Okay, here is my first and maybe only sexual revelation.  Remember the movie Same Time Next Year?  It was about two people who had a long relationship, extramarital-type, but they only met once a year.  I had a similar thing going with Monica, the witch from Connectocut.  She was a Mensan, by the way–we met at a convention.  (Someone once observed that Mensa conventions is where the eggheads go to get laid.)  Anyway, she was a real Wicca-type witch.  She had this awesome sacred grove, gathered amanitas in the fall etc.  And she was gorgeous.  Red hair, green eyes, and a ton of fun to be around.  Kind of wild in the sack, however–she was big on nipple-biting.  And stamina–my gosh, she could stay up all night drinking, smoking dope, and so forth and look fresh as the proverbial daisy the next morning.  One more thing–she once had a neighbor, a drummer who was way inconsiderate with his drumming.  She asked him nicely not to drum so loud so late.   He refused, she did a little hocus pocus, and the dude broke his arm.  No more drumming, at least for a while.

I’ve just been thinking about the great success of SuSu’s sexual revelations, and was wondering if I should follow suit?  I dunno.  Does anyone want to hear about my very first time, which was on top of a 100-foot steel tower?  Or the time I had sex with a progeriatric dwarf–in front of her husband?  Or all the various threesomes?  Or some of the many Mensa one-night stands?  What do you think, gang?

All this head-tripping about cars lately has got me thinking about my very first car.  When I was a senior in high school (1964), I got this after-school job working as a kennel boy.  The kennel was maybe eight miles from home, so a car was a necessity.  I soon found a 1955 Mercury two-door hardtop.  It had a 302 cubic inch engine and dual Weber carbs.  It looked liked a Mafia staff car, and it went like a bat out of hell.  (Later, when I was in college, some kids I was giving a ride to were making fun of the car.  To shut them up, I floored it and we were soon going about 100 mph.  Terrified, my passengers apologized and begged me to slow down.  I did.

The car served me well for years, until it was broadsided in a shopping center parking lot by some fat chick

 driving a 1958 Chevrolet.  I drove away from the accident, her car had to be towed.  After the accident, my previously cherry-looking black Merc had a puke green front fender and a blue passenger side door.  It was never the same after that, and I traded it in on a 1961  Oldsmobile F-85.

More revelations about the new car –okay, it’s a 1988 Vista Wagon with no one knows how many miles on it.  Anyway, today I found out that the read window defroster works, and that the rear window wiper motor works–all I need is a wiper arm and blade (the old one is broken off) and I’m in business.  Plus I got out my little 12-volt air compressor and aired up the tires–one was so low it didn’t even register on my tire guage.  Amazing how much better the thing rides now that all the tires are more or less the right pressure.

Also, I found out why I had so much trouble finding the spare tire.  It’s missing.  But I took it out for a spin after airing the tires and the shimmy isn’t so bad now.  And I am heartened by the way the engine fired right up after sitting for two days and not having the block heater turned on.  I’m still not sure it works–I had to replace the power cord on my last two cars for the heater to work–but I remain optimistic.

Wahoo!  I got it!  I got wheels again, I’m in business again!  I got the car, turns out it is really an 88, not an 87, which puts the high dealer bluebook at $2515, which is what most private parties would probably ask.  I have noticed very little difference between dealer prices and private party prices, and 4wds always go for a premium.

Anyway, I wound up paying $564 cash and around $50 (my cost) in merchandise.  I love it, but it’s weird to drive, since the seat is only secured on 3 points (need to get that fixed some day) and the steering  wheel shimmies at hiway speeds due to a bad CV joint.  But what the heck, it runs, it’s got some pickup, the heater works, it even has a block heater installed, which is a must, assuming you are on the power line.

So, I am no longer on tenterhooks.  I got it.  Now all I have to do is make an appt with Midas for a free brake/suspension inspection, buy the new CV joint so Jack can install it, and get up to the DMV at Trapper Creek and get the license and registration and title changed around to reflect our ownership.

To repeat–Wahoo!  I be mobile!

I am on tenterhooks.  (Oooh, sounds kinky!)  That is, I am in the process of buying a car, a 1987 Colt Vista wagon, 4wd no less, for way under the blue book price, due to some minor but costly to fix body damage, plus a few other things like a cracked windshield, missing rear window wiper, and a partly-unsecured drivers’ seat.  In other words, a typical rural Alaska vehicle.

Anyway, the plan was for us to drive to Willow, get the car, and each drive one home, but repeated phonecalls to the guy’s business phone and personal cell phone have gone unanswered.  So I am waiting, hoping that nothing happened to queer the deal (like the car being wrecked or stolen) and hoping we can get it soon.  More on this burning issue later.

Nostalgia time.  I was reading some comments about the old Johnson Smith Catalog.  It is still published, but the new one is a far cry from, say, the fabled 1936 edition, in which you could purchase firearms (but no ammo) and alcohol.  The issue I remember was in the late 50′s. I scraped up some money, bought a money order at the post office–feeling very grown-up indeed–and ordered some truely cool stuff.

