Occasionally, I get a bit of mail from my faithful readers. Here’s a sampling:
Dear Squirrel Pie,
Obviously yew don’t know a darn ting about socks! Uffda! Any bushvacher mit a smidgen uff common sense can explain how to get at least two years out uff a pair of socks.
Yer first mistake is yew vash dem too often. Vunce a month is guud and if yew fall in de creek or break trew de ice a time or two, yew can probably get by vit out vashing dem at all. Dat’s my personal position but since I got hooked up vit Lena a few decades back, she insists I shange dem vunce a veek wedder dey need it or not.
A pure vaste of vater, soap, and durability!
Next, darning is yust annuder vaste uff time. All yew do is rotate de sock vun quarter turn ven yew get a hole in it and den ven she’s vorn all de vay ’round, yew yust snip de end off and tie her closed vit a piece of string.
After de second go round yew svitch ends and tie de top end shut. Vit guud long socks yer guud fer nearly two years even if de vife makes yew vash dem.
Use yer head!
Yers truly,
Ole, Gullee, Ontarario.
P.S. Don’t tell Lena I vas writing. She’s awful fussy about airing any of de dirty laundry!
On a completely different front, DeBoss dropped a note wondering how he was going to get any work out of his lead mechanic, Pipewrench Pete, now that the fly season was approaching.
“I can’t fire him. He’s got the equipment all wired and plumbed to his own secret specs so nobody else can fix it. He’s mixed up all the parts in the shop and put his own labels on them!
“The other day when the first mosquito showed up, he ran the old loader in the shop and fired it up for about an hour. He had sooooo much fog rolling through the building, the MNR called to see if we needed a water bomber. The wife left after 10 minutes and is refusing to come back to the office until Pipewrench puts out the smudge.
“Then he laid it on me I’d better figure on floating any machines I want worked on into the shop as he had developed a severe allergy to deer fly and bull dog bites and wasn’t venturing out to the bush until the frost killed them off, but by then he would be tied up for the deer and moose hunting seasons.
“He said he might be able to spring a day or two loose for me before the fishing season opened but couldn’t promise. And if the weather was real nice, he might even be committed then as he and Ole from Gullee were going to be taking up Harley riding again after 40 years.
“Said they were being recognized by the Hell’s Angels as founding charter members. Also let me know he’d need a new hard hat–one that would meet MTO specs.
“Maybe you can talk some sense into the old codgers.
Tearing my hair out,
DeBoss
Dear DeBoss,
Sorry I can’t help you out. Those two characters took so many tumbles off those Harley without helmets in their youth, I’m not sure how you would get them to take sound advise and I’m too cowardly to try.
Re the tearing your hair out–careful. We’re both sporting pretty much MTO haircuts already (you know, bare to centre bare).
To the rest of you, keep the inspiration coming–or will I have to start making things up?
