Cruisin' weather - finally!

What a little bit of sun can accomplish! It seems the leaves on the trees are exploding, as well as the dandelions! It feels like just last week the hostas in the flower garden at our church were mere little nubs, and this past Sunday, there were full-blown beautiful purple flowers on them. I hope the grass seed we planted this week shows the same progress…

Recently our daughter-in-law’s dishwasher required repairs. Her handy dandy dishwasher repairman passed along a helpful hint with respect to keeping her dishwasher clean. As we use well water in our home, and have experienced problems with spots and dishes not always being clean, I thought I would try the “cure”. I am happy to say that I am 100% satisfied, and am also happy to share this helpful hint with all of you. Citric acid crystals is the answer. You can buy it bulk at the healthful store and it is relatively inexpensive. You put your regular soap into the soap holder and the citric acid loose in the extra little dispenser in the door of the dishwasher. No extra rinse agent is required. My glasses come out spotless and the dishes clean…another problem solved!

The first car that John and I bought together (way back in 1969 in Calgary, Alberta) was a red 1961 Thunderbird convertible, for the grand sum of $900.00! How we loved driving that car – for a while anyway. After a while, it began breaking down all too regularly. We were both working, but that car seemed to nickel us to death. Everything was power – the top, the steering, the brakes, the trunk and the windows. We could pretty well count on it breaking down any time we took it on a trip, and finally it was necessary to park it, as repairs were too costly. Eventually we sold it to a friend for $250.00, as we were moving and it had to be removed from the driveway.

Fast forward to 1989 – no longer on such a tight budget and we were looking for a classic car to drive as members of the Klassic Kruizers Kar Klub. We found an awesome 1963 red T-Bird in Nipawin and made it ours. It was not a convertible, but we remembered the hassle with the power top, and with children, having a convertible did not seem appropriate. During our time with the car club, we enjoyed many cruises and car shows and the friendship of many car enthusiasts.

Unfortunately, over the years, the frame rails on the ’63 rusted out badly and John did not feel it was safe to drive. He was able to find a 1962 T-Bird, originally an Arizona car, which had an excellent body. He purchased it to use the body and transfer all of the good usable parts from the old Bird (motor, transmission, etc.) into the ’62. For John, this was a tremendous undertaking in itself, without the interruption of work by a heart attack and by-pass surgery which intervened. He managed to get the body painted red and then the poor Bird sat in pieces for several years until the will and the way came together, in 2002. Over the last few years, we have driven it occasionally over the summer. However, this year, we figured it would be better for the car to actually DRIVE it often… first thing to need attention when we got it on the road was the brakes.

Then when we went to do a wheel alignment, it was discovered an outer tie rod end is required before the wheels can be aligned properly. With a quick phone call to Larry’s Thunderbird in California, the part was ordered and should be here next week. Then that big puddle of engine oil on the floor of the garage needed looking into – the rear main seal in the engine is leaking. As the vehicle sits, seals and gaskets dry out. Try to find someone in this day and age who has the expertise to work on a classic vehicle like this one!? We managed to find one at Walter’s Service. He is as excited to work on it as we were to find someone qualified. The young fellow who was to drive it into the garage to be put up on the hoist had never seen slide-away steering, and was in awe of how to get the steering column to slide back. By the time this is published, the main seal will be replaced. Hopefully it will be back on the road by the middle of June and gas prices will go down so we aren’t grumbling about that every time we go for a drive! Honk when you see us go by!