We went to my hometown county fair last evening. This is the first time I’ve been to the county fair in over 20 years. (We’ve been to the state fair a few times over the past several years.) I remember the county fair of my younger days—going with family, going with friends, going with a date. The lights, the sounds, the smells, the shoddily-assembled rides, etc. were all there last night.

We went a bit before sundown and stayed a bit after sundown. My boys loved it. I had fun, and I think my wife and mom had fun, too, but it really wore us out. We had pizza slices and cheeseburgers for dinner, and I got a funnel cake for dessert. The first half of a funnel cake is great, but the second half gets to be a bit much. So I only ate about 9/10ths of it.

I slid down the Fun Slide with my 2 year old (the 6 year old didn’t like climbing the open and rickety stairs up so high). That slide was taller, faster, and more of a ride than I expected—was pretty cool.

The 6 year old drove a bumper car by himself for the first time. The 2 year old wanted to ride the bumper cars, too, and I was going to ride with him, but it was only one person per car, and the little guy was under the height limit. He cried in disappointment.

I took the boys into two fun houses. The first one was a maze of glass and mirrors. It’s actually pretty hard to find your way through that kind of thing. You have to choose direction by feeling the walls, because the disorienting effect of the mirrors and the invisibility of the glass defeats visual attempts to find the path. I’d love to go through a really big maze like that. The whole effect is really cool, and the boys laughed and shouted the whole way through.

The second fun house was a disappointment. The floor was supposed to be moving in places, but it was broken, apparently. At one point, there were rollers on the floor to make walking difficult, but the rollers were stuck, so they didn’t do anything. But the boys still laughed and shouted the whole way through.

I also took the boys into the petting zoo to feed the sheep, goats, donkey, and lama. The boys dropped most of the feed pellets on the ground when the animals tried to eat out of their hands, and then they’d run back to the vending box for more food.

The wife and I rode the Ferris wheel together. I was interested in seeing the fair from up high, and my wife was interested in waving to the boys down on the ground. We didn’t even think of making out while up there alone. The Ferris wheel used to be an excuse for alone time and kissing.

I also rode the sky drop thingy, alone. It has a circular seating arrangement, facing out, around a tower 120′ high. The circle seat rises slowly up the tower, with the riders’ feet hanging out over open air, and then it freefalls about 100′. That was more intense than I thought it would be. For one thing, there is no warning when you’re about to fall. I expected there to be brief stop or bump or click or something at the top just before the drop, but nope, you just suddenly plummet. Falling is a very unnatural feeling, and I had the natural panic emotion for split second. But the experience was very cool. I’d have loved to do it another time or two, but we didn’t have time for it (nor enough tickets).

This year’s fair was about half the size of the years when I was a kid. The rides and attractions were arranged on only half the fairground area; the other half was empty and open. Among the missing attractions were the freak show tents. (I’d never gone in one, myself, but some of my friends did, and they explained that they just had pictures of freaks, or statues “representing” the freaks.) Also missing were half the rides and some of the big eats places. There was still enough to thoroughly entertain the boys for two and a half hours, but it was a noticeably smaller fair to me.

Still, it was a fun experience for my boys. It completely exhausted all of us, especially us parents and grandparent. The smaller size was a good thing for us, I think, because it made it easier to get around. I’m wondering if the state fair would be too much this year, what with both boys walking.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Junkyards are interesting places. The first thing that came to mind when I visited the three junkyards this week, was astonishment at the sheer number of trashed cars. I could see a couple or few dozen cars scattered around in various states of destruction: from smashed fenders that looked like the car could be repaired rather than trashed, to twisted and torn and shattered pieces of metal only barely recognizable as a car.

And this collection of destruction was just the vehicles that hadn’t yet been crushed and moved on. Some of these vehicles were late models, and even the older cars were less than maybe 10 years old. When I think of junkyards, I think of old derelict vehicles, but the reality is much younger. Some of these trashed cars look like they may have come off the dealer’s lot recently.

Looking at the devastated vehicles, I wondered how many people died in the wreckage. A few of the cars had wholes in the windshield above the steering wheel, and I could picture an unbelted driver smashing through it. Some of the cars were smashed in on the driver’s side door, and some had a collapsed roof—these had to be fatal collisions for the drivers. If ghosts and hauntings are real, I would figure that junkyards would be as probable a location as any graveyard.

There are so many interesting things to note about the junkyards I went to that I could make a week’s worth of posts relating them: the stacks of car doors, the scattered engines blocks, the ground piles of various parts and pieces, and the occasional car cab stuffed full of random junk.

And then there are the people working at the junkyards.

At one place we dealt with a young woman and her mother. Neither woman looked like a “junkyard” type, and in fact, the young woman was surprisingly attractive and clean to be found at such a place.

The next place was staffed by a bunch of skinny young guys. None of them were dirty, although the ones out in the yard showed signs of sweat from working in the hot afternoon sun. Every guy we talked with, there, was helpful and friendly.

Then there was the last place we visited. It was a bunch of obese, older guys who just pointed a finger and told us to go look for the part we needed. Although these guys more fit the preconception I had in my mind of junkyard workers, they turned out to be the more unusual team from what we had seen that day.

