Blog number Ninety-one 17 May 2007
That couple I was talking about in the last blog where the husband died? One time we four were talking about an upcoming election and Rolly (his name) said that Jo (her name) was a Democrat and he was a Republican and in order not to cancel out their votes and thus waste them, they decided they would both vote Republican.
Teresa and I laughed about it later, but we never said anything to them. Oddly, something like that was totally expected from them. They were a lot of fun.
Rolly and I used to beat the girls at pinochle due to our expertise at bidding. Teresa told me years later she and Jo used to sometimes win because they cheated - they would rub their ring finger for diamonds, touch their hearts for hearts, etc.
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Walking to my coffee shop in Sacramento, I went right by one of those pile drivers that had just been set up that morning. It took me a few days of going by before I noticed that I couldn't see any sign of where water would be stored in order to operate the pile driver. The only pile drivers I had ever heard of were steam driven.
So I looked closer and saw that it was a diesel engine. One giant cylinder, like a "Poppin' Johnny" John Deere tractor. The cylinder would fire, driving the piston up, it would fall due to gravity, pounding the pile into the ground.
One morning I got to watch them start the "engine." They pulled the heavy iron pile driving part up to the top, let it go, it would drop and the "engine" would "puff" and a cloud of smoke would come out. Putt putt...putt....puttt... the engine stopped. They pulled the driver to the top again, let it go, Putt...putt...putt putt putt off and running.
I just realized that I never noticed how they pulled that heavy driver up to the top. Dork!
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