PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

If you like country gals, check out the following:

Valerie June is all over the place, genre-wise, but she hails from Memphis, and it's evident in her music:

https://youtu.be/njf_BhpTRyw

https://youtu.be/vzQOrFaYrRs

Nikki Lane dishes it out in the vein of lots of '70s era country queens:

https://youtu.be/PlwzdQRfM-4


https://youtu.be/2vQnQ8aXoXw

 

And for legit dudes dishing modern GOOD country music, Sturgill Simpson is the man:

https://youtu.be/tNV16tz1NK0

 

@Plain Jane Taco

Because I just love sharing Stormtrooper-related stuff with you!

When Imperial Stormtroopers have to take that dreaded annual exam...

 

@ShamwowTaco

Going back to Floyd Herman, the world's greatest school bus driver...

Most bus drivers will hand out candy and other inexpensive little trinkets to the students on their route on special occasions (Christmas, Easter, Halloween, birthdays, etc). When we lived in Northern California, the bus drivers would give out candy seemingly every Friday...

Floyd and Rita Herman went wayyy above and beyond!

Christmas 1995. On the last day of school before Christmas break, Floyd and Rita gave every single kid on their bus a very nice present that reflected their interests. I do not remember what the other half-dozen or so kids got, but Rita really got to know every single one of us very well and knew what we liked, and then if I remember correctly she hit the local Toys "R" Us and bought each kid something she knew they would like.

I got a 1:18 scale model Volkswagen Beetle convertible, and not some cheap generic model either. This was a high-end collectors item that easily cost $25-$30 (in 1995!), and Rita presented me with it (still in the box, of course) when I got on good old bus #49 at the end of that last day before Christmas. Rita told me that they only had two models left on the shelf when she bought it, the Bug and a Cadillac. She randomly chose the Bug (to be honest I would have been happy with ANY model car, especially coming from somebody who did not have to buy me a present).

Here I am in a family photo with my parents and my Grandpa, sometime during Christmas vacation in 1995, holding the model Volkswagen I got from Floyd and Rita:


Obviously, those are my parents, and the guy in the cap is my step-Grandpa. He was just shy of 72 in this picture, and sadly he passed away literally just under a week ago at the age of 93. The picture was taken in the driveway of my Grandma's old condo. She bought this particular condo in 1994 and sold it in 1999, but missed the neighborhood so much that she bought another condo in the same neighborhood in 2006. She still lives there today, and somewhere in this thread there is a picture-by-picture montage of the heat pump being replaced.

 

@ShamwowTaco

The VW Beetle may have been an expensive collector's item, but I treated it like any other toy car, and by the start of the new millennium it was gone. But I never forgot Floyd and Rita...

I randomly decided to make an attempt at reconnecting with the Hermans just last month (However, I could not remember their first names), and I contacted the North Penn School District. Within a day, I got a response, and one of the higher-ups at the bus depot got me in contact with Floyd. Sadly, Rita passed away in about 2005, but Floyd is still alive and well (though retired from driving school buses; He was actually retired when he was driving buses, but now he's actually retired). I had the honor of talking to him on the phone last week, and he's still the same old nice guy.

I was telling Floyd how I work at a bar, and he said the last time he had a drink, he paid 30 cents for a beer and a shot. When was the last time alcohol was cheaper than parking for an hour in a metered space in Doylestown? Seriously?!?!

 

That's so rad. That kind of thing just doesn't happen anymore.

Rampant inflation. Stagnant wages. I love hearing stories from old timers about nickel gasoline. Good on you for getting in touch and letting him know he had a positive impact on you.

 

@Plain Jane Taco

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-sadly-typical-routine-of-off-duty-stormtroopers-1729786556

 

Good stuff Charlie

 

Boycott really? Try it and see how long you go without getting a ticket.

 

Maryland (metropolitan areas) only has emissions 2-year testing. The only safety inspection required is at vehicle purchase.

 

Why do you think I don't boycott it? I've had my driver's license 6 years and I've NEVER even been pulled over! I say everyone in the Commonwealth should boycott it.

 

Well Starting this year PA now has 2 year registration if you opt to do it.

