#Car Repair Garage in Stanley

[weemsbotts]

“I won’t fill a tourist’s tank”: Reminiscences of early 1900s Dumfries from Route One

By: Lisa Timmerman, Executive Director

In 1920, Ruel F. Waters opened the Waters Garage and Gas Station in the Town of Dumfries. Operating right on Route One and Main Street, his garage provided services to the population for over fifty years. His preference for locals over tourists along with his dedication to his job and community provide an interesting perspective from someone who preferred his 1942 Super Deluxe Chevy over his 1969 Chevrolet.

Local newspaper writers delight historians with their slice of life and local town profiles as they often provide witty and insightful commentary. Newspapers in our archives running from the 1960s through the 1970s document the changes Water saw to the Town and his business, as he discussed everything from memories of his childhood to energy crises.

(The Journal Messenger, 08/08/1968, Ruel F. Waters in the Waters Garage and Gas Station in the Town of Dumfries)

In his youth, Waters remembered swimming in Quantico Creek sans clothing noting, “The water wasn’t too good for the fish because of the Quantico Creek pyrite mine with the “iron getting in the water,” but it didn’t hurt the swimming.” Four county stores pocketed the landscape and Waters recalled that you could either buy candy with a penny or a hen egg. Today there is a paved road leading to the Dumfries Courthouse site, but Waters remembered when he crashed his one speed motorcycle in a pile of stones and “parked it” after that painful experience. After fixing cars in a relative’s barn, he earned a chauffeur’s license at the age of 17 and taught first-time car owners how to operate their vehicles, usually purchased from the local salesman, Dr. D.C. Cline. In 1918, Waters purchased a 1917 Model T, a steam-winder, “the kind that you had to crank up to start.” After opening his garage on the family’s farm and timberland property, he traveled to Quantico where he would unload Chevrolets from railroad sidecars and tow them to his garage, getting them ready for Dr. D.C. Cline to sell them. According to Waters, repairs in the early years of his business “were mostly a matter of trial and error,” as people often had to manufacture the part themselves as no parts catalogue was available. Many of his clients were locals and he recalled servicing Chevrolets, Dodges, Buicks (the most popular), and the Stanley Steamer. “The Stanley Steamer could go anywhere, on any road and in all kinds of weather but the law required that the driver have an engineer’s license with the result that few were actually used.” He also remembered prices that today (2022) will make our jaws drop. “A Model T Ford could be completely overhauled for about $35, when finished would run like new. Cars were much easier to work on as they didn’t have all the optional, extras and accessions that modern cars have.” Remember when gas cost 10 cents? This Director does not.

His intimate knowledge of Route One also paints a different picture of traveling in the 1900s along with changing infrastructure. In 1920, Route One was a bumpy gravely dirt road not traveled often. Waters recalled that people traveling from the North frequently stopped and shipped their cars at Quantico by rail to continue the trip to Florida. Eventually as Route 1 became paved and more heavily traveled, Waters had to cut out the front of his garage and move back the gas tanks or else vehicles could not stop to get gas without blocking traffic. While he recalled declining business during the 1930s and gas rationing during WWII, he felt people back then got what they needed, while people today (1974 interview) “have been drinking more gas.” In February 1974, he reported only selling some gasoline from his two Texaco pumps, but not more than 1,200 gallons a month. He purchased at the beginning of the month and noted running out by the third week. “They stated lining up Saturday, and I had to lock up. I won’t fill a tourist’s tank. I don’t have it.” We meet Waters again in May 1977 after receiving a warrant for refusing to pay a $10 fee for a hazardous use permit for operating the gas station. After County Fire Marshal James Bell appeared before the Town of Dumfries council emphasizing it was not for an inspection of the facilities but for “dispensing dangerous liquids,” the matter was resolved within one hour.

Waters incredible memories appeared in numerous newspapers each emphasizing a different part of his life in relation to Dumfries and Route One. While he remembered his father having the last locally-owned sailboat to haul cordwood and railroad ties to the Port of Dumfries to buying candy with an egg to selling gas two cents cheaper to beat out the competition, we can glean many jewels and gems of historic Dumfries in the 1900s.

Note: Looking for a fun morning activity this Saturday (11/19)? Join our educators in Merchant Park as we play a variety of historical games! Dress warmly and plan for fun in the sunshine during our free monthly Children’s Day at the Museum Sponsored by Colonial Downs Group. Free tickets here! Prefer a virtual program featuring tea and scary winter folklore? Check out tickets for our Winter is Coming Tea here. Find out why we have a 4.9 rating on Eventbrite for excellent programming!

