Truth: machines fascinate.

I do wish I had the recordings from all of my old answering machines. For hours I used to rerecord my answer message until it was just right!

Do you know who appreciated all that work? Just me. Others complained. Some called just to hear the message then quickly hung up without leaving a message. My boss and my father both got angry over the messages but I couldn’t sympathize with either of them because if they had a message, I was preparing them a means to deliver it. Thirty seconds of audio goodness was the price they had to endure to leave their message. When they actually left one, it included complaints against my recording which never said (in dry tones) “I am not home and am so sorry I missed your call but you can leave a message after the beep”. No, that would be for the other boys and girls to do. The text of mine was considerably more inventive.

Such fun! When I discovered that the tape (yes. an analog tape) had to play to completion before anyone could record their message, I knew that there was no good reason to make a quick and boring greeting. As I tried different humorous concepts I would get more and more tickled over them and redid the presentation over and over until it had just the right timing and impact. The closer it got to perfection the more fun I had.

Ah, those were the days. To celebrate them I just changed my voice mail message but I made it brief.

An early machine that I gloried in was my bicycle. The best one of my childhood was the last of all and it got me to work during that summer when I earned the money for my first car. It was s schwinn Astra, a ten speed with the typical two front sprockets and five rear ones. It was an ingenius thing with caliper brakes and chromed steel wheels. The brakes always squeaked. I rode it to far away places several times. The mobility it provided was much appreciated. It meant that under my own power I could ride down out of the mountains and across many miles distance to reach my grand parents house and visit them. I could get to the fields to pick berries and do other agricultural work and earn money. Even better, I could explore.

Eventually it was shipped to my first duty station in the Air Force and I rode it along the hard sand of the Mississippi gulf coast.

I remember that night. It seemed so strange that I could walk far out into the surf and the water didn’t get any deeper. It was warm.

Then I took it to Montana where it was stripped of all valuable parts when I happened to leave it chained up outside one night.

I owned four different vehicles while at my Montana duty station and considering that three of them were British, it was unwise. I didn’t have any tools and wouldn’t know what to do if I had them.

Of those cars, I brought  home my first vehicle and an MG 1100 which sheared it’s crank shaft not long after.

I wasn’t so far off when I sketched imaginary sports cars. This one was done  around that time. I’d been experimenting with hair spray after discovering that it broke down the binder in ball point pen ink. The lines are pretty close to a Europa. Probably more practical except that I was thinking of a front engine car.