GM loses big-time
 

"Canuck57" wrote in
news:sI6lk.111081$kx.65643@pd7urf3no:

Ford, hard to tell. They are on a knifes edge but the only Detroit 3
that has much of a chance if any. Depends if the "family" can
motivate lethargic management and kick some union ass real hard. Tata
would like a peace of their market and the competition fierce.



Here's an even BETTER Honda 600.....the original in perfect condition:

http://www.honda600coupe.com/Honda_6..._22_Honda.html

How cute and detailed it looks.....AND SIMPLE!

GM loses big-time
 

GM, my guess will be bankrupt inside of 16 months if not bought
out.

Get rid of the over-priced upper management, and all the perks, and
they might live.

GM loses big-time
 

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Canuck57" wrote in
news:rZ6lk.156502$gc5.9111@pd7urf2no:

When I go to northern Ontario fishing, I always go down to I94 or #2
across the top. Cheaper accommodations and fuel with better roads.
Adds about 160 miles but I more than make it up in time.



I graduated from high school in 1964. That day we left for a
circumnavigation of the Great Lakes my dad had been dreaming of for a
decade in his 1960 Rambler station wagon towing a '62 Shasta 13' travel
trailer, our home on wheels. Western Ontario on the Queen's Highway was
just beautiful until the trailer hitch weld broke in the truly middle of
nowhere. We coaxed it behind us by moving all our stuff to the rear of
it to take the weight off the hitch springing up and down on the front
crossbar until we found a phone booth alongside the road I will never
forget. There was nothing there....just a modern aluminum and glass
phone booth.....until you went inside.

Inside that phone booth, bolted to the aluminum was an old manually
cranked Bell System telephone right out of the 1920's. It had a big
earphone on a cotton covered brown cord and the carbon mic stuck out the
front of the box with a crank handle on the side to signal the operator.
My parents were apprehensive but I persisted as it looked well kept and
workable. A single wire ran up the outside of it to a single telephone
wire that went West, the direction we had been heading.

I listened to the receiver after giving the crank about 4 good turns. A
click, then the nicest Canadian telephone operator in the country came
on the line to ask what number. I told her I wasn't sure and that we
were from upstate NY and our trailer hitch was broken. "What number is
on the front of the phone?", she asked me. I read it off. "Let me make
a phone call. Just keep the earphone to your ear. I'll be right
back." There was a click of her disconnect and I waited about 5 or 6
minutes....no music on hold in Western Ontario's wilderness...

She came back and said, "You folks just stay right there. My husband is
on his way in the truck to take you into town. Bill (somebody) is
headed to the Chevy dealership and will get his welding machine all
ready before you get there to fix it." ROLLS ROYCE never provided this
level of service to its customers. A nice man in an old Chevy truck
rolled up to the trailer we had already unhitched from the car and
blocked the tires. My dad followed him into town and Mom and I stayed
with the trailer.

About an hour or so later, the old pay phone started ringing, so I ran
across the road and answered it. "Son, your dad and Harold got the
hitch all fixed with Bill's welding and they're on the way back to you
by now. They'll be there in a few minutes.", she told me to reassure us
help was on the way.

This was on a Sunday morning in 1964. We found out later she had called
the church where Bill and his family had just started in to hear the
service. Bill told my dad he'd rather go to the shop and weld that
hitch than listen to their pastor drone on and on about something he'd
heard a hundred times before.

Dad and I hitched the trailer to the car before Mom hauled our saviour
inside for some homemade campstove cookies and a hot cup of campstove
coffee she had perked for them. By that time, it was, of course, much
later than we had intended and Harold, our saviour, said he didn't want
us driving on that road in the dark because it was Moose mating season
and some real monsters we'd already seen would be on the road in the
dark. So, he went over to the phone and rang his operator. They didn't
have a place to put our trailer up for the night with power, but there
was an outside outlet, toilet with showers at the fire station in town.
So, she called the fire chief to make arrangements for us to stay behind
the firehouse for the night so we could start fresh the next morning.

Noone stayed at the firehouse, but they left the back door open for us
and refused to take any donation to the firehouse's fund. Bill, our
welder, also refused to take a dime, Canadian or US, for dragging him
out of church. The welding he did was fantastic as it was on the car
after a few more thousand miles of towing our little trailer many years
later when the old Rambler was a NY road salt rusted out hulk.

