We can try again.
If wealth is determined by money then I am not a rich man. Our house has exposed studs, water main leaks, and outdated everything. I fix what I can. If wealth is determined by happiness and love then I am doing pretty good. My wife loves me. My son has food and loves life. We play every chance we get. Time is the greatest commodity. What more could I ask for?
Right after I reunited with my old Conquest and started this blog, our world changed quite a lot. My view on the world has changed along with my priorities. All funds have been diverted. I guess you could call it survival mode that kicked in. Our business suffered from supply issues. Covid locked us down for a while. Air conditioners breaking down. Equipment breaking down. It feels like it’s been one thing after another. That’s life! If you have no problems at all you might want to have your pulse checked. I try to keep positive and focus on things that are reachable. Maybe I can’t change how the rest of the world acts, but I can change how it affects my state of mind. I can try to spread calm and reasonable thoughts while putting down the bad ones. There is so much hate being promoted when in reality the world is also full of love. The system of life is turbulent and churns with or without our consideration. Remember that. All we can do is keep our head up and breathe.
The various projects I have collected over the years have waited a long time for funds. Some have waited decades. I’ve got a 1964 comet that was passed down to me when I was a child. She silently waits for me as time consumes her. Also waiting is A Harley Hummer. A Harley Servicar. My softail with a broken belt. The Harleys are safe inside at least. A big red 3 wheeler with stripped starter gears and no brakes. A Yamaha 3 wheeler. A 3cyl Yamaha 650. A KX1100. A magna. A 60s triumph. A van. A boat! Another Honda chopper project. Is that a wood chipper back there? A blown up generator. Here is a 302 from a police mustang. I forgot about that one. I seem to collect these things like the island of misfit toys. One customer wants to give me a diesel zero turn mower for free if I can find a trailer large enough to move it. Do I need it? No. I SHOULD to pass on that one. Just more unwanted obscurities and sometimes straight up free junk. I’ll admit it today. I have had a hard time letting things go. People have said that I should just start a junk yard. That old show “Pickers” should come out here they say. Maybe some kind of a bazaar could be fun. I could get my food truck friends together and have an old school swap meet. I need to let most of this stuff go. Maybe I can organize this stuff and do something with it in the winter time. Not in August during the hottest month we have EVER had on record. It has been over 100°F for almost an entire month straight. It also hasn’t rained here in over 3 months! Lots of local wildfires keep popping up and it’s just not a fun time to be outside. I look forward to winter and hopefully not a nuclear winter.
My son was having a lot of trouble in school. They transferred him, kicked him out, and kept him alone or sent him to the office with letter home daily. Each new school seemed better until each new school would increase the classroom size and the cycle would repeat. He was not learning and his speech was not progressing. We were not having a good time. After some testing, It turns out that my son is autistic. It also turns out that my wife and I are ALSO autistic. I fully realized this applied to me during a meltdown I was having at the shop. I had allowed myself to get overwhelmed. If felt like the entire world was crashing. My brain was misfiring. Simple questions became obscure. Suddenly I couldn’t even read. My hands where shaking. Everything my son had been going through at school made total sense. Go figure. Once I recovered and thought about it, I realized this was actually great news. Suddenly everything made sense. Once I understood it, I became able to manage it. Life has gotten a lot better. I have struggled with communication and processing my entire life. Now that we better understand how our minds are working it is MUCH easier to communicate with everyone. Our small family is stronger than ever. We began our homeschool journey and my son’s speech exploded! Anyone can understand him today and he is learning so much more easily. We all are! Now that we know how our minds work so it’s easy to turn any experience into a school lesson no matter where we are. It’s not all been easy though. We make some sacrifice for this luxury. We hired an excellent full time parts counter guy to man the front lobby and phones. My son and I now manage the motorcycle shop from home. We do all the work orders and legal paperwork from here in between school stuff. If something comes up we can walk over and have a look since it’s next door. I have also had to design our own curriculum from scratch since literally every single available course seems to have embedded religion or some other weirdness. This means that we can learn at whatever pace we want. According to state standards, we are actually ahead. Whatever that means. At least we don’t have to worry about a school shooting, a careless bus driver, an overwhelmed or ill equipped teacher, or false Texas programming. Screw Columbus day.
Overall It’s been a weird couple years since my last post. The car looks and smells the same. Wonderfully 80’s. Silently waiting for a transmission (and so much more) that I can not currently justify. One thing I do have is patience and enthusiasm. The rest will come in time.