Friday, March 21, 2014

 

Lloyd Irving Bradbury – and early work ethic of a teenager

\Tit Cars That I Drove And Pose Asked. Another Way To Look At This Is To Say Cars That Pose Asked Me. It is now 2014. From this perspective I realize that the society that I lived in was dominated by cars and trucks. Someone not living through these years would question what I mean. The only way they I can relate this back to you is to tell you the story of my involvement in the American tradition of owning a car. I will try to relate to you every 10 year period in my life and use the car as a reference to events that I lived through. I will make a statement here. The car was a major possession that really changed lives in America. Everyone in my age group resemblance by the automobile. A must have possession was the car in the 20th century. 1900 to now 2014 the car is a major possession of America. There seems to be only two major possessions that created a status between one individual and another. They were the home and the car. I learned to drive a car by a method called trial and error. I believe it was more error and it sure was a trialing experience. One now that I will relate is the beginning experience of the first car. Well let me jump back to bed. One that drives a car must know how to drive a car. I learned how to drive a car through observation. This observation was done by writing in my father's vehicle and observing his craziness. Another means was to observe how people drove the cars about me. This was all done in a town that had a main street of about 3 miles long and side roads that were Clay going off of this paved street. The name of the street like most towns at this time was MainStreet. Farmingdale also had a railroad tracks running through it that carried both chickens and ammunition. One route went to Lakewood New Jersey and the other route went to the munitions depot of Earl so now you know that there was a railroad track running across the town and going down some of the side roads. This is important for later adventure in how not to drive. What I learned before I drove was said the wheel was to turn the car, the seat was to sit in, and the pedal was how you push a car along. The break was optional. This somewhat confused me when the car would start in reverse and go the wrong way. Later I would learn that there was also a clutch and a gearshift to propel the car in the direction that you wanted to go. The break was another adventure sometimes in some cars it worked in other cars it did not work there was also an emergency brake that one could pull up when the brakes failed. Or if you left it on one that could burn out and cause smoke to bellow from underneath the car. Another thing to remember was that if you tried to start the car in what was called second year or even third year the car with think you are crazy and just stop and skull. Another is very serious thing to remember was that the car. This gas was an expensive needed item and later on I found out there was something called oil in a car that burned 2 1/2 gallons of it each week. The first car that ever intrigued me was the one that my teacher had in Farmingdale New Jersey it was a rather square boxy thing and was electric car. Yes there was electric cars in the early part of the 20th century. They were slow and reliable and rather boxy looking. They were reliable in that they would run on one charge which would take them about a mile down the road and a mile back but then again most MainStreet were that law. Some of the milk wagons or should I say milk trucks were electric. Also some mail trucks were electric then again they didn't go too far down the main street to deliver their milk. Or their products. The first car that my dad had Was in Essex. Most people do not ever remember in Essex it was a backs boxy four-door very high car. I remember my dad in the wintertime to get the car to start would build a fire underneath it. Even to this day I'm amazed it didn't burst into flame. But then again I realize that the gas tank was slightly above and in back of the engine. It used gravity to feed gasoline to the engine. I wondered if it ever blew up it would land in your lap. He drove this Essex in till it just froze up and never start again. He then invested in a new car and got the loan from household finance. If he was still living he would probably be still paying on the household finance loan. This guy remember had trouble with first and second year so my dad use the reverse gear to go to work. That's right he drove in reverse back and forth to work. I believe it was one of those old early Chevrolets it seemed modern compared to the Essex. My dad's and he was a brand-new red coupe which the German engineer across the street had. It was a 1948 Chevelle or should I say Chevy let. Every time the car would go out of the driveway my dad would look up and curse. He would mutter the Germans would take over the world. I asked my dad one day to teach me how to drive. He said you will get your car when you're 21 years old. And I will not teach you quote what you think I am a driving instructor exclamation quote I'm glad he did not teach me how to drive. So I first started to drive it was with an old prewar Buick that doors open the opposite way. So if you open the door and traffic when it was part the car coming by would rip off the door. This could be a concern and would require some running if it happened. I bought the car in a junkyard for hundred dollars it had no battery so I mounted the battery and jumper cables from the seat beside me in the front of the car. The seats were like sofa chairs. This would be a problem later on. I started to drive this car one night on the back roads and I came to one of those crossing roads over the railroad tracks. It was starting to get dark and I mistook the railroad track for the other road. After bumping and something along for about a half a mile I realized that I was in trouble area the car suddenly tipped over and lay on its side. The battery short of an ignited the sofa chair front seat. Rather hurriedly I jumped out of the car on the driver side climbed over the car and had the presence of mind to remove the lice and plates just in case. That I remember there were no lice and plates on the car for I didn't even have a license. So I just did on the side of the road and watched the car burn. Finally the state troopers came along and were cursing that a car was on fire next a railroad tracks. They stormed over to me and asked me who was driving the car. This was the beginning of my Lai and to authority. I told him I did not know. I just saw the flames and was curious what was on fire. The state trooper looked at me and kind of snarled I think he saw through my line. That was the end of my hundred dollars that had taken me all summer long to acquire by painting and inoculating chickens. Oh but that's another story.\ Now what did I learn from this driving experience.; 1.0 never put the battery on the drivers passenger seat or you may burn your but. Two point 0 Never Dr. down a railroad right-of-way especially across the tracks where trains loaded with explosive were chickens may soon appear. 3.0 never invest money in a Buick 4.0 driving can be expensive and also hazardous to your health 5.0 never tell your father you drove a car without license plates and license. He may just laugh at you. This would make you kind of feel like an idiot. This would also stop me from experimenting with driving for at least another two years in till I reached being a freshman in high school. I vowed at this point to buy a car that was not so inflammable. Him him him him him him him him him