I was 18 at the time and not very observant as most teens are, so I
can't tell you even what the name of the little town in Western Ontario
was....but I can see the whole place in my mind's eye as I'm typing this
old farts reminiscence of the finest Canadians we ever met, helping
complete strangers broken down in their town.....on a Sunday morning.

I wonder if that phone box is still just sitting there.....miles from
nowhere.....


Excellent story.

Eisboch

GM loses big-time
 

"Larry" wrote in message
...

I looked at Hondas and they've all grown HUGE over the years....The
salesman asked what I wanted there. I told him a new Honda 600:
http://www.honda600coupe.com/
like the one I SHOULD have bought the day they came out at the Honda
motorcycle shops. It was a great little car....(c;
http://www.honda600coupe.com/Photos_..._-_page_1.html
We HAD the right cars back in the 1960's! We were just too stupid to
KEEP them! Look on this webpage at how SIMPLE the engine compartment
is...it's one-throat motorcycle carb behind the simple, air cooled,
cylinder block. That dryer hose and fan on the port side is the HEATER!
The car is AIR COOLED and has no water cooled system! It's basically a
600cc, 4-cylinder Honda motorcycle....one of those that run ALMOST
FOREVER....with electric fans cooling the heads...

SIMPLE has value. Easy to fix. Bet changing the plugs was a owners task
too. Knew one person with a 6cyc inline, simple as you get, got 350,000
miles on a Chevy Biscane, the only out of normal maintenace was a water pump
and front tie ends or something. He did all the maintenace except for
brakes and tires. Had to take if off the road as it rusted out and started
to burn oil after 20 years. Got good mileage for the day too.

Let someone else pioneer the complexity.

Bet for $2500 those Nano's are not complex.

GM loses big-time
 

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Canuck57" wrote in
news:rZ6lk.156502$gc5.9111@pd7urf2no:

When I go to northern Ontario fishing, I always go down to I94 or #2
across the top. Cheaper accommodations and fuel with better roads.
Adds about 160 miles but I more than make it up in time.



I graduated from high school in 1964. That day we left for a
circumnavigation of the Great Lakes my dad had been dreaming of for a
decade in his 1960 Rambler station wagon towing a '62 Shasta 13' travel
trailer, our home on wheels. Western Ontario on the Queen's Highway was
just beautiful until the trailer hitch weld broke in the truly middle of
nowhere. We coaxed it behind us by moving all our stuff to the rear of
it to take the weight off the hitch springing up and down on the front
crossbar until we found a phone booth alongside the road I will never
forget. There was nothing there....just a modern aluminum and glass
phone booth.....until you went inside.

Inside that phone booth, bolted to the aluminum was an old manually
cranked Bell System telephone right out of the 1920's. It had a big
earphone on a cotton covered brown cord and the carbon mic stuck out the
front of the box with a crank handle on the side to signal the operator.
My parents were apprehensive but I persisted as it looked well kept and
workable. A single wire ran up the outside of it to a single telephone
wire that went West, the direction we had been heading.

I listened to the receiver after giving the crank about 4 good turns. A
click, then the nicest Canadian telephone operator in the country came
on the line to ask what number. I told her I wasn't sure and that we
were from upstate NY and our trailer hitch was broken. "What number is
on the front of the phone?", she asked me. I read it off. "Let me make
a phone call. Just keep the earphone to your ear. I'll be right
back." There was a click of her disconnect and I waited about 5 or 6
minutes....no music on hold in Western Ontario's wilderness...

She came back and said, "You folks just stay right there. My husband is
on his way in the truck to take you into town. Bill (somebody) is
headed to the Chevy dealership and will get his welding machine all
ready before you get there to fix it." ROLLS ROYCE never provided this
level of service to its customers. A nice man in an old Chevy truck
rolled up to the trailer we had already unhitched from the car and
blocked the tires. My dad followed him into town and Mom and I stayed
with the trailer.

About an hour or so later, the old pay phone started ringing, so I ran
across the road and answered it. "Son, your dad and Harold got the
hitch all fixed with Bill's welding and they're on the way back to you
by now. They'll be there in a few minutes.", she told me to reassure us
help was on the way.

This was on a Sunday morning in 1964. We found out later she had called
the church where Bill and his family had just started in to hear the
service. Bill told my dad he'd rather go to the shop and weld that
hitch than listen to their pastor drone on and on about something he'd
heard a hundred times before.