 

Hell yeah!

My philosophy is "Keep everything on the truck up to date so police don't pull me over and harass me." This is especially true when I work the late shift at the bar. Police are so eager to catch a drunk that they have literally tailgated me while running my license plate at about 2 in the morning, just because I'm the only one on the road. Then they back off when my license plate comes back clean. I do not have a problem with the police. I just don't feel like dealing with them, especially after working 10 hours!

 

@ShamwowTaco , Please read the whole thing; It's a good story!

Rita was the one I knew better, because Rita wasn't driving the bus LOL. Floyd didn't talk much, but he had the greatest excuse in the world. He was responsible for a bus full of precious cargo (me and more than half a dozen other kids). I think he is about 80 now, and while he retired from a driving a bus in about 2007, he still does drive. He told me in our phone conversation that he's driving a new 2017 Subaru, and Floyd is without a doubt one of those exceptions to the rule when it comes to elderly drivers. If he's 80, then that means he got his license before Eisenhower took office, and I would not be surprised if he's never even gotten a speeding ticket in the 60+ years he's been driving!

Sadly, I found out that Rita passed away in about 2005-2006 (Don't know the details; Didn't ask; Just gave Floyd my condolences over the phone). My closest friend on bus 49 was a black kid named Devon (friends with him on Facebook too). He was in kindergarten (a year younger than me), which meant he got out of school earlier than me and thus wasn't on the bus home with me. However, we always sat next to each other in the first seat on the right on the morning ride to school. There was a 5th grader named Samantha I had a bit of a crush on (she'd be in her early 30s now), and we got along well enough (even having conversations), but I was a 1st grade boy and she was a 5th grade girl. Translation: Two very different demographics. Bus 49 was a normal-sized bus (not a "Short Bus"), but there weren't more than 8 kids on it. There was me, Devon, Samantha, a couple of punk 5th or 6th graders who regularly got on everybody's nerves, a 3rd grader named John, a quiet 3rd or 4th grader named Ben, an annoying 1st grader named Steve who was in Mrs. Ryder's class with me...and... I do believe that's it.

So, when Devon and Samantha weren't on the bus, Rita was the only one capable of carrying on an intelligent conversation in my opinion. Rita and I talked about everything; Cars. Trucks. Dogs. Houses. Classmates who got on my nerves. Teachers who got on my nerves. Everything! My dad's 1986 Mazda B2000 pickup had a carburetor, and somehow he managed to starve the carburetor of gas and stall the truck one time in like 1991. I lost count of the number of times I told Rita this story (Maybe like 3 over the course the school year), and she just sat there and listened to every word of it.

In my opinion, most people should take a job that involves working with kids unless they have Rita's personality. She was one of the most patient women I ever met.

I can proudly say that I never got in trouble on the school bus in first grade. Actually I never really got in trouble on the bus ever (more stories of "School Bus Confidential" to come; Promise!).

Devon, Ben, John, and Samantha also did not cause trouble. Steve, and those two older punks who always rode in the way back were a different story. Especially the two older punks! I know one of them was named Chris, and they both lived in the same neighborhood.

I just remembered this: These two older boys were not related, but they lived on the same street. One of their dads had a blue 1993 Pontiac Grand Am as a company car, and not a base model Grand Am either. It was loaded, and the kid's dad even had a car phone installed in it. I am 99% sure it was a 4-door, but the two door model in the picture below is pretty much identical to how this kid's dad's car looks:



For a Grand Am, it was a sharp-looking car, but it had problems. It was only 2 or 3 years old, and it suffered some sort of catastrophic mechanical failure. The company took it back, and from what I remember, the kid's dad refused another company car (probably because it was another General Motors shitbox). He bought a brand new 1996 Mercury Mountainer, and I had no idea what the hell a Mercury Mountaineer was back then. I knew what a Ford Explorer was, and I knew that the redesigned Explorer had just come out in 1995, but I had no idea that Mercury was making SUVs now.

Rita and I happened to be talking when Floyd pulled up to the house one day, and I saw what I thought was brand new Ford Explorer in the driveway. Rita was like "That's a Mercury Mountaineer." I don't know if I was more shocked that Mercury was now making badge-engineered SUVs, or that Rita knew something I didn't about a new vehicle.

