remote isolated sector of one of the smaller arms in which our Solar system is buried - and also meaning the representatives of the greater Culture that has gained hegemony over the millennia, has decided a few thousand years ago to place this planet of primitive, dangerous mammals under close surveillance, within the restrictions imposed by the Prime Directive of non-interference.

That decision has been proven correct over and over again as the human race gained in technical sophistication without managing to leave behind all their primitive beliefs and clannish behaviors and the religions they manufactured to support those beliefs and justify those behaviors.  There is an ongoing argument among the professionals in the Oversight department whether we will kill ourselves along with most of the other species on Earth before we wise up to reality and start cleaning up the messes we’ve made.

One side says that, in order to be scientifically pure and rigorous in the experiment, we should be allowed to go extinct as a result of our decisions, and a new and interesting species of being will take our place.

The other side says that, even though things are going bad fast, it is also true that the majority of people are not in a position to do much about it other than vote in the next election, though it must be admitted that less than half of us bother to do that, and an even smaller amount tries to work on the issues and for their solutions.  Because of them, it is pointed out, we are worth saving, and someone should step in and put a stop to our insanity before we blow the whole world up.  Not to mention that the rest of the planetary biodiversity has not been given a chance to weigh in on the situation.

The argument continues, and the betting line on the outcome has a life of its own.

And of course, in any society, even one as vast and complicated as one that spans a galaxy, there are always the outsiders, the pirates, the negative side of the equation, always working in the dark, quick to run for cover when the cops show up.

It is also true that there is one thing that a vast, complicated society loves to share among it’s elite members, that of succulent and tasty comestibles from all the remote parts of the galaxy, the more obscure the better.  A good red wine from certain areas of France, or California, is worth enough per bottle on Altair VI to buy the whole vineyard that produced it, and don’t even get them started on the idea of chocolate!

That is why, for thousands of years, especially over the last few hundreds as our culinary output grew in sophistication, the demand for Earth-made products has ensured a steady supply of smugglers and agents all scouring the planet for the next great find.  Our current economic system supports all this activity nicely.  Just try to think about how many anonymous warehouses exist all over the world into which things can go and never come back out, since they got transported aboard the cloaked vessel orbiting the planet.

This interest has also been spreading into jewelry and musical instruments.  Think about it:  We have been digging up diamonds for hundreds of years, yet the price is still so high!  Some of them are just not accountable for.  Like a ’59 Gibson Les Paul sunburst guitar, some have just disappeared, and nobody knows where they went.  Nobody on this world, anyway.

Many choice items are so highly valued, like Vincent motorcycles, Bugatti automobiles or antique firearms, that people maintain lists of every known example of the marque and speculate endlessly on the fate of the missing ones.  It should be clear that those have all disappeared off-planet.

It also tends to explain all the stories we have heard, from biblical days forward, about contact between humans and God, or Gods, or any of their related Angels and Demons.  It also explains the UFO stories, Area 51, and the rest.  No surveillance can be perfect, and crashes do happen.

So how do I know all of this, you ask?  Easy.  I made it up.  There are several layers of reality, you know.  You have Facts.  Then you have Facts disguised as Fiction, along with Fiction masquerading as Fact, quite common on Facebook.

And then, thanks to the efforts of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson in the Illuminatus Trilogy, you have facts disguised as fiction disguised as facts, masquerading as the Truth.  Only you can decide which is which, and don’t ask me to point you in the right direction.  I’ll just make something up.  :-{)}

Mathematics made easy

Mathematics starts with the concept of nothing, expressed as a zero, and continues to infinity, shown as a lazy eight laying on its side.

Since explanations are my stock in trade, I have come up with simple understandable demonstrations of these two concepts, which I am happy to share.

Zero is easy, learned as a toddler.  You have a nice piece of halloween candy in your hand, and you put it in your mouth.  Pleasure ensues, leaving a sticky residue on your fingers and face.  So you go to Mom and ask for more.  First thing she does is drag you to the sink and wash off your hands, along with your snotty nose.  The sticky residue is gone.  All gone, just like the candy.  So zero means no more, and there is no tantrum or plea that will make it come back.  A bitter lesson to be learned from something so sweet.

The hardest lessons are learned early.  I remember my son one time, he was about three, maybe.  We were at the store, and he wanted a treat.  I said, “No, put that back.  Payday is Thursday, and we can’t afford any treats till then.”  “But Daddy,” he said, “Can’t we just go to the Cash Machine and get more money?”  That was when I realized his understanding was that when you grew up, they gave you a magic card and you went to a machine and made it spit money out any time you wanted.  Ah, if only that were true!  The funny thing is, he’s a lawyer now, and it is.

Infinity, however, is a bit harder to grasp.  I found it in my bathroom.

Back when my illustrious wife retired the first time, before they called her up and said nice things to get her to come back as a temp, she looked around and decided the upstairs needed a bit of sprucing up.  Thirty thousand or so dollars later, one of the changes was a nice new medicine cabinet in the bathroom, which featured mirrored glass panels on all surfaces.  Behind the shelves, glass.  On either outside vertical panel, glass.  Inside both doors, more mirror.  There is no place in that room where you can’t look at the cabinet and see yourself looking back if the angle is right.  I understand what Lewis Carroll was thinking.  And here’s where infinity comes in, and you can try this at home with no danger other than to your mind if your bathroom cabinet is similarly equipped.  The doors open to the side, meaning you can stand in front over the sink and open both, then lean in to a point where you can look to either side.

You quickly realize that both doors can be gently positioned to show the reflection of the one on the opposite side, with your head in the middle, and, when you do, you are looking directly (out of the corner of your eye) at infinity.  As far as the eye can see, followed by as far as the mind can think, there it is, laid out for you to contemplate, your smiling face, and your hair, too, if any.  I’d say it was mind boggling, but I don’t know what that means.  If you could somehow magnify your vision you could theoretically look far enough down the line past all your noses to where the image would be lost in the Brownian Motion of the particles of glass, itself an extremely viscous liquid, like hair gel.

So infinity is related to hair gel, and that’s as far down that path that any sane person wants to go.  If any of you are so intrigued with this notion, but not equipped to experience it in person, give me a call.  For a small fee I can arrange a personal visit to infinity, one at a time.  :-{)}