Dad and I hitched the trailer to the car before Mom hauled our saviour
inside for some homemade campstove cookies and a hot cup of campstove
coffee she had perked for them. By that time, it was, of course, much
later than we had intended and Harold, our saviour, said he didn't want
us driving on that road in the dark because it was Moose mating season
and some real monsters we'd already seen would be on the road in the
dark. So, he went over to the phone and rang his operator. They didn't
have a place to put our trailer up for the night with power, but there
was an outside outlet, toilet with showers at the fire station in town.
So, she called the fire chief to make arrangements for us to stay behind
the firehouse for the night so we could start fresh the next morning.

Noone stayed at the firehouse, but they left the back door open for us
and refused to take any donation to the firehouse's fund. Bill, our
welder, also refused to take a dime, Canadian or US, for dragging him
out of church. The welding he did was fantastic as it was on the car
after a few more thousand miles of towing our little trailer many years
later when the old Rambler was a NY road salt rusted out hulk.

I was 18 at the time and not very observant as most teens are, so I
can't tell you even what the name of the little town in Western Ontario
was....but I can see the whole place in my mind's eye as I'm typing this
old farts reminiscence of the finest Canadians we ever met, helping
complete strangers broken down in their town.....on a Sunday morning.

I wonder if that phone box is still just sitting there.....miles from
nowhere.....

While younger than you are, I too remember the days like that. My parents
had a flat in Hearst, needed some work in Timmins, out of gas once and much
the same experiences. Never forget out of gas. The local farmer only had
purple gas, gave us whole load for a real good price and just said I won't
tell if you don't. People back then and in the more rural areas were always
happy to be able to help. Today, your credit card number? Although the
rural areas still maintain much of this charm to some degree, it has
unfortunately deteriorated.

I think it has to do with big cities, where people forget people are people.
Just started working in a downtown environment for the first time, what a
rat race. People are not friendly, they just want one step ahead of you and
it seems to make their shallow day. And their faces are blank and
expressionless. I am lucky, will retire in a few more years. That is not
life.

Add in modern media bombarding people with murder, war, killings... while I
am sure much of the same happened back then, it wasn't sensationalized and
packaged as entertainment. Back then you were also more dependant on your
neighbours and proactively helped each other out, today you might not even
know them. Our modern society needs some serious social work on a grand
scale.

Don't be surprised to see the old stuff in out of the way places in Canada.
Bell Canada isn't known to be that modern in Telco, I wouldn't doubt they
still have party lines in service in older and smaller rural areas in
Ontario. I do know you can go to Trout Lake BC, catch some trout and gas up
using a hand pump into a 5 gallon cistern. When it full, drain it back to
your tank. I don't know the circa for hand pump gas stations but it was
before my time. Asked the operator why not one pump is modern. He says,
handy even today when the power goes out. Nice quaint hotel in town too.
Nice scenic area too. Remnants of a old 1900's mining town is about 20
miles back of there.

Working on my lovely wife to move to a smaller community on retirement. One
with fishing holes nearby. But so far not winning this though, she is a
city chick.

GM loses big-time
 

"Canuck57" wrote in
news:p59lk.53770$nD.14297@pd7urf1no:

....and resemblance to the CBC Possum Lodge van installations is
purely coincidental....(c;

Never saw that. CBC, you must be a fortunate Canadian GC holder who
didn't have an old man that was a US citizen/tax evader holding you up
with INS.


There are many GREAT Possum Lodge/Red Green segments posted to YouTube.
Just do a search for "Red Green" including the quote marks and it finds a
huge list. I think it was the best show CBC ever aired....300 episodes!

GM loses big-time
 

"Eisboch" wrote in message
...

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Canuck57" wrote in
news:rZ6lk.156502$gc5.9111@pd7urf2no:

When I go to northern Ontario fishing, I always go down to I94 or #2
across the top. Cheaper accommodations and fuel with better roads.
Adds about 160 miles but I more than make it up in time.



I graduated from high school in 1964. That day we left for a
circumnavigation of the Great Lakes my dad had been dreaming of for a
decade in his 1960 Rambler station wagon towing a '62 Shasta 13' travel
trailer, our home on wheels. Western Ontario on the Queen's Highway was
just beautiful until the trailer hitch weld broke in the truly middle of
nowhere. We coaxed it behind us by moving all our stuff to the rear of
it to take the weight off the hitch springing up and down on the front
crossbar until we found a phone booth alongside the road I will never
forget. There was nothing there....just a modern aluminum and glass
phone booth.....until you went inside.