If I were twenty years younger, I might have asked the “junkyard girl” out on a date. If I had a 20 year old daughter, I wouldn’t have minded if one of the “junkyard boys” had asked her out on a date. But the “junkyard men”? Not so likely for either option.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

The driver-side window in my car had stopped working. I took the car to a local mechanic shop we’ve used before and had them find out what was wrong. We paid for the diagnosis and got an estimate for the repair: $350.00.

The city and area we live in is expensive, especially for things like car repair. We usually end up taking our cars to my hometown for any major work. My dad knows all the good mechanics there, and we can trust them. Every time we’ve taken a vehicle to my hometown for repairs, we’ve saved between $100 and $300. It’s always been worth the drive and time. Besides, I usually spend the day hanging out with my dad while the repair work is being done.

So, the diagnosis for our power windows was that we needed to replace the master switch in the door. My dad set up an appointment with a mechanic he knows in my hometown; my dad was having the man do some work on his own car, too. When we dropped off my car, I told the mechanic what the previous mechanic in my current city had said: the master switch was bad. (But I didn’t tell him how much the other guy would have charged for the work.)

My dad and I ran errands in the morning, and then went back to check on the car. The mechanic confirmed that we needed to replace the master switch. He said I could get a switch from any parts place, or the dealer, or even a junk yard, and popping it in would be easy. So, we swapped cars, leaving my dad’s car for its work, and taking my car. The mechanic left the switch hanging out of its place in the door so we could see it and have easy access to it.

My dad and I called several parts stores for a master switch, but no place had one—it’s strictly a dealer item. The only dealer was in another town, half an hour away, so my dad suggested we check with junk yards.

The idea of getting parts from a junk yard doesn’t sit real well with my mind, but I know people (including my dad) who have gotten parts from a junk yard and never had a problem with the part’s function or appearance. So, I was willing to see what we could find. To help soothe my concerns about junk yard parts, we learned the price for the master switch: The dealer told us $120. The various junk yards we called said between $25 and $65.

Every junk yard we called told us they had the part. But when we got to the junkyards, none of them actually had the switch for the model car I have. We came so very close to getting a really cheap part every time we tried a yard, but we ended up just wasting time on searching. The cost savings would have been great if just one of the promises had come real. As it was, we had to just go to the dealership for the part anyway.

At the dealership, when the parts salesman gave us the part, he told us the price was $150. I told him we were quoted $120 on the phone before we drove out there. He asked us who told us that, and said that price was just not right. I insisted we were told that price. He told us that the only way we could get that price is with a manager’s approval, but the manager was on the phone. I said I’d wait. Although I didn’t tell him, I told my dad I’d give them five minutes to handle this, or I’d walk out. I was not going to be dealt with like that. I marked the time on my watch, but the manager came into the situation in only about three minutes.

I had already figured up the probable total cost with tax, in my head: around $132. I was willing to pay that, but not more. When the manager and salesman finished their discussion, I was getting it for $120 total, including tax. The salesman gave me the bull about “Don’t tell anyone how much you got this for—it’s below our cost.” Yeah, that’s standard salesman smoke. So I walked out with the switch for the total $120.

My dad and I popped it into place in the parking lot. When we got back to my hometown, we went and picked up his car from the mechanic. He asked if we got the switch. We told him what we had to do to find one, and that we installed it ourselves. He didn’t charge me any cost for his confirmation of the diagnosis.

So, for going to my hometown and having a small-town mechanic, known to my dad, check out my car and advise me, I saved $230 (66%) on a car repair. This just supports my dislike of having to deal with car mechanics in my current city.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

While visiting my hometown yesterday with my boys, we went to a local park. The park is relatively new, and the playground structures are well chosen and well assembled. It’s a nice park.

At first, the only other visitors at the playground was a dad and his daughter. The dad had no wedding ring, it was a Sunday afternoon, and the way he and his daughter were playing suggested it was probably their visitation time (custody arrangement).

After they left, another dad arrived with two daughters and their friend. This dad, you probably had to see to “appreciate,” but let me try to describe him: He had bright, white, new sneakers; very tight blue jeans with his keys attached to a beltloop (no belt), so they jingled everytime he ran; a tight white tanktop showing his moderate beer gut and his multiple tattoos; dark black hair and mustache over a cigerette hanging from his mouth. His daugthers squealed in delight when he pushed them high on the swings. He’d rush forward, pushing them up over his head, and continuing his run under them and away. The girls reached a height of about eight feet and then dropped back down in a big jolt and swing. They loved it, and they were old enough to hold on tight through the ride. (Their friend, however, did not like it, so the dad let her swing by her own power.)

Then a big red pickup truck arrived with half a dozen kids in the back bed, clinging to the sides like a redneck school bus. One of the kids in the back of the truck was in a wheelchair, and when everyone dismounted, they all helped get him down together. All the kids were barefoot or in flip-flops. That group went in the park museum for a while. When they came back out after about half and hour, they all climbed back on the truck. Four of them sat down on the tailgate. The truck backed out of the dirt parking lot, turned, and headed out to the main road with the kids hanging on and laughing amid a cloud of dust.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com