Happy Holidays 2011!

Pine Drive, Early 1980s

Here's wishing you all the happiest of holidays!

Well, Not Really, Just Almost

"This is your one phone call? How am I gonna get you out of the slammer when I'm in New York?"

"I didn't really get arrested, but when I started to leave in my car there was a policeman. He shone his flashlight in my face."

"That's so you'd be blinded when he pepper sprayed you," I said.

"I told him the whole story," she said, "about the Miata and the airport and the safe and the key box and the outside key safe and the lost key and he let me go," she said.

"No doubt," I said. "Overexplaining is a great way to get the cops off your back. I think I read that in the Anarchist's Handbook."

So Rena happily got home without having to stop for fingerprinting, a booking photo, and a visit from the bail bondsman. Thank goodness!

I'm happy our police are on the job! Thank you, Pine Lake police force!

----

When I leave home I fill out a house watch report and list Rena as an authorized person, but when you get a phone call from a friend who says "I just got arrested!" it tends to be worrisome.

I Just Got Arrested!

Last time I left town I got discombobulated and was running late and, worried I would miss my flight, drove my car to the airport.

I almost missed the flight anyway, since all the parking lots were full and I had to go find an off-site lot.

Since I was going to be away for several weeks I called my friend Rena, who watches my house whenever I'm away.

Rena, in Blue, at Caribbean Festival on the Lake

Little Honda

In 1969 I bought, brand new, a Honda CL70 exactly like the one pictured above.

With a 70-cc air-cooled single cylinder four-stroke engine, a four-street gearbox, high pipes, and top speed of about 55 mph, it was a sweet little machine. It cost me, to the best of my recollection, $430.

It was my only transportation. For more than a year I rode it daily from my parents house to college (about 20 miles each way) and to work (30 miles each way). Once a week I would change the oil, and about every 10,000 miles I would rebuild the top end-- an easy job, since the cylinder head was in the open; it cost me around $20 and took three hours, including the hour-long trip each way to get the cylinder honed.

That Honda was reliable and, for its displacement, fast. I zipped along for some 45,000 miles before the piston rod came out of the crankcase. It still looked brand new.

Before I could save enough to buy a replacement engine, I got married-- and that was that for the little Honda.

Of all the motorcycles I've owned-- and there have been plenty-- that CL70 was my favorite. And so, when I retired, I found one on eBay and bought it.

A Cottage Renewed

When I was house hunting in 1998 I stopped by this cabin on the lake and had a chance with Bruce Bartow, who was "renovating it."

Bruce talked up the house while I looked at sunbeams coming through holes in the roof. The house was a mess.

Still, though, it had in my opinion a lot going for it. First, it was on what I consider the best lot in Pine Lake. Second, it was a historic Pine Lake house, dating from the 1930s. That was easily determined by the living room, which clearly had at one time been a one-room cabin. There was a great fireplace and stonework, as I recall.

Now the house has been thoroughly remodeled, and it looks great from the street!

Late November Foliage

Lower Road

The road over the dam is now a foot lower-- which will help to alleviate flooding in the future.

For some reason it's concrete instead of asphalt, so it doesn't quite match.

Still, it looks nice.

Wildlife is Returning to the Lake

The lake has been full of geese and herons and turtles have been spotted on lake. I'm looking forward to spring.