Inside that phone booth, bolted to the aluminum was an old manually
cranked Bell System telephone right out of the 1920's. It had a big
earphone on a cotton covered brown cord and the carbon mic stuck out the
front of the box with a crank handle on the side to signal the operator.
My parents were apprehensive but I persisted as it looked well kept and
workable. A single wire ran up the outside of it to a single telephone
wire that went West, the direction we had been heading.

I listened to the receiver after giving the crank about 4 good turns. A
click, then the nicest Canadian telephone operator in the country came
on the line to ask what number. I told her I wasn't sure and that we
were from upstate NY and our trailer hitch was broken. "What number is
on the front of the phone?", she asked me. I read it off. "Let me make
a phone call. Just keep the earphone to your ear. I'll be right
back." There was a click of her disconnect and I waited about 5 or 6
minutes....no music on hold in Western Ontario's wilderness...

She came back and said, "You folks just stay right there. My husband is
on his way in the truck to take you into town. Bill (somebody) is
headed to the Chevy dealership and will get his welding machine all
ready before you get there to fix it." ROLLS ROYCE never provided this
level of service to its customers. A nice man in an old Chevy truck
rolled up to the trailer we had already unhitched from the car and
blocked the tires. My dad followed him into town and Mom and I stayed
with the trailer.

About an hour or so later, the old pay phone started ringing, so I ran
across the road and answered it. "Son, your dad and Harold got the
hitch all fixed with Bill's welding and they're on the way back to you
by now. They'll be there in a few minutes.", she told me to reassure us
help was on the way.

This was on a Sunday morning in 1964. We found out later she had called
the church where Bill and his family had just started in to hear the
service. Bill told my dad he'd rather go to the shop and weld that
hitch than listen to their pastor drone on and on about something he'd
heard a hundred times before.

Dad and I hitched the trailer to the car before Mom hauled our saviour
inside for some homemade campstove cookies and a hot cup of campstove
coffee she had perked for them. By that time, it was, of course, much
later than we had intended and Harold, our saviour, said he didn't want
us driving on that road in the dark because it was Moose mating season
and some real monsters we'd already seen would be on the road in the
dark. So, he went over to the phone and rang his operator. They didn't
have a place to put our trailer up for the night with power, but there
was an outside outlet, toilet with showers at the fire station in town.
So, she called the fire chief to make arrangements for us to stay behind
the firehouse for the night so we could start fresh the next morning.

Noone stayed at the firehouse, but they left the back door open for us
and refused to take any donation to the firehouse's fund. Bill, our
welder, also refused to take a dime, Canadian or US, for dragging him
out of church. The welding he did was fantastic as it was on the car
after a few more thousand miles of towing our little trailer many years
later when the old Rambler was a NY road salt rusted out hulk.

I was 18 at the time and not very observant as most teens are, so I
can't tell you even what the name of the little town in Western Ontario
was....but I can see the whole place in my mind's eye as I'm typing this
old farts reminiscence of the finest Canadians we ever met, helping
complete strangers broken down in their town.....on a Sunday morning.

I wonder if that phone box is still just sitting there.....miles from
nowhere.....


Excellent story.

Eisboch

It was, but I also know it to be true. Had a chance to make a community of
30 (year around, 60 in summer) my home once, kicking my brains out for not
taking it every time I think of it.

GM loses big-time
 

wrote in message
...


GM, my guess will be bankrupt inside of 16 months if not bought
out.

Get rid of the over-priced upper management, and all the perks, and
they might live.

Agreed. Be swift and start with the rot at the top.

GM loses big-time
 

"Larry" wrote in message
...
"Canuck57" wrote in
news:p59lk.53770$nD.14297@pd7urf1no:

....and resemblance to the CBC Possum Lodge van installations is
purely coincidental....(c;

Never saw that. CBC, you must be a fortunate Canadian GC holder who
didn't have an old man that was a US citizen/tax evader holding you up
with INS.


There are many GREAT Possum Lodge/Red Green segments posted to YouTube.
Just do a search for "Red Green" including the quote marks and it finds a
huge list. I think it was the best show CBC ever aired....300 episodes!

Funny, I never saw it but by Wiki's description, I might have liked it. But
I don't watch much CBC or TV for that mater. I would say less than 3 hours
a week, maybe. CBC is too leftist liberal big government sponsored for my
tastes. Costs 33M Canadians some $2B a year.

GM loses big-time
 

"Eisboch" wrote in
:

Excellent story.

Eisboch



I can still see my mother sitting in her lawn chair waiting for my father
to return with that worried look on her face....48 years later.