(Sources: Waters Garage Archive File: The Journal Messenger, Even Along Route One: First Gas Stations Were an Oddity by Jerry N. Lorelli, 08/08/1968; The Potomac News: The smaller the station, the bigger the problems. Ann Holiday, 02/20/1974; Senior citizens discuss Dumfries, 05/09/1977 from an uncited newspaper; The Potomac News, 07/26/1977)

[scaredofthebasement-blog]

When Love Walks In - Chpt 1

Chapter One - The Accident

(Hi there.  This is my first fanfiction and writing of any kind really.  I’ve been inspired by those writers who have gone before me.  Thank you for your incredible efforts, talent and bravery.   This will be a multi-chapter love story and work of pure fiction using Auston Matthews as the inspiration for the main character of the same name and Dr Quinn Tolpa as a character I created myself. I’ve purposely refrained from describing the appearance of the female lead character, Dr Quinn, as I want you to imagine her as you see her in your mind. Also, please keep in mind that I am in no way knowledgable about the medical profession and have based any medical references on my own minor research.  So please forgive any inaccuracies. Potential triggers:  Life-threatening hockey accident involving the throat.  Coma.  Surgery.  Ventilator.  Some swear words.  I will mark when Sex/Smut Scenes are coming up.  I hope you enjoy the ride.  It’s going to be a good one and worth getting past the setup chapters.)  3389 words

Chapter One - The Accident 

It is late in the third period of a tied Game 7 of the 2024/25 Stanley Cup finals between the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the New Jersey Devils when 27-year-old Auston Matthews of the Leafs, takes a puck, from the Devils’ defence, squarely to his throat.

The Toronto home crowd falls eerily silent and holds a collective, horrified breath.  You can tell that the Leaf players on the ice are not aware that the puck hit Auston directly in the throat.  As the whistle blows, the Leafs’ trainers and medical staff rush to help Auston, who is thrashing in pain on the ice.  Everyone now has a chance to look up at the replay on the JumboTron.  The mouths of Auston’s teammates and coaches drop in unison along with the crowd, followed by audible gasps of, “My God!”

As soon as the trainers can get to Auston, he manages to stand up but then immediately collapses into unconsciousness.  The capacity crowd’s screams echo throughout the arena at the drama of it all.  As everyone watches, four of Auston’s teammates rush to pick up their friend and get him to the Leafs’ medical room as quickly as possible.  

What is sure at this point, is that Auston’s airway has been cut off from the impact of the shot to his Larynx.  He is unconscious and not breathing as he lays on the treatment table in the dressing room.  An emergency Tracheotomy is performed on-site by the team’s medical doctor, to get Auston breathing again.  

Auston is still unconscious, but breathing with the help of the Thrach, oxygen supply and EMS, as he is rushed by ambulance to Mount Sinai Hospital for life-saving surgery.

Auston’s parents, Brian and Ema and his two sisters, Alexandria (older) and Breyana (younger), manage to get down to the Leafs’ dressing room within minutes of the accident and are ushered straightaway to a police car which escorts them to join up with Auston at the hospital.  Upon their arrival, Auston’s parents are signing releases and authorizations on behalf of their son, for the hospital medical staff. 

A still unconscious Auston arrives at the Emergency Department of Mount Sinai Hospital, with Leafs’ medical staff in tow, to a team of surgeons and medical staff awaiting his arrival.  They immediately usher Auston, via stretcher, into an exam room where what remains of his hockey equipment is cut off.  They first ensure that Auston’s airway is maintained.  The staff take Auston’s vitals along with scans and a full body assessment.  Since it is immediately clear that Auston is suffering from a crushed Larynx and likely vocal cord damage, the doctors on duty, without hesitation, summon Dr Quinn Tolpa.  

Dr Quinn, as she prefers to be called, lives in a high rise condo located within 10 minutes of the hospital.  It’s around 10 pm, and she has just returned home from a late Pilate’s class and subsequent shower.  As she thinks to go turn on the TV to see if the City is going to erupt any time soon by the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup for the first time in over 50 years, her pager goes off.   The message reads, Paging Dr Quinn Tolpa, Medical Emergency, Laryngeal Trauma, etc., Theatre 3, M.S.H, time 10:03.  She replies, texting her ETA and hurries to change her clothes, feeling relieved that she already showered at the gym.  She rushes to her car in the parking garage and begins to wonder about road conditions. If the Leafs have already won the Cup, then she will be in trouble as the traffic will be insane.  As she drives out of the garage, she sees it is quiet on the streets, almost eerily quiet.  

In little time, Dr Quinn arrives on-site and starts getting into her scrubs in the room attached to Theatre 3.  The other doctors and medical staff greet her and thank her for coming so quickly.