Anyway, these two punk kids would bring silly putty or some sort of reusable modeling clay on the bus with them, and every week they would fashion new guns out of this stuff and pretend to be taking out other cars in traffic. Don't you miss the pre-9/11 days? I sure as shit do! Today those kids would be suspended from school. They invited me to join them in pretending to blow up cars, but I said no and regularly voiced my opposition. They picked on me for this and because I actually liked country music, but it was all in good fun and we were borderline friends. Bus #49 was like an extended family!

However, on more than one occasion, one of these two boys would create such a ruckus on the bus that Rita would have to go and sit next to one of them (much to their chagrin). This annoyed me because Rita had to go to the back of the bus and I wanted to stay in the front.

Those two boys would into the category of "rebel," and were ultimately cool. Steve, the only other first grader on the bus, was downright annoying. Steve's family moved from within the area (but another school district), and he just randomly appeared seemingly out of nowhere almost halfway through the school year. Steve obviously had behavioral problems, but from all outward appearances he was otherwise a normal kid.

One day, when Floyd was pulling up at a student's house, Steve thought it would be funny to throw his backpack out the open window. He did this 2 or 3 times and I never once saw him do it even though I was sitting right near him. Rita got off the bus, grabbed his backpack, told him not to do it again, and kept the backpack by her side until we got to school. After the 2nd or 3rd time, Rita took Steve's backpack from him when he got on the bus...

 

@ShamwowTaco

Floyd was the only truly memorable bus driver I ever had, and also the only bus driver whose spouse worked alongside them. Now, I will tell you about the only bus driver I had who even remotely mean. I would also like to say that I've never had a "bad" bus driver, meaning every single one of my bus drivers was a safe driver and very professional.

My one "mean" driver was a guy I only remember as Mr. Shaw, when we lived in California from 1996 to 1998 (2nd and 3rd grade; Edith Landels Elementary School, Mountain View/Whisman School District). Looking back on it, he actually was not a bad guy. He was older, probably in his 50s at the youngest, and he drove one of those conventional International long buses. This is the type of school bus I typically rode when we lived in California:


Most of the time it was an International, but sometimes it was a Chevy or GMC. This was the late nineties, so the district still had some old Gillig (see below) and Crown Coach buses (I actually have pictures of a 1988 Crown Coach in the "Car Porn" thread, believe it or not; I took the pictures myself in Santa Monica during a 2016 vacation) in regular service (Never got to ride any of those sadly):

 

@ShamwowTaco

So here's what Mr. Shaw did that I thought was kind of mean...

I had a reputation for running a bit late, and I was often the last kid on the bus (not all the time). All of the other kids would be on the bus and Mr. Shaw would be ready to go. The CB radio on that bus was wired to an external loudspeaker (Don't know how common this was from bus to bus), and on at least one occasion Mr. Shaw turned this on and said "Come on, Charlie!" or "Hurry up, Charlie!" I was a bit embarrassed, and the other kids on the bus hassled me about it briefly, but maybe Mr. Shaw was nice after all. He was under no obligation to wait for one kid, but he did anyway. So when I say Mr. Shaw was "mean," I'm being no less than 98% sarcastic. Translation: He was a nice guy. He may not have been as friendly as some of the afternoon bus drivers, but he was decent guy and all the kids respected him.

The more I think about it, as I'm writing this, the more I realize that maybe Mr. Shaw was a pretty awesome bus driver after all. Looking back on it, I was rarely if ever teased on the bus when Mr. Shaw was at the wheel. All the kids liked Mr. Shaw, and I must have made at least a somewhat good impression on him if he was willing to wait for me when I was running late instead of driving off like a prick. I only missed the bus twice when we lived in California (more on that later).

I had an arrangement that any kid who has ever ridden a school bus should be jealous of. My parents and I lived in government-owned/maintained housing. For the first 6 months we lived there (August or September 1996 until March 1997), we lived in an off-base (but still Government-owned) neighborhood. Then, we moved into a larger on-base house in March 1997 and stayed there until like June or July 1998. There was a designated bus just for the kids who lived on Moffett Federal Airfield, and there probably 50 or 60 of us. Why would the child (or children) of civilian parents be jealous, you ask?

