Do you collect anything out of the ordinary? If so, what is it, and why do you collect it?

I collect free tools. These are most often cheap, stamped-metal tools which come with a specific product,and is necessary for the service or installation of that product. Others are made of plastic and are useful only for a kitchen faucet installation or to dismantle and clean a particular faucet screen. This collection came about by accident. One day I realized that I'd saved all this crap and that it constituted a genuine collection, of sorts.

It's every bit as valuable as my coin collection, which I collected on purpose over the last forty years.

   

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Twenty Bucks

I went through that awkward Burger King next to Home Depot on Woodstock Rd  at King Rd. This was last year sometime. It's awkward because the access is kinda funny. You can get there via the Wachovia Bank entrance off King or you can get there via the right turn lane on Woodstock making a right before you get to King or you can enter off another road which gives access to Home Depot off Woodstock. Got all this?

So, I went from Home Depot into the Burger King morass and got me a whopper jr. combo. There being no place to park, I went on around by the Wachovia Bank and onto King Ave heading south, I think. Wendy's is across the street on the left so I whipped in there and parked in their parking lot next to a twenty dollar bill.

Huh! Holy Crap, there's a twenty-dollar bill lying in the next parking space. I struck like a rattlesnake.

Twenty Bucks ain't what it used to be, but now and then it's nice to have something good (and unexpected) come your way.

"Catcha-twenty-two. He say: Catcha-twenty-two"

There's a book, and consequently, a movie named Catch-22. I read the book first and later saw the movie. The movie was rather surrealistic and strange. The phrase catch-22 is some sort of quasi-official rule which states that an airman can't get out of flying combat missions for being crazy, because you have to be crazy to fly combat missions. There was a scene in the movie where an old Italian lady was describing the behavior of an American airman who'd gone over the hill: "Catcha-twenty-two, he say catcha-twenty-two.                                               

Charley worked at Baker's. It was a small factory that made climbing tree stands for deer hunters. He was a die-maker and his job was to make and fix the parts of the dies used to make parts for the products that we assembled and shipped from there. Charley was a veteran of WWII, having been a nose-gunner in a B-24 in the Mediterranean theater of operations. They flew out of north Africa, and later Italy, to targets in the Balkans and other areas. He casually mentioned one time that he'd made three flights over Ploesti.

Are you kidding me?

Now, the first bombing raid on Ploesti, Rumania was the Army Air Corps version of  the Charge of the Light Brigade. In other words, our guys got creamed. Polesti was a massive oil production and refining center, and supplied the Nazi war machine with valuable fuel. It was very well protected with anti-aircraft guns and several fighter squadrons. On the first raid, the lead plane,with the only navigator who knew how to get where they were going, was shot down or had to drop out for some reason. That left the other planes in the mission stumbling around, not quite knowing where to go. They finally blundered across the main rail lines going north out of Ploesti, figured out where they were, and turned south along the heavily defended railroad to drop their bombs on the refineries, from very low altitudes. Check the picture.

Charley told me about the pre-flight briefings for the Ploesti missions. He said that as soon as the guys were dismissed from the briefings, everybody bolted for the doors and took off running for the latrines. Dozens of guys couldn't make it and were squatting all over the parade grounds with their pants down. A raid over Ploesti seemed like a death sentence and it worked on everybody's nerves.

You can't get out of flying a mission for being crazy, since you have to be crazy to fly the mission in the first place. Charley was still just a little bit crazy, thirty years down the road.

Old Timer's Plumbing Co. Inc.

                                If We Can Find Your House, We'll Do You A Real Good Job!

Sir..........Sir.........SIRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

I had my cool on, walking across the parking lot at Home Depot, eyes shifting around, looking for my van. I heard someone shouting Sir! behind me. On the third Sir!, I turned around and here comes my flat cart loaded with a 50 gallon water heater, expansion tank, and a sack full of jingly parts, rolling along behind me.

It was a worst-case scenario. I came out of the store with all my stuff and couldn't quite remember where I parked . No need to panic, I tell myself. I parked my cart up there by the lawnmowers and casually went looking. Monsieur Nonchalantee. I might have been whistling a little tune. No way I'm gonna roll a water heater around four acres of parking lot looking for my van.

I didn't park my little cart all that well, it seems. Gravity took over. I heard some fellow shouting Sir! and I turned around in time to catch my cart-load of stuff and seamlessly guide it over to my van. This could have easily gone bad.

Winston

I'm home alone, babysitting the new cat, Winston. It'a been quiet so far. Niles came in earlier and both cats crashed, Niles in the chair, Winston on the desk. Nobody's moved in like two hours.

Here's a tip for animal photographers; If you're shooting a sleeping kitten in what is probably a once-in-a-lifetime pose, go in the other room and push the damn shutter down half-way and let the Nagasaki flash pop-open thing happen where the damn cat cant hear it. Otherwise, you end up with a picture of a cute kitten with one eye open an a flat-fur-on-the-side-of-the-head picture,