The Great Car Restoration, Teri's retirement and sometimes I say to much

After the set back with when the Corvette can get worked on and the negative talk bothering Elena, we set to work on the car. What I mean by that is Elena works on the car and I supply money as often as I can. I do want to work on it, but I don’t want to cause more issues with people who have a negative attitude toward the car, so I stay away.

We’ve been dealing with the tire locks for the last couple of weeks. How to get the locks off without damage to the rims.The lock nuts are recessed into the rim making it difficult to get anything except the proper key on them. Brand new tires for the car retail over $500.00 per tire, if you go with the 255 50RV16 the car has on it. I wanted to pay about that for all four tires. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. The budget I made up in my head isn’t nearly enough to put this car back together

and there is no way it will be profitable. And your right, but remember it is the first Corvette in I think they said 14 years, at the time to be a convertible, and oh yeah, it’s a Corvette convertible with a stick shift.For all of you future people who think old cars are smelly and what the hell is a stick, ya got to drive one to understand. Electric cars might have better pick up and you can sneak up on people in an electric, but in its time, which is how you judge something, it was an awesome car and if restored properly it will be again. Who knows, it might even appreciate in value to the point it can be sold, long after I’m dead for a profit. Elena got the spare tire off the car and her and Sean Sr. went over the particulars of the damage to that end of the car. The tie rod is bent, something to do with a knuckle and I don’t remember what else. I’ll remember when I get the parts bill. It’s not going very quickly, but that is okay, because I don’t know how I’ll pay for it. I’ll figure it out.We are still short a tire, so I have searched Facebook Market Place and I have searched for rims. I found a guy selling two and I get him to drop his price and we ried to meet up. He said 279 South Little Tor Rd at 6PM. I got there early and he went to the Shell station across the street and we never met up.

On Friday night I locate a guy selling four beautiful rims for $300.00. The only problem is he is in Sandy Hook CT about an hour and fifteen minutes away. I email him make an offer he accepts. I borroe Elena's car about 12:30 and head out. I meet Anthony at the Blue Colony Diner a place just up from where Marcus Dairy used to be. I haven't up ther since I quit. We talk some about what I'm doing with the tires and he tells me about a GM 2 year school for $8,000.00 a year. Car companies are short workers and if they become world class rated GM will play them $1,000.00 a month to stay that way. His son is making 6 figues he said. I thought of Elena.I arrive back at Caliper. It is 3:30 and they are still busy. I leave Elena her car and switch back to mine and leave. Teri decided to retire the other day. Not because she didn’t want to work, but because no one wants to hire a 65 year old. She's put in her dues and it is enough. She was hired by United Water after leaving the Phone Company, yes, that phone company, ATT, the original, not the remake that was purchased by Pacific Bell and renamed ATT. She was an operator, yes in the real old movies from like the thirties and forties (1930’s and 1940’s) when the receiver is or was picked up a voice said number, please. That was her. She joined United Water, which was then known as Spring Valley Water. It went through several name changes during her time there. Sometime in the 2010’s after we’d adopted the girls and before it was renamed Veolia Water a public service commission person told management they needed to cut expenses and she is pushed into retirement. She had a pension and they gave her a very generous severance, that we lived off of for the year it took her to get another job. She worked for a light bulb company for a while, until they decided to relocate back to Canada. She got another job at Jamatech or something like that where she managed half a dozen or so people. After a time, that company decided to relocate to Georgia. I was willing to make the move with her, but she was not willing to leave everything. To add insult to injury, they hired a guy and paid him $10,000.00 more a year. He didn’t last a year. She collected unemployment in March of last year. Between that time and now she has been on quite a few interviews, some as far away as Poughkeepsie, yes Poughkeepsie, way up near where the Dutch County Fair is. All of them looked promising, but the call never came. The reason again is no one wants to hire an older person. All of this drive and knowledge we have is not valued. Up until recently there has been a shortage of workers. And since Covid a lot of people want to work from home. Teri was willing to work and to go to the office every day. She put in days at her last company that if she was paid by the hour, they could afford her. Every night she left, her work was completed. So despite her willingness to continue to work, she has retired. Now what to do with the rest of your life? That’s my big fear when I retire in about 1400 days (April 1st 2028, who wants to retire in January anyway.). What to do when you don’t have to get up and go to work? In the past,if the people I write about read my blog, they’d say I reveal too much, and in retrospect, I have to agree. I’ve gone into corners of people's lives and written about what is hidden in the dark. Up until recently it didn’t matter, I had three rabid readers. I Lately it seems my readership has exploded to as high as 11 people, checking out each blog entry. The average has come down,but is still a very high seven. So with this vast readership I need to become vague or to dance around certain subjects, only hinting at some things I used to write about openly. Back in the past I felt I was writing for myself and I wrote to entertain myself. The girls have become more than just interesting kids from another country who do interesting things. So with that in mind someone stopped doing something that I considered a bad idea. I yelled at two people asking them if they were fucking morons and they are only 98% affective. I heard Teri tell me to calm down, It took me some time to, but I did.. Elena,Miss Closed book herself told someone that is why you don’t say anything. I thought the beginning of this conversation hurt the worst, I was wrong, Elena thinking not telling anyone was the best way to go ended up concerning and hurting me the most. After the way I yelled, I couldn’t blame her though. I did apologize to one of them. I was told I can’t be yelling at him.