Day: July 15, 2017

rDay Eight-Hundred-Forty-Three: Car Show, Part Three

After one and a half hours, dripping sweat, I had to abandon the car show (see previous posts for this date — just click July 15 slot on the side panel calendar).  But first I met a guy named Mike from La Pine, OR, who spent 3.5 years building his ’55 International pickup.  Yep, we had one of these on the Iowa farm, but it was utterly unlike this, save for body panels and shape and a few subtle details.  And in our rather lengthy discussion of the machine, we also compared it to the rather outrageous International cab-over truck of about the same vintage, but done up in a sort of rat-rod take with a goat head (?) theme and skeleton dogs, noting that both truck and Mike’s pickup used the identical doors and some other details, obviously to save manufacturing costs.  And I noticed that Mike wears a IH (International Harvester) logo on his shirt.  Anyway …

rDay Eight-Hundred-Forty-Three: Car Show, Part Two

rDay Eight-Hundred-Forty-Three: Car Show, Part One

rDay Eight-Hundred-Forty-Three: Downtown Saturday

Saturday morning stroll downtown where a local celebration holds forth, with a car show (more to follow) and sidewalk shopping.  Have to pop into JC Penney’s for relief, as it seems to have the best air conditioning along the way.

rDay Eight-Hundred-Forty-Three: Dog Days

As is my occasional practice, I try to get portraits of dogs I meet on my walks.  Nobody has turned down such a request yet; people seem to like to show off their dogs.  Or is it the other way around?  Walked down to the local car show this morning, and found the dogs as interesting as many of the cars.  (I think we also have some doggery from the recent Spokane trip — stay tuned.)

Starting The Conversation – What Not To Say

This past week I traveled with an old friend who likes to talk to strangers and tends to be curious about everything and everybody. Which, of course, adds greatly to the fun of travel. Not only greeting everyone he passes, it seemed that he was able to begin a lively conversation with anyone, from hotel and housekeeping staff to waiters to shop clerks to police on the street to dogwalkers, often within minutes extracting brief life histories and even laughter. I was reminded of this when almost the first piece of the day I read from my Quartz newsletter came up, and can be seen at this clickable link:

https://qz.com/1019699/one-of-the-most-common-questions-in-american-small-talk-is-seen-as-rude-in-much-of-the-world/