The old Dixieland song goes, “My Handyman ain’t handy no more.” It has humorous lyrics that bemoan the fact that the singers handyman, “when he isn’t sleeping all he does is yawn,” where he used to get out and “trim the lawn.” Of course it is full of double entendres so I won’t get into that.

One of the tenants of our retirement plan was to divest ourselves of the house and yard that took up all of our time. I just couldn’t part with all of my tools, and thus the little red trailer was populated with all of my tools. It’s a form of “taking it with you.” Now we come to the basic fault in that plan. Wherever we go, there is always something that needs fixing or building. I do this at RV parks occasionally; my children always have a “project” on tap when we arrive; of course there are many little projects around the motor home that wear out or break, so you never can get away from the fixit world. At least it is something that I enjoy doing, and the best part is I have my own tools, I know they are in decent working order and best of all I can find them. It has taken me fifty years to figure that one out, my children and grandsons still haven’t. My Grandfather Dinsmore’s mantra was “A place for everything and everything in its place.”

Here are a couple recent projects you might enjoy reading about:

As we were about to leave Hillsboro, we decided that we needed to shampoo the carpet. Renee has a big old Kirby with a carpet shampoo attachment. However, Neil dropped the vacuum and one wheel broke off. Glue was not able to reattach the pot metal bracket and its 17 year old age made parts doubtful. I disassembled the broken part and departed for the sanctuary of my red trailer. Soon the milling machine was shaping a duplicate part from a billet of steel. With the wheel axle pressed into the new bracket the wheel was soon as good as new. The carpet has been shampooed and life is lovely.

Upon our arrival in Gilroy my son, Glen, was contemplating a huge ceiling fan in its box in the corner of the living room. He and I poked around the edges for several days and finally drew up some plans. Early Saturday morning I moved a bunch of my tools into the house and we started laying out the position and bravely cut a hole in the ceiling. We built a frame for the fan and had it in position in the early afternoon. By then the heat was unbearable and we took the kids out Geocaching in the park. The next morning we tackled the wiring problem. Glen’s wife, Barb, was in Sacramento at a wedding so Glen and I could not resist setting up a bit of a spoof. We set up an extension cord and fed it through the louvers of the fan. We left that in place, and when Barb returned I explained that pulling wire from the breaker box had turned out to be too expensive and difficult. This was much cheaper and it was designated the “red neck power option.”

To check out a photo of this pair of red necks see photos below, I will also include a photo of the Kirby fix.

We will be traveling east this winter. In our first two weeks we will cross from California to Nevada at Lake Tahoe, then across I-80 in Northern Nevada to Salt Lake City. We will check out Dinosaur National Park near Vernal Utah and then drop down into Colorado probably taking I-70 into Denver. We might skirt Denver and take in Colorado Springs or even Pueblo before heading into Kansas. In Kansas we plan to stop by Topeka. In Missouri we probably will stop in Seneca and Jefferson City for some genealogical research. The itinerary is always subject to change, but we expect to be in Nashville at Christmas time.

For now we send our greetings to all, and see you down the road somewhere.

Gary and Judy