I had to get the x-ray specs.  Remember them?  You were supposed to be able to see the bones in your hand, through clothing, that sort of thing.  It didn’t work, but it was fun.  Now the fake gold tooth worked fine, but it wasn’t much fun.  This was a brass temporary crown affair that you would sort of jam over a regular tooth to make it look like a gold tooth.  Why one would want to do this is quite beyond me, but I imagine it seemed like a good idea at the time.  The luminous paint was lots of fun.  It was expensive–a buck for maybe half an ounce.  Come to think of it, now that I recall how brightly the stuff glowed, it might have been radioactive.  Maybe it’s just as well I never had kids. 

The best thing of all, though, was their selection of little booklets, like the Book of Forbidden Knowledge.  I think it had stuff like the Cabala and maybe some astrology.  I also got a book on hypnotism, and hypnotized a kid at Boy Scout camp, much to the consternation of one of the councilors.  Poor kid.  I think he’s  the same one I beat at chess by cheating.  Actually, it was a draw.  But I digress.

The site with the Johnson Smith stuff also had some stuff about Captain Midnight.  Boy did I love that show!  I sent in the seal from Ovaltine and got the membership card and decoder badge and everything.  I would use it on sunny days to try to flash Morse Code messages to pilots in planes going by overhead.  Ah yes, Captain Midnight.  And if you’ve come this far, maybe you remember what a Tut Special was, and why it really wasn’t special at all.

If you love mystery novels, read this:

If you haven’t read anything by David Wiltse, you are in for a huge treat.  He is absolutely first-rate, way above many other NYTimes best-sellers.  Besides thrillers, he has written a number of plays and has a generally impressive resume (which you can see at his web site), but I am writing about his Becker novels.  John Becker, FBI agent, is one of the most interesting and well-developed figures in modern popular fiction.  He is brilliant, sensitive–heck, as Inspector Renault said of Rick in Casablanca, If I were a woman, I would be very much in love with him.  Thing is, there is one little, well, quirk, that Becker has, which makes him a very effective lawman, but gives him al lot to think about–thing is, he enjoys killing people.  Although I never killed anyone, I can relate to this in depth, as there are numerous people I know I would enjoy killing.  Killing for killing’s sake, I dunno, but I do know I fantasize about gut-shooting my enemies and seeing them writhe in pain as they slowly die.  Oookay, maybe I am roaming a tad far afield here.  Thing is, if you love  really really good fiction, read anything by David Wiltse and especially the Becker novels.  And if you are feeling really pushy, email him and ask him to give us more Becker.  I did, and I’m glad.

Suppose you’re a terrorist, or just maybe some poor putz with a huge grudge against the world.  You’d like to get hold of some cheap, readily-available, hard to detect poison.  If so, have I got a toxin for you.

The stuff is called sodium azide.  It is super-toxic–about the same as cyanide.  A lethal dose can be as little as 50 miligrams.  It is odorless, and looks like table salt.  There are no controls on it.  And you can get all you want, probably, at the nearest junkyard.

You see, sodium azide is the stuff that makes airbags go boom.  When thus deployed, the stuff turns into nitrogen gas.  When not deployed, the stuff just sits quietly in its little container.  When air bags were just getting off the groud, so to speak, it was thought that they would be recycles when cars were junked.  However, it seems that most people don’t want to trust a second-hand, albeit unused, airbag, so cannisters of the stuff are just, well, piling up.

And what about the environment?  Well, what about it–no one knows how much harm will be done when the 10 MILLION POUNDS of the stuff that are now in cars, gets into the environment.  We do know that the stuff is water-soluable.  Sleep well.

This is gonna be about religion.  For years, folks have been getting upset when they think that a perfect God created an imperfect world.  Shit happens and some people lose their “faith”–”Oh God, how could you let this happen?” they moan.  Or they go Satanist, figuring that this world is so nasty that only Satan could have created it.  And what about all those nutty Christians who for years felt that bathing was sinful since it involved nudity?  So why does all this shit happen?  And why, you may ask, does it all have to happen to little me?

Two words: free will.  God gave us two great gifts, life and free will.  Every bad thing that happens, weather and stuff excepted, happens because you, or someone, made a decision that was not in your best interest.  Come to think of it, maybe you could include the weather, since the ozone layer isn’t exactly going away by itself.

For your edification, I close with a hymn written by that eminent British theologian, Eric Idle.

All things dull and ugly
All creatures short and squat
All things rude and nasty
The Lord God made the lot.

Each little snake that poisons
Each little wasp that stings
He made their brutish venom
He made their horrid wings.

All things sick and cancerous
All evil great and small
All things foul and dangerous
The Lord God made them all.

Each nasty little hornet
Each beastly little squid
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did.

All things scabbed and ulcerous
All pox both great and small
Putrid foul and gangrenous
The Lord God made them all.
AMEN