Who do you trust?

First a note about the new header (a  duplicate below because eventually I'll change the header)

The underside shows how I built the ceramic van  with slabs, painted with acrylics, and indicates the 12 years I drove that really cool van! Not sure which of my sons might like the clay version when I'm gone... 

I called it the Rovin' Toad...a play on Open Road which made the conversion set up. It slept 4 (2 children or small people up above). had a gas stove with oven, water heater, furnace, various configurations of seating/table/bed, a chemical toilet in a little closet, which we didn't use, and a few seat belts. It wasn't air conditioned, and I lived in Florida most of the time I owned it. I dream about it frequently still. The engine block froze over a long weekend in Gainesville FL over Christmas in '84.

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Back to trustworthiness.

My lifelong attitude is that people are naturally trustworthy. So a stranger is just as good as a friend who I just haven't gotten to know yet.

That's not exactly the case in all situations. Look at ICE and how people are being treated. I sure wouldn't trust anyone wearing that gear and a mask.

Strangers who give services in my home are sometimes the hardest for me to say I can trust them. A recent new cleaning person did an ok job. I'll hire her again.

But this morning I couldn't find my jewelry box (aka a glasses case.) I looked all over where it is usually kept, and nearby, and remembered the last time I picked it up and put things in it, prior to the cleaning woman, so she would be able to dust easily.

Where did I put it? Did she take it? I hate thinking that, but as I struggled with opening drawers and cabinets, that came to my mind.

I finally found it of course. And I asked myself, do I trust strangers any more?

More questions might be lurking in our social networking sites... 

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Yes, I have one of these, but mine looks different.

Just saying...

We have a president (note no capital letters) who lies continually. And now he's not only called a female reporter a "Piggie" but said members of congress should be hanged (due to the above).

Remember the Mi Li incident in Viet Nam? Look it up if you don't.

What about things that just don't add up?

Social media loves  to show us the short-comings of others... or maybe in their world cats can say Woof!

But this is just wrong!

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On my other blog Alchemy of Clay (about art) there're some great sculptures!

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Today's quotes:

Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars. 

-Gwendolyn Brooks, poet (1917-2000)

Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits.

 -Dan Barker, former preacher, musician (b. 25 Jun 1949)

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Today's goddess:

Amazon Goddess by Barbara Rogers, 2011

The Roving Toad- brief overview

 About my big camping trip.

I guess I could sharpen this pic up a bit maybe.  But it's delightful when I remember the Kodak Instamatic tiny 110 mm camera I used to take it.  Then would take the cartridge into a drug store whenever we got home from the trip. And of course, when I tried to edit the photo the computer said "what program should I use?" Silly computer. 

This trip is worthy of a whole story line, and I'll just hint about it today.  10,000 miles in 3 months, and covered most of the Midwest and western states, having started in Florida. The Van behind my son was The Roving Toad.

That's because it was an Open Road conversion, and of course a Roving Toad rhymed nicely.  Didn't look like a toad, but it kind of cornered like one.  And heaven help having crosswinds on a highway.  No less problems than many other campers of course.

The typewriter?  That's how I memorialized our journey, supposedly. But I also journaled other things too.  I'll have to look for those documents.  I already Xeroxed them and gave them to my older sons a while back, since they shared this journey with me when they were 7 and 11, or so.

Not as many photos of that trip as I'd like.  But I dare say there are already some of the National Parks available.  We camped in them, or State Parks, usually.  An occasional KOA was fun for the boys to go in swimming pools, or play pool while I washed our clothes, and enjoyed hot showers.

In 1974 we were a trusting civilization.  I never felt fearful as a single woman traveling with two boys.  It was a great adventure.  We certainly made many mistakes...and were blessed somehow to get through them all.  Our summertime trip took us from Tampa around the US returning to Tallahassee where we settled for a while.  I must have been the real Roving Toad myself.

Here's a better picture of the Roving Toad earlier when we visited my parents in Framingham, MA. 

My ceramic sculpture model looks a bit different.  But it is nice to have as a reminder of a faithful servant.

 

I sculpted it a couple of years ago, maybe 2012.  And as you can see, I drove it from 1972 to 1984.  I am sad to say my own negligence was it's demise.  I had lived in FL for so long, I didn't think of antifreeze at all.  I would just top off the radiator with water.  Ah, did it have a lovely engine too, a Chevy-Van 20, with a V-8, 356 engine (I think, not the 402) with a double barrel carburetor.  The camping equipment could run off a separate battery that was also charged when the engine was going.  So many mechanics had trouble figuring that out.  The design was far from perfect, but having been built in 1971 it was pretty spiffy.

So the story of the death of the Roving Toad is that I'd parked it in the parking lot in student housing at U of FL in Gainesville, and since there was a Christmas break, didn't drive it for maybe a week.  During that time there were 3 solid days below freezing...which was rare.  And when I went to drive it, it kind of sputtered.  So I checked oil and water, and the oil was gummy and full of water.  I'd cracked his little engine block from the ice in the system apparently.

So I was able to eventually sell it. I could get to classes still, on my trusty bike, which was the only way to move around campus. It didn't take too long to sell it because I had no way to get to a grocery store...I advertised it somewhere and sold it for a song.  The guy that bought it taught me something interesting about driving a vehicle with a cracked block.  He poured a big can of black peppercorns, not ground pepper, into the radiator.  And he said that might clog up the crack enough for them to drive it away.

He also got the 2 double beds, a flip over seat that was in front of the lower bed, a cabinet that included a small clothes closet, a full gas stove with oven and 2 burners, stainless sink, a working gas furnace, a portable toilet, a closet (where the toilet was located) and I don't remember what else.  I'd made curtains for the windows, and the upholstry on the seats and foam bed pads was kind of shot...but most of the equipment still worked.  I wonder how it all ended up.  Hopefully someone else got to enjoy it along the road as much as we did.  I think I had about 250,000 miles on it.  At least one transmission, lots of other bits and bobs.  

I bought a relatively little car next, also as advertised in one of those fliers, from a student.  It certainly wasn't worth sculpting to remember though.  Just a car.  There will never be another Roving Toad.