Posted on 09/23/2006 8:42:28 PM PDT by paulat
River Queen By MICHAEL PERRY
Published: September 24, 2006
I was traveling to Black River Falls, Wis., in my reliable-if-not-zippy four-door ’78 Impala when the radiator blew. It could have been worse, since I was rolling off the exit ramp at the time and had sufficient momentum to reach the Wal-Mart parking lot. I was en route to research an article on canoeing and had agreed to meet a local guide at a downtown hardware store, so I left the car astride its expanding green puddle and walked the rest of the way.
The guide — a petite young woman named Mindy who kept her blond hair pulled into a ponytail with a pink scrunchie but carried herself with a trace of jock swagger — took one look at my soft hands and determined immediately and quite correctly that I wasn’t the kind of guy who could fix his own radiator. My mechanical abilities dwindle just past lifting the hood. Mindy arranged to have the Impala towed to a local shop. Then she loaded me into her pickup truck. The exterior was bashed and scuffed, and the cab was awash in good working-class trash — spark-plug boxes and empty gasket packs, shell casings, that sort of thing. We accelerated manfully from the curb. She handled the stick shift with authority, which gave me certain twinges. And I admit I noticed how her quadriceps arched against her shorts when she worked the clutch. She told me about her motorcycle.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ha!
He was going to propose marriage to her, and he doesn't even know the 'J'-stroke?
Shoot, that's taught in the Boy Scout Handbook!
(Or was it "Boys' Life" Magazine?)
She'd have laughed him into next week!
"How would ever teach our sons to hunt?"
(And you know she'll have sons...)
He knows it. The beauty of this piece is the way it's written...I don't see much "good writing" these days. It's refreshing when it happens.
This guy likes to look at her legs in shorts, but can he use his left foot to get a truck moving?
Thank you, but we're not out of the woods yet! (teenagers!!) lol!
A man who can love a truck can't be all bad, even if he does write things for the New York Times. But I hope at some point he learns how to fix his own radiator. Real men can fix cars. Mr. Fairview can fix a transmission with a paper clip.
<< Have you ever heard of 'brain tanning'?" >>
What a great question to hear! I'm afraid I'm more like the River Queen author, but my grandfather wrote a book about it. River Queen would've like him. His picture is on the braintan website.
http://www.braintan.com/gallery/hunting/hunting.html
We're getting a collection of salted furs. Within the next year or so I'm going to be forced to learn how to tan or send them to my cousin. (Now *she's* a corker! 5'1", a buck-O-5, a college-educated genius at math, with a soft Texas drawl, and her idea of a wonderful evening is to sit on the porch picking off squirrels then skinning them by fire-light.)
I really have to get the hell out of NY. (grin)
sums up the liberal picture of life perfectly... where the women are more manly then the men.
Built the engine in my first car with my Dad when I was 16, a 73 pinto station wagon (yellow... babe repellent). Replaced the engine & exhaust in my 75 camaro. definite improvement... fast, throaty, but a gas guzzler (you could watch the gas guage drop when i floored it). I was able (and did) repair it a few times roadside with just duct tape and mechanics wire. Gave up on noodling under the hood when I got my 89 probe. Fuel injection and turbo'd... fast, and fun. I was just a bit afraid of blowing up my first new car. By the time I got my 95 talon, working on the car wasn't possible with the 80-100 hr/weeks. AWD, turbo'd and fuel injected. Nope, wasn't risking it.
today, i'm not about to invalidate the warranty on the bmw. My first foreign car, and I love it, like all the rest. I think my Dad would forgive me for not buying American on this one. My manly quotian may be dropping a bit, but I can live with it.
My Dad.. he could fix anything with a motor. Whether it was usaf jets, off shore race boats or the nitro madness of the quarter mile... no problem. The man was a genius.
Don't matter what you can fix, how you look, what yer rap is...GET A GUITAR! (that's wut there fer, anyway.)
Well, I "can" fix cars, but thankfully have reached the point where I can afford not to. Spent too much time on the farm fixing cars, trucks, tractors, chainsaws, and pretty much anything else with a motor to really enjoy it.
I don't believe the Flying J was even there in 1978.
My visits go back to 1966, when I94 wasn't even there. I94 went from St. Paul to Chicago, but the last section to be finished was between Eau Claire and Tomah. You had to take Highway 12, which passed through the city of BRF. I used to stop there for a (3.2) beer and a Green Bay Packer Burger. I was too young to buy a real beer.
"One thing I really love about her is that, despite my best efforts, she really is a lady. She can work up a sweat shoveling manure and lunging her horse for an afternoon, then shower and doll up in 30 minutes for a run into town. Once she cleans up you'd never know that this was the same girl sawing the head off a bunny only a few hours ago."
Sounds like a wonderful young woman. I always advise young women who are interested in matrimony to join a gun club. They usually end up married within two years.
Consider it: Surounded by well to do intellegent men ( the kind you find at a gun club), with little competition and obvious common interests.
This is the America that I remember when I was growing up only a generation ago. Most of the girls that I dated in my little country town could shoot a rifle off of the back of a moving horse with decent accuracy. They could could look at a tree and be able to tell whether a bear or a buck had been there. They could find the deep pools in the creek where the really big trout hung out, tell the difference between a rainbow and a German brown when they caught one, and know whether or not it was a "keeper" without a measuring tape. They only difference is, back then it wasn't noteworthy that a girl could do those things.
As long as there are girls like Mindy around, and men who can appreciate them, the future of our country is secure (despite what you may hear on the news).
My daughter is the same way. Eighteen, NRA member, rabid right-winger, good student, now in college where she enjoys verbally busting up the liberals. When a horse displeases her she can pick him up and throw him across his stall. (OK, I might be exaggerating slightly there.) She can drive a tractor or dig a post-hole. Loves guns and trucks and the kind of men who know how to handle them. And she's knock-out gorgeous, especially in a long dress. She is not going to marry a wuss from New York.
Thanks for the ping. I loved it. :)
My husband said he married me because he knew I'd be just the right amount of "competition" for him. He said what sealed the deal was his playing pool with me when we we were dating. While I rarely beat him, I was always behind him by only one shot and never got all "girly and pouty" about losing. And I can hold my liquor and I'm not the least bit sqeamish, LOL!
Yep. I let him chase me until I caught him. *SMIRK*
Worthy of a Midwest Ping List Ping? :)
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