“We have ourselves a VIP of sorts in there, Dr Quinn, so no pressure”, an attending doctor jokes nervously to ease the tension.

“I’m sorry, Doctor, what?” Quinn replies, confused as she starts to prep.

Realizing there is no time to get into who the patient is, the attending physician replies, “Not important, Dr Quinn.  NHL hockey player is all.”  He begins briefing her on what transpired and his assessment.

Dr Quinn has just finished scrubbing up when the doctor completes his briefing. She has a few questions for the doctor and medical staff about Auston’s vitals and how he is responding to treatments already given, which they answer to her satisfaction.

She takes a look at Auston’s scan results as well as the results from his standard tests and then moves over to where he lays on the operating table. She quickly runs her own physical evaluation.  All indications are that Auston’s Larynx has been severely crushed and will need intricate repair before the bleeding stops.  She will address his airway, breathing and collapsed lung to get him stabilized.   

The attending doctor notes, “We understand he was about 4 feet from the player who fired the puck.”

Dr Quinn is shocked by the image that races across her mind. “Four feet away! Dear Lord!”  She draws in a deep breath and exhales.  

All the medical support staff have eyes on Dr Quinn as they assume their positions.  Taking command of the room, she rallies, “Okay, everyone, let’s save this young man’s life.”

After 2 hours of her expert, delicate and intricate surgery, Auston is in stable condition.  It is time for her to speak with his family.  But before Dr Quinn can find them, the other doctor pulls her aside to explain who, precisely, this patient is that she just finished operating on.

“Auston Matthews?” She repeats as a question.  She has heard the name before but had never paid much attention as she had been focused intensely on her career over the last number of years.  But, having been born and raised in the City of Toronto, she, of course, knows who the Leafs are and how important they are to the City.  She also knows that the Leafs were playing in the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs because, unless you live under a rock, no one in the City could be unaware of that fact.  

Dr Quinn is a bit embarrassed to be a Torontonian at this moment; not knowing much about the City’s esteemed hockey superstar who she has just helped. She has to remind herself that during the past nine years of her life, she did not have the luxury of dividing her time and energy to much outside of her education and career.  Becoming a Medical Doctor, surgeon and then rising through the ranks at breakneck speed to become Canada’s youngest specialist in the field of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery as well as an internationally recognised leader in the field of vocal cord reconstruction had been her focus and a huge one at that.

Dr Quinn walks towards the ‘family quiet room’ where she’s told Auston’s family are waiting.  She taps on the door, and it is opened by a tall, broad-shouldered man who Dr Quinn assumes to be Auston’s father.  There are three women in the room whom she believes to be Auston’s mother and sisters, as well as a few men wearing Leafs’ jackets whom she guesses are from the Leafs’ organization. There is no escaping that they are all torn apart by Auston’s accident. Their wet, swollen eyes and red faces reflect their intense pain and fear.  Dr Quinn’s heart sinks to see them all in such distress.  She wants desperately to reassure them.

“Hello, my name is Dr Quinn Tolpa, please call me Dr Quinn.  I just performed surgery on Auston”, she announces as she reaches her hand out to shake hands with and learn the names of the loved ones of her newest patient.

“He’s in stable condition right now, and staff are currently transferring him to the Intensive Care Unit on the 4th floor.  The 2-hour surgery included completing a Tracheostomy and hooking him up to a Ventilator.  A cuffed tube was inserted and inflated to make sure that the only air in his throat is coming from the Ventilator, which will allow Auston’s throat and Larynx to heal without interference.  I repaired Auston’s Larynx.  I also drained blood from his lungs as it had caused one of his lungs to collapse.”

There is a burst of relief, followed by a lot of ‘thanks to God’.  They hug each other and sob in relief.  

Dr Quinn continues, “I understand how scary this all must be for you.  Please know that Auston is in the best possible place given his type of injury and that we will do everything within our power to help Auston make as full a recovery as possible.  I can tell you that the surgery was successful in repairing his damaged Larynx and in doing so, we removed the obstruction from his airway and stopped the bleeding.  While Auston is in a stable state right now, that is not of his own doing.  We have him on a Ventilator and have placed him in a medically induced Coma, which is giving him a chance to heal his Larynx and vocal cords as well as to stave off any brain damage.  We can’t rule out brain damage or a concussion since he stopped receiving oxygen for a time at the arena and he hit his head on the ice after he passed out.  He is going to stay in the induced Coma for at least five days, and at such time we will be able to assess his progress and alleviate any further issues he may present.”

