Neanderpundit

Today, the flag goes back to the top of the mast.

Today, I stop mourning the loss of perhaps our greatest president ever.

Today, because my reach exceeds my grasp, because I am a parent and because the world in which my child lives is important to me, I’ve had enough. I will get off my halfmoons and spend some time doing something to change my world. I will not let the “Nation of Nannies” ratchet back the freedoms so dearly won by the fathers of this, the greatest nation on earth. I may not be capable of very much. I may not succeed. I WILL try.

I am opposed to doing anything twice that can be done right once, and never done again. The expression I learned form my uncle Calvin, who learned it in thearmy, (I think) is NORA. Do it Now, do it Once, do it Right, do it All.

I belive this about my stuff, too. I share Kim du Toit’s love of old firearms, but I also have a love of old stuff of all types, that was built right to begin with.

Here is my tractor, for instance.

it’s 40 years old, just a few years younger than me. I love it because it hasn’t needed anything other than normal maintenance for all that time. Dad and I remodeled a guys house, and in turn, he gave us this tractor. The previous owner was the dealer, and he loved this tractor, was loathe to be rid of it, but his contract required he replace it with a new one. Dad used it to plow snow in the winter, and I mowed with it in the summer. I’ve been mowing an acre plus every summer weekend with that tractor for thirty years, boy and man. Ok, it’s a little dirty, but it starts and runs on the first pull every season. I use the electric start when I’m tired, but I love starting it with the rope, just because. It has a rope type starter, wrap the rope around the front pulley of the engine, yank with all your might.

I have a lot of equipment like this; old stuff that performs well after years of service. I’ll post more as I think of it.

Yesterday, at 8:00, I went to my regular dentist to get a toothache checked out, and discovered, (not a surprise) that I needed a root canal. Dentist says, this tooth has taken it’s knocks through the years, no surprise that it died.

You don’t like this sort of thing, you might want to go over to Lileks and look at some pictures of matchbooks for a while.
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