Category: Crazy Times

Crazy Times, The Early Days, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

Making Money At Black Jack (well not exactly)

lewisotr

UPDATE: This is a post from a couple of weeks ago. My son Jason questioned me about it. We even set down and simulated it at the kitchen table. A little while later he sent me a text with the following link. Seems that when I first thought about it, I was a couple of centuries too late. It even has name, The Martindale System – named that in 1939. Oh well, I should have looked it up on Wikipedia back in the 80s. Wait, we didn’t have such a thing, now did we. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(probability_theory) I was sitting around one … Continue reading Making Money At Black Jack (well not exactly)

Amazing Things, Another Daily Happening, Crazy Times, In and Around Austin, The Construction Biz, The Early Days, Thoughts and Musings2 Comments

I Always Wanted To Do The Right Things, But Circumstances Can Get In The Way

lewisotr

Back in the early part of the 70s we had a project relocating a water line on South 1st Street where a big “S” in Williamson Creek. (as shown in the photo below). Three new bridges were be built. We were on the tail end of that job, cleaning up and pressure testing. The City of Austin had a crew that performed the pressure tests and they came out twice and each time the line failed. The General Contractor that was building the bridges had already started work and it was imperative that we get that line approved or it … Continue reading I Always Wanted To Do The Right Things, But Circumstances Can Get In The Way

Crazy Times, The Construction Biz, The Early Days, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

It Can Get Hot In May

lewisotr

Looks like we have a fairly nice week coming up. Well after today it shouldn’t be just oppressively hot. Of course today’s 96° won’t be bad after those 100°+ stuff the past few of days. I remember back in the early 80s, I bid a wastewater project in Laredo, right down along the Rio Grande River. My old bookkeeper Woody went down with me to look at it. He dumped me out up on the upper end and drove about five miles down the river to a predetermined location where I’d be coming up out of the bottoms. I headed … Continue reading It Can Get Hot In May

Crazy Times, Funny Happenings, My Friends, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

A Lincoln Town Car Sedan With Dual Tires On All Four Wheels

lewisotr

My friend and colleague Gerry I got to the restaurant at the same time one morning. This took place south of Dallas at the town of Waxahachie. As we were walking in I saw a strange sight. A new Lincoln Continental was parked front and center. It looked like any other car of that make, except it was equipped with dual tires all the way around. Each tire was only approximately half the width of a normal car tire. It was the strangest thing I’d seen in a while. We stood there discussing it for a bit, trying to figure … Continue reading A Lincoln Town Car Sedan With Dual Tires On All Four Wheels

Amazing Things, Crazy Times, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

It Took Me Weeks To Figure Out Why She Was Upset.

lewisotr

Not long after we married in 1971, I came home with Madeline a brand new 1972 Dodge Demon automobile. It was an absolute beauty. White with a White Pearlescent Vinyl Top and Snowy White Interior. Very sporty but not in a hot rod sort of way. More in a very hot, young chick sort of way. That baby had all the beauty and innocents that my new wife had. My Dad had gone with me to Austin to buy it. I needed him to drive my pickup back. What better thing could a new husband do than go buy the … Continue reading It Took Me Weeks To Figure Out Why She Was Upset.

Crazy Times, Funny Happenings, Thoughts and Musings2 Comments

Rolling Back The Odometer

lewisotr

I told in an earlier story about working during my senior year of high school at an Auto Dealership. I was in the Distributive Education Program, allowing me to spend the afternoon actually working on a job where I made money, instead of sitting in a classroom wasting my time. At least that’s the way it felt. For my job I moved cars around from place to place, cleaned up cars, took out the trash and vacuumed the floors in the offices. I did pretty much anything that was needed to be done. I even drove cars around town to … Continue reading Rolling Back The Odometer

Amazing Things, Crazy Times, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

Call Me Clueless

lewisotr

Let tell you something that I even find hard to believe and I was at the center of it. A few years back my wife and a couple of my sons were talking about The Eagles. I simply had no idea who or what they were talking about. It was like “you’ve got to be kidding, you don’t know who The Eagles are ?”. I could honestly say that I had never heard of The Eagles. After them explaining to me that they were one of the most popular bands of the 70s and again in the 90s I went … Continue reading Call Me Clueless

Amazing Things, Crazy Times, Marble Falls and the Area Around it., The Early Days, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

I Was Always The Tag Along Little Brother

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Kenny and his friends always had something going on, which would have them loaded up going some place or the other. This incident I’m fixin to tell you about was most likely after football practice. A full carload were jammed in, with me being in the back seat, on the passengers side next to the door. I was probably a Freshman in high school with most of them being a couple of years older. I always ended up being picked on constantly, which could have been caused by my own habit of picking on all of them. We had been … Continue reading I Was Always The Tag Along Little Brother

Amazing Things, Another Daily Happening, Crazy Times, My Friends, The Jollyville Years, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

The “55” Chevrolet 3/4 Ton Pickup With Sideboards

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Cecil picked up this slightly used Texas Highway Department Pickup at a sale somewhere. That was along about 1961, so the old truck had a lot of good left it it. It was Highway Department Yellow, with the state emblem sanded off of each front door, making it not very attractive. To class it up a bit he had a fellow paint it for him. Cec never did have much of an eye for colors so he went and picked out a color I’d never seen a vehicle painted before or since. I guess it would be something between a … Continue reading The “55” Chevrolet 3/4 Ton Pickup With Sideboards

Another Daily Happening, Crazy Times, The Jollyville Years, Thoughts and MusingsLeave a comment

Our Dancing Pumps

lewisotr

My brother and I, growing up in a big rock pile in the late 50s and 60s, out on Spicewood Springs Rd, were very hard on shoes and cowboy boots. We could go through a pair of black hightop Keds in a few weeks. We always got black ones, because the white ones sure wouldn’t stand the test of time. I’d be off in a mud hole the first day. We had cowboy boots, mostly of the pointy toe variety. Round toe boots didn’t make a real entry until later in the 60s, it seems. But the leather soles on … Continue reading Our Dancing Pumps