A single wheel cover from a 2000s vintage Ford van or Super Duty truck has been languishing on our street for the last two weeks with no takers. It seems to be in decent shape and I suspect a new one would cost more than $200. With the number of Ford vans and big pickups I see roaming around our town, I’m surprised no one has picked it up.
It reminds me of the time our friends, Dave and Gloria, had a nice Volvo that was missing a hubcap/wheel cover. There was a place in Albuquerque called Hubcap Annies that sold all sorts of hubcaps and wheel covers that had been found along a road or turned in from an owner who bought fancier wheels for their ride. I found a perfectly matching Volvo wheel cover, which needed some refurbishing, so I bought it for not much money, spiffed it up and installed it on their Volvo. The car looked great. But the next time I saw Dave, he told me that the wheel cover flew off shortly after it was installed during his trip back to Santa Fe. So much for doing good deeds.
Anyway, I’ll keep hoping that someone rescues this wheel cover to reunite it with an appropriate truck or van.
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It’s a never ending story. When I was a kid in elementary school, I was known for the number of jackets I lost there. My exasperated parents finally ended up always buying me the cheapest jacket they could find, hoping it would be warm enough to keep me from freezing during the cold Ruidoso winters.
On our trip to Ruidoso last week to check up on the Trout in the Classroom project at White Sands Elementary, I found this box in the school hallway.
I think kids this age just get distracted when they dash out to the playground or scramble out of the classroom to catch the bus at the end of the day. Again, nothing ever seems to change for some of us who have short attention spans.
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Our church has been asked to help a border ministry serving immigrants who have come into the El Paso area in recent months. The specific thing they were requesting this time was footwear for men — especially larger sizes. I picked up a pair of inexpensive 11 1/2 athletic shoes at Wal-Mart and took them to the church to deposit in a box with other shoes that had been donated for the cause. When I looked in the box, I found these.
I’m sure these will be especially helpful to a 275 pound guy trying to wade the Rio Grande or trudging across the desert near El Paso.
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And finally, I’ve been sort of offended by recent mailers I’ve been getting about the need to buy my burial plot or pay up front for cremation services. It’s called target marketing, and I am clearly in the old geezer target segment now.
A couple of weeks ago, I got another mailing equally annoying regarding my advancing age. It was inviting me to be a “UFO.” To become a UFO, you have to be a pilot of more than 80 years old and join a group called the “United Flying Octogenarians.” While I’m several years away from that 80-year mark, I could still claim membership now as a member of the “Auxiliary Wing.” Once they discovered that I am a hot air balloon pilot, I doubt they would let me participate anyway, so I think I’ll pass for now. However, identifying myself to people as a “UFO” does have some conversational appeal.
aero-cordero.com 