Well... Since it picked up all of its young passengers at Moffett Field, there were no other stops on that route. The bus went straight from Moffett Field to Landels Elementary in the morning, and vice versa that afternoon. There was a blue engraved plaque on the right side next to the hatch door that said "Moffett Field" and all the kids called it the "Moffett Bus." I'm guessing the drivers on that route had to pass a government background check of some sort, because the bus picked the kids up and dropped them off at a bus stop on base, and the soldier(s) at the entrance waved it right on through without so much as checking the driver's license of whoever was driving the bus that day. The bus took us directly to school and directly home, though in the afternoon, the driver would let the kids who lived on the right side of the street off first because they didn't have to cross the street. The kids on the left side of the street had to wait because the driver (a woman, not Mr. Shaw) preferred to actually get out of the bus and hold up a stop sign to ensure all of the students got across the street safely.

I lucked out because I lived on the right side of the street. However, there was a cute blonde girl named Brooke Davis who was one year young than me. She was in 1st grade and I was in 2nd grade when we met, and she was probably about as close as an 8-year old boy could get to having a girlfriend. It was classic puppy love.

Brooke was always nice to me, we hung out regularly, and then I started walking her home. I lived on the right side, but Brooke lived on the left side. I am very impatient, but certain things (especially women) can change that. I waited on that bus with Brooke until the kids who lived on my side of the street were gone, and then Brooke and I would walk over to her house together. Brooke's mom typically had fresh cookies waiting when we got there, and then I went home. We would have hung out and played together, but it was always a school night and both of us had homework. Like I said, we did hang out regularly. We went to each other's birthday parties, we watched movies together, and we even put on our bathing suits and played in the sprinkler one time. Brooke was a cute blonde girl when we were 7 and 8, respectively. I guarantee you based on how she looked then, that she is now a hot blonde young woman. She'd be about 26 or 27 now, and she was pretty tough back when we were kids. Other kids did not mess with me when she was present, and on at least one occasion I can remember her physically tackling a neighborhood boy who'd been teasing me so I could get away.

Kids teased me relentlessly for "having a girlfriend," but looking back I wouldn't have had it any other way. Brooke was (and probably still is) the type of girl who any guy would dream of settling down with.

Also, as an added bonus, her dad drove a truck like this:

This is a combination of my supercharged-by-Asperger's photographic memory, and the fact that Brook was one of my best friends...

I believe I actually remember what year Mr. Davis's Toyota was. I'm 99% sure it was a 1985 model, though it was a darker red than the truck in the picture above and I think it had gray graphics on the side. Brook's parents' Toyota was definitely an "extra cab," but it had the stock alloy wheels and it had a cap on the back. Brooke did not actually know the year of the truck. She told me that her dad bought the truck new around the time he married her mom, and that her parents had gotten married five years before she was born. Brook was born in 1990, so you do the math. Brook's mom drove a green 1994 or 1995 Dodge Grand Caravan, and Brook hated riding in the Toyota for one reason. Whenever her mom was driving the Toyota for whatever reason, Brook had to ride in the nonexistent backseat because her younger brother's car seat would only work in the shotgun seat. Brook had to cram sideways into the back of the Toyota! Also, I forget the specs of Mr. Davis's particular Toyota truck. I'm 99% sure it was a stick shift, and I'm also 99% sure it had A/C (It was definitely an SR5, so I'm pretty sure it had A/C). I just know that Brook preferred riding in the Grand Caravan.

Basically, Brook Davis was the California equivalent of Mandy Lynch.

 

Did you get in touch with her?

 

Brook? No, sadly...

 

I've got some very rare literature arriving at my front door in 5-14 days!

2003 Toyota Century brochure from Japan (In both English and and Japanese):



Best part? My friend in Hong Kong is sending them to me in Pennsylvania, for free, because he believes I'm "the right person to have them." And there's more...

Late 1990s Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph brochure:


1966 Imperial:


Also getting a 1966 Duesenberg brochure (yes, you read that right)!