“I know I’m overloading you with information right now but want you to know where things stand at the moment and what to expect in the next little while where Auston’s concerned. Since I will be Auston’s attending medical specialist, please know that you can consult with me on his condition at any time.  I am perfectly happy to repeat any of this information back to you, so don’t hesitate to ask me any questions you may have.   Here is my card with my contact information.  Day or night, please know that I am here for you all.”  Dr Quinn reassures them as she hands each of them her card.

Dr Quinn continues, “Okay, so specifically, we diagnosed Auston with Laryngeal Trauma, which means a crushed Larynx, which I understand was caused by a puck hitting his throat at high speed and close range.  The priority was to secure his airway, which was done by the Leafs’ medical staff at the arena by performing a crude Tracheotomy.  By accounts, it appears that this procedure was done within the time limits to avoid brain damage, but we will not know for certain until Auston regains consciousness.  When Auston arrived here, we ran scans, X-rays, tests and assessments to determine the extent of the damage to his Larynx.  His Larynx was so badly crushed it was by far the most challenging surgical repair of fractured and internal lacerations I have ever had to make, but I’m pleased with how well it went.”

“Also, in 5 days, I expect to perform what is called a Microlaryngoscopy and Bronchoscopy, in order to re-assess the healing process and attend to any issues that may present themselves by that time.  If all goes well then, Auston should be cleared to be woken from his Coma.  At that time, we will have him on complete voice rest until he can breathe on his own and his airway heals.  Also, we should be able to evaluate any brain damage, concussion symptoms, how well or not his vocal cords are mending and whether he has any diminished breathing abilities or difficulties swallowing”, she explains.

Now she has to tell them what they need to know but will scare the hell out of them.    “Since vocal cords are next to the Larynx and Auston’s are severely crushed, there is a chance that they will not be able to join together as they heal, which will cause Auston to have trouble speaking. But, I want you to know that I have been heading a team that has been pioneering research in the area of vocal cord rejuvenation and there is a new technique that we have developed that is providing a chance where there was none previously.  If it comes down to that, I want you to know there is some hope. Results of applying this new technique have proven to be highly successful in trials.  It is ground-breaking, and I want you to know about it as it has been my primary objective to find a way to bring hope to patients who previously had none in such cases.  Oh, and last thing, Auston’s collapsed lung should recover in a couple of days and is common when there is bleeding from trauma to the Larynx. We will, of course, monitor Auston for everything”, Dr Quinn draws in a deep breath and waits a moment for a response.

“Can we see him now?” They plead in unison.

Relieved that they seem to have accepted what she just told them, she answers, “Yes, I’ll take you up in a moment.  You can stay in the room with Auston, day and night.  You can sleep in the reclining chairs in the room.  Unfortunately, there are only two reclining chairs that will fit in the space, but they are more comfy and supportive than you might expect.   I believe it is of great importance that family be able to stay with their loved ones overnight and get as good a sleep as possible.  Families provide love and support, which is essential in speeding up the healing process. Being close to the patient also gives families some measure of control in an often uncontrollable situation.  We have pillows and blankets, so please ask the nurse.”

“Doctor?  When my son is in Coma, can he hear me?”  Auston’s mother asks hopefully in her broken English.

“Mrs Matthews, I am sorry that he will not be able to understand what you say since a medically induced coma is a deep state of unconsciousness, leaving the sounds with no consciousness to reach.  However, please do not let that deter you from talking, singing or reading to Auston. There have been claims that other senses are at work that pick up on vibrations, energy etc. and may subconsciously bring peace and comfort to your boy.  It can also be comforting to you as well”, Dr Quinn explains with compassion that the family can feel.

“If you would like to follow me, I can take you upstairs to Intensive Care now.” Dr Quinn leads the group to the elevator and up to the 4th floor. Everyone is silent as they all try to process the information they have just received.

“Please stay in the waiting room for one moment while I confirm that things are ready”, She asks the group as she heads into the Intensive Care Unit.  

Auston’s family is too worked up to sit down, so they stand there while the team staff members take a seat as they plan to give the family privacy to visit Auston and make their update calls to Leafs’ management.

“Hi, Angels?  How’s it going with our patient, Mr Matthews?” Dr Quinn asks the two attending nurses, Nicole and Kelly.

“He’s all set up Dr Quinn,” Nicole informs.

“Doctor, are you aware that this is Auston Matthews?  You know, the superstar hockey player that plays for the Leafs?” Kelly asks.

“Yeah, that’s what they tell me.  Auston was playing in the Stanley Cup final game and got a puck to the throat”, Dr Quinn shivers as she reacts to her own words.   “Poor guy, eh?  Hey, do you know if the Leafs ended up winning?” She asks.