 

Boyd Irving Bradbury's biography. Teenager

Title: Ugly Fish David was a good guy. He was known as “the happy guy” at work, but times were bad and even though he was a very nice person and he got along with all the other employees, he’d been laid off. So he came home that day very dejected. It was early in the morning and his wife had already gone to work. He was thinking about this on his way home. When he arrived, no one was there. Well, he thought, “I could hang around the house and worry about what she’ll do and how angry she’ll be when she comes home.” Recently he’d had some arguments with her and some of them were quite verbal. She would always say that he was a lazy guy and that he always wanted to go fishing when there was work to be done around the house. So, there were some problems with the roof, with the plumbing, etc., etc. And each time he didn't fix these problems, his wife grew angrier. But now he’d have plenty of time to make repairs. But how could he face his wife? She’d be really angry. The only thing he could say would be, “Now I have plenty of time to repair the house.” But she’d probably scoff at him and say, “You? Repair this house? You'd probably repair somebody else's first.” He needed to relax. So how would he relax before she came home and prepare himself for the onslaught? Well, let's try his favorite – fishing. There was a path from his house to a little bridge over the Des Plaines river, and he loved to fish from the other side of the bridge at Riverside. But, Riverside forbade fishing on their side. That's why he liked to go (because there were no other fishermen). However, Riverside never really enforced it. The Des Plaines river had come back and now instead of three types of fish in the river there were 35 different ones. He thought to himself, “I don't even know 35 different species of fish. I wonder what they all are.” One of the fish he liked to catch was pike. A pike was long and thin and a predator – the number one predator of a lot of fishes (it had lots of teeth). But when you catch it, it really put up a fight. David liked to catch that fish but he always threw them back because he never wanted to kill them. As the day wore on, he was thinking about all his problems and all his life and all about what he was going to say to his wife about losing his job. He hadn't realized how quickly the time had gone and it was starting to get dark. So he thought, “One more cast.” And he cast out his line. All of a sudden he got really excited. He’d caught a fish! And he reeled it in and fought with it and reeled it in some more until he said, “Boy, this is a big pike.” And when he pulled out the fish, it wasn’t a pike. It was a saligralla – one of those fishes that are really ugly and have poisonous spines on them and a big mouth with lots of teeth. It’s a type of fish that was left over from when the river had been polluted. He wanted to throw the fish back and save his line. But, it had gotten tangled in it. How could he get it off? He fought with the fish to free it plus get the hook out of its mouth. In the process, one of the spines cut his hand and it started to swell up. Then he realized that his face had been scratched by one of the spines, and that he didn’t feel very well. Finally, he got the fish off his line and threw it back. He was in a terrible fix. “Enough is enough!” he said to himself. So he put all his tackle back in his fishing box, crossed over the swinging bridge and headed for home. On the way, he thought about his wife. “She’ll really give me hell now that I’m so late getting home,” he thought. Even after a full day's work, he was always on time coming home and now he’d been playing – fishing. She’d never forgive him. As he approached their house, he noticed it was dark. She’d never keep the lights off. He opened the door and called her name. She wasn’t there. Now, he was really puzzled. He looked all over and she was nowhere to be found. Now what was he supposed to do? He turned on all the lights so he wouldn’t feel alone and turned on the TV as well. All of a sudden there came a knock on the door! He thought, “She wouldn't knock.” Then, somebody was beating on the door!. Who could it be? When he opened the door there was a man standing there in a uniform with a badge. David said, “Yes? What can I do for you?” It was the local sheriff and he had a very odd expression on his face. He was looking at the wounds on David’s hand and face. “Is your wife’s name Sylvia?” the sheriff asked. David said, “Yes.” The sheriff said “This identification was on the body of a woman we found by the bridge.” “Oh, you mean the one where I fish?” David said. “Yes,” the sheriff replied, “Near the Des Plaines River. The woman was strangled. But she must have put up a heck of a fight.” David was amazed. He couldn't believe it! The sheriff looked at him suspiciously and said, “You need to come with me to the station and answer some questions.” Ury

Saturday, March 15, 2014

 

Lloyd Irving Bradbury – in search of heaven and hell

Sometimes, I wonder
when I hear God's thunder

where can have an be?
Is hell below the sea

where the birds fly free
is that where heaven be.
If I don't care ill I go there,
do I dare, not to want to go there

by Lloyd Irving Bradbury the greatest intellectual amongst the trees in the forest preserve of Chicago

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