“No, we haven’t heard anything.  It’s been pretty busy in here tonight”, both nurses chime in.

Dr Quinn adds, “Well, I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.  I don’t know what to hope for because if the team won, then Auston missed out and if the team lost, then he’ll be devastated and so will the City. What a no-win situation.  In any event, I’m going to get Auston’s family now.  They are lovely people.  Afterwards, I will get the attending doctor up to speed and fill out some paperwork. Any questions before I go?”

“No, we read the file and know what to do.  Should be fine Dr Quinn”, the nurses confirm with confidence.

“Okay, good.  I’ll go get the family”, Dr Quinn announces.

“Thanks, Doctor”, the nurses replied.

“Thank you, Angels!” Quinn adds, as she always does, to show her appreciation for all they do. “Ha, so I guess you’re Auston’s Angels now ladies”, she jokes to lighten the mood, and they chuckle.

Dr Quinn returns to Auston’s waiting family and announces that the room and Auston are ready for them.

“I just want to give you a heads up that Auston is hooked up to some large machines to help him breathe, monitor his vitals, give him his fluids and administer his medications.  Please don’t be alarmed as this is all normal procedure in such cases”, Dr Quinn informs them.

“Thank you, Dr Quinn, from the bottom of our hearts for everything you have done and will do for our boy”, Auston’s father says as his voice drips with emotion.  The rest of the family mumble the same, sniffling as they each take turns hugging Quinn tight, trying to convey their appreciation.

“Please call us by our first names, Dr Quinn.  We are family now”, Ema insists.

“Sure.  I’m happy to be able to help.  Please follow me”, Dr Quinn instructs as she leads them towards Auston’s room.  

The family pass in front of Dr Quinn to get to Auston’s bed.  Quiet gasps and sobs from the group mingle with the pulse and hiss of the breathing machine keeping Auston alive.  Ema hugs and kisses her son, crying she tells him in Spanish that she doesn’t know what she’ll do if he doesn’t pull through.  Brian, standing behind Ema with his hand on her back has tears pouring down his devastated, hand covered face.  Alex and Bre approach Auston from the other side of the bed, youngest wrapped in the arm of the oldest.  Standing next to their brother, they take hold of his hand and wipe tears from their red cheeks.  As they gasp for air, they tell Auston they love him, know he will triumph over this like he does everything and that he is the best brother ever.

Dr Quinn tries to remain stoic.  After making sure everyone is okay and settled, she excuses herself from the room and heads over to the Intensive Care station to speak to the attending doctor, finish up some paperwork and make some calls.  Then she hears it.

“They lost!” one of the nurses announces loudly.  

Dr Quinn rushes over to the nurse standing about 5 feet from her, to explain the situation and ask her to please keep the news to herself.  

Although the news crushes Dr Quinn, she also has a strong feeling wash over her that it will all be okay in the end.  She has no idea why she feels this way, but it calms her entire being.  

Dr Quinn informs Auston’s family that she is going home to get some sleep as she has worked 13 hours in the last 24 hour period.  She introduces them to the attending Doctor, Dr Higgins and reassures them that she is merely a phone call away if they need to speak to her before her 9 am return.

Dr Quinn returns to her condo.  She knows this upcoming week will be a trying one for her, Auston’s family and the City of Toronto.  Tired, Dr Quinn rests in the knowledge that her hard work and studies might be able to turn this tragic situation into a positive outcome.  She resolves that she is determined to do that for Auston, his family and the City of Toronto.  She will be the Superstar that everyone needs right now.  This is her chance to do what she has been training for her whole life. This is her Cup moment, so to speak.

[stanleygarage-blog]

MOBILE GARAGE DOOR REPAIR THAT COMES TO YOU

When your garage door stops working, you need it fixed fast. There is never a good time for your garage door to decide to stop working. When you can't close your garage, your home is exposed to criminals who now have easy access to your house. When you can't open your garage, you don't have easy access to your home, and you possibly can't get your car out of your house.

That is why Stanley Garage Door & Gate Repair offers Mobile, Same Day Garage Door Repairs for our customers in the hundreds of locations that we have across the country. If your garage door stops working suddenly, just give us a call at (626) 603-0448 and one of our professional repair technicians will be at your house the same day (or your next convenient time) with a fully loaded truck with all the equipment and parts needed to make your repairs right away.

No matter if you are in need of garage door repair Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Oak Park, Pacific Palisades, Reseda, Tarzana, West Covina, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills, Burbank, Los Angeles, Costa Mesa, Irvine, Mission Viejo, Newark, Placentia, or any of our other locations in California, or across the country, we have a service location nearby you.

Source: https://garage-door.com/garage-doors-101/mobile-garage-door-repair-that-comes-to-you.php

[friendlycybird]

Stanuary 2019 Week Two - Travel

Stanuary Week Two - Travel

Summary: In the space of 24 hours one March Day in 1974, Stanley Pines experienced approximately six “firsts”

Word Count: 1593

Content Warnings: Homelessness, Prostitution, Implied Gang Activity, Seeming Suicidal Thoughts, Actually just Call of the Void. 

Notes: Because I fluffed too hard last week have this fucking mess of a chapter for week two. 

AO3

Stan knew he was in trouble when the air from his engine vents started to smell like cotton candy. He probably should’ve pulled over then and checked the engine, but he’d been less than three hours from his destination, and he’d been making good time. He could check the engine when he got there. He was still the better part of fifty miles away when the Stanleymobile sputtered to a halt in the middle of the highway. Some colorful curse words later and Stan had managed to coast onto the side of the road.

His first impulse was to just try to do the fix himself. The puff of pure white smoke that billowed up when he opened the hood put an instant end to that fantasy. He was out of his depth. So then there was a tow truck and an assessment at a garage in the wrong town. A balding man in overalls named Mike outlined everything wrong with his car to Stan in a droning voice and Stan felt dread set in. Then the bills came, and dread gave way to panic.

They’d keep his car until he could pay them. What’s more, they’d charge him for keeping his car too. The irony was more bitter than the shitty free coffee Mike offered customers. Stan was days away from a big break, a job that could make him hundreds if not thousands of dollars overnight. He had a meeting scheduled tomorrow at one, fifty miles away, to get him started on the path to his fortune, but was currently too broke to get to it. He had three cups of the coffee and braced himself for his first night without even the shelter of his car.

Hours later, just before sundown, sitting on a bench with his jacket pulled tight around him against the still chilly early March evening, Stan kicked his own ass back into gear. He wasn’t gonna give up. He wasn’t gonna turn into some hobo begging on a street corner. He was gonna make it. This opportunity had fallen right into his lap and he’d be damned if he let a little car trouble keep him from it. He needed cash? He’d find a way to make the cash.

The next morning, the cash was on the end table beside the first real bed Stan had slept in for almost two years. It was in an envelope with the name “Oren” scrawled across the front in hurried, lazy script. That’d been the name Stan had given last night, he hadn’t wanted his real name attached to his only plan. Stan was grateful that morning.  Not only had he woken up alone, but the owner of the house he’d slept in had left him enough money to cover the cost of his car repairs but also enough for a round trip bus ticket to his meeting and back. He’d utterly failed to negotiate for that, too nervous about the prospect of what he was offering. Yet here it was, enough for that and a good meal after. Or several crappy meals if he skimped, which, when did he not?

Then he’d stood up and sharp soreness tore through him. He gritted his teeth, reminded himself that he was close to success and he would never have to do anything like this again. Then he walked out of the empty house. He was halfway across the lawn when he realized he absolutely should have stolen stuff while he was inside. It was too risky to go back. So he walked to the bus station, got on a bus, and made it to his meeting ten minutes late.

Half an hour later he wished he hadn’t.

The last twenty-four hours had been a lot of firsts for Stanley Pines. First time his car broke down, first time lying about his name, first time with a man, first time exchanging sex for money, first time on a greyhound bus, and first time having a gun pointed at him.

Things had gone badly. They’d been off to a rocky start when he’d been late, but he’d smoothed that over with a few jokes at his own expense and soon the meeting was well underway. The sales part of the job, Stan discovered quickly, was a front for casing homes for robberies. He wasn’t totally sure how he felt about that, and made a few jokes to that end. One of them crossed a line. Then there was a gun and Stan spent just under a minute trying to talk them down before he ran.

He just had nowhere to run too.

He wanted to just get in his car and drive away at top speed. That had momentarily joined the ranks of wanting to go home, or sail the world with Ford though. Impossible. He needed another plan. At first, he just thought he’d hide out at the bus station, but two men in dark suits lurking by the far door had changed that plan.

He killed an hour in an inconspicuous coffee shop with the best scone he’d had since he was a kid. You’ve got to enjoy the little things. It was an expensive little thing but it kept him at a table in this hole-in-the-wall long enough to come up with a plan. Not that it was much of a plan. Really, it was just the obvious. He walked.

He tried to stay off the highway at first. Take a back road. Back roads don’t have much shoulder though, and half a dozen cars blew past him at a matter of inches away. What’s more, one of them cut around a ledge and it was a choice between leaning hard into a jagged rock wall every time, or standing on the edge of a cliff inches from a foot-high guardrail. Stan chose the later, and spent a lot of time looking over the edge of the cliff. By the third time the unwanted thought that he could always jump crossed his mind, he’d decided the highway might be a better choice after all.

Stan didn’t know how long he was walking on the shoulder of the highway before he gave up and started sticking his thumb out when cars passed. He knew he was sore in a way he never had been before. The muscles in his thighs and ass and up through his lower back all protested the abuse he’d put them through. What with the walking and the running and the...and last night. Had that only been last night? He’d been so hopeful then that he’d have everything put together by this time today. He’d been so wrong. One dumb joke and he was out of a job and looking over his shoulder for someone who thought he’d picked up too much information on how their gig worked.

The dark blue four-door sedan that actually stopped for him looked almost as old as Stan, and the woman driving it looked old enough to be his grandmother. “Where are you going, young man?” her voice had the high, wavering pitch that one would imitate when attempting to sound like an old lady. She was wearing a mostly pink muumuu and had her bright white hair done up fancy. Stan said the name of the nearby town where he’d left his car, and the woman waved to him, flapping her hand inwards at the wrist. “Hop in, hop in. I’ll get you there.”

Stan did as asked and bit back a groan as he took the weight of his body off his legs and back, and swallowed a whine as that weight redistributed to his ass. When he trusted himself to open his mouth again, she’d been driving for several moments. “Thanks.” he breathed.

“Sure thing, sure thing.” the lady responded. “Were you walking very long?”

“Coupla hours.”

“Oh my.” and the lady was off, jabbering away about how many miles a day she would walk in her youth, and the scoldings she would get for ending up so far from home. Stan listened to her talk the way he’d listen to the radio, letting the noise fill the air and sink into his bones. He’d make noises of agreement or astonishment here and there to keep her talking. It helped quiet the spinning thoughts he’d been alone with too long that day.

Her name was Daisy Adams, and she drove through a McDonalds and got Stan a burger because he’d absentmindedly been honest about the last time he’d had more to eat than a small scone. She had four children and going on ten grandchildren, and she’d been going to the same town as Stan for a bible study. Stan wondered vaguely if she’d be helping him if she knew what he’d done the night before. She dropped him off at the garage, informed him that she’d be praying for him, and left to arrive late at her bible study.

Stan paid his bill at the garage. He shook hands with Mike and had another cup of coffee. Then he got in his repaired car and drove away.

A low, black, two-door pulled in as Stan pulled out, and a chill went down his spine. He spared a moment to hope it was nothing. To assume Mike would be okay. Then he pulled onto the highway, and did his best to never think of it again. Any of it. Meanwhile, it was time to put as much distance between himself and the last 24-hours as possible.

[cosmics-art-blog1]

A Handy Tool Guide for the DIY'er in You

America was built by the do-it-yourselfer, and we sure couldn't have pulled it off without a good set of tools. Backyard mechanics, home handymen, and the proverbial jack-of-all-trades agree on one thing: without tools, it all comes crashing down. Tools are essential, even lifesaving. The house we live in, the cars we drive and just about anything we do or use during the day wouldn't exist without tools. It can't be stressed enough how important it is to have a good, basic set, ready for that weekend project or emergency repair. That being said, before you go out and plunk down your hard earned money on a shiny new set of screwdrivers, there are a few things you should know.

First, let's talk about what you need. This article will focus on hand tools and here are some of the basics for around-the-house and light auto-repair. A hammer is always handy. They come in all shapes and sizes, but a good 16oz claw hammer should do nicely. Next, a set of screwdrivers is essential. I say a set because screws come in many different sizes, and so do screwdrivers. Most sets should come with different size flatheads and Phillips screwdrivers. The handles and shafts will vary in size according to need. Make sure the handle is comfortable in your hand--a good fit will reduce hand fatigue.

Pliers are another necessary item that you will find useful. A standard set of 6" pliers and a set of arc jaws will help out a lot on those plumbing repairs. A good adjustable wrench is handy as well, but I prefer combination wrenches for nuts and bolts. Combination wrenches are called such because they will typically come with an open end and a boxed, or closed end. Sometimes they come with a different size on each end as well. When buying wrenches get a set of standard and metric, these days you never know which you are going to run across.

A good socket set is important especially if you work on your car. You can't change spark plugs with a wrench. The ratchets come in different sizes. The most common are ¼, 3/8, and ½. The best all around size is 3/8, not too big, not too small. As with the wrenches, get metric and standard, especially metric if you own an import.

Other tools, like a measuring tape, funnel, and hand level, can come in very useful as well. If you've ever been in a tool aisle, you know the skies-the-limit on choices. So unless you're doing major projects or over-hauling your car's engine yourself, what's listed above will do nicely. Most retailers, like Sears, Lowe's or Home Depot carry all-in-one tool kits for the DIY'er.

There's no need to spend a ton of money here, but I will tell you to pay close attention to the old saying: "You get what you pay for." There's a lot of cheap junk out there that will only make your job harder and more frustrating than it needs to be. Brands like Snap-on and Mac tools are for the professional, and the average person doesn't need to go that high-end. If you do a lot of auto repair in your garage brands like 'Craftsman' and 'Kobalt' are a good bet. They both have lifetime warranties--no questions asked--and are very affordable. If you just hang a picture once in a while and tighten a few screws, then a brand like Stanley will do the job well.

Stay away from flea market tools. You know the ones: brand new package, a hundred shiny tools for 10 bucks. Here's another old saying: "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is." Their cheap and when you need to warranty something they're nowhere around.

Keep a set in your home and your car if practicable, and you won't be sorry. The more you use them, the more money you save. I have thousands of dollars in tools, and I have gotten my money back many times over and so will you. So the next time something breaks and someone runs for a phone book, tell them to put it down, you've got this!

[greasemonkey-blog]

greasemonkeydirect

Garage supplies: Do you need it? This will help you decide!

A comprehensive range of garage equipment is available at Machine Mart, including engine cranes, engine stands and trolley jacks. Machine Mart also stocks a range of axle stands, car jacks, parts washers, body repair kits, battery chargers and engine starters. greasemonkeydirect.com have an extensive range of garage equipment on offer, suitable for all your practical needs, whether you're a DIY beginner or a seasoned pro looking to expand their toolbox. We stock everything from car jacks and axle stands to battery chargers and engine cranes. We have everything you need for car mechanics who are looking for heavy-duty workshop tools and accessories. Garage supplies hardware-software lets you control your garage door from your smartphone. You can control your garage door from anywhere with this app. You can set up automatic opening and closing times, receive alerts when someone opens the door, and even schedule it. This app is perfect for homeowners who wish to have more control over their home security.

All top quality brands (including Bosch and Clarke amongst many others) of garage equipment can be brought at competitive prices from our online store. We have everything you need for your car workshop, including carjacks. Jump-starts. Impact wrenches. The range of specialized tools that we offer for motorcycle enthusiasts will delight. Efficiently fixing and adjusting any parts in your garage or when on the road will be no problem with our range of garage supplies. Are you looking for a great deal on wholesale garage equipment online? GreaseMonkeyDirect.com offers a variety of top-quality auto emergency tools. Find the right lifting equipment for your online business. We offer a large selection of quality vehicle equipment so that you will be spoilt for choice. If you're looking for quality workshop automotive supplies and cheap garage supplies, you need to come to us at greasemonkeydirect.com. We offer a wide range of products, including oils and lubricants, to ensure you have everything you need.

Workshop supplies provide storage for vehicles and other items. www.greasemonkeydirect.com can also be used as a workspace when it comes time to build or remodel a garage, and there are many things to consider. It is important to choose the type of garage that you will build. Therefore, with wholesale garage equipment available on our marketplace, you can now have peace of mind with no more worries about stocking your store with the right merchandise. You might be able to get a discount on any item you order, including car lift jacks or car scissor lifts. without forgetting, the average bargain s already an amazing price. You can have your vehicle delivered right to your door or wherever you direct it to. There are also great deals and discounts available. You can also enjoy your online vehicle tools purchase by getting the best out of your shopping experience. Abracs Cutting Disks are suitable for cutting Metal - purchase top quality Garage Tools at the best price. Buy Garage Tools from cheap garage supplies from various brands like JCB, JE Tech Tool, Proto, Stanley & Jhalani, flap discs - shop Garage Tools Online and buy at the best prices.

[premiumdline]

How To Choose and Install a Replacement Garage Door

How to Choose and Install a New Garage Door

The most familiar types of garage doors frequently used in residential garages are retractable, canopy, side hinged, and sectional retractable doors. As compared to old garage doors, new garage doors are much more intelligent, long-lasting, useable and safe.

Residential garage doors are designed to look beautiful and offer new features like automatic door openers and more. Canopy garage doors, which roll up manually, are great alternatives to automatic doors.

If driveway space is a problem in your home, then sectional garage doors are the way to go. Also called up and over doors, they open and close vertically and store along the ceiling. This allows cars to park within inches of the door without diminishing functionality.

Custom made garage doors can be created based on your specifications.

Planning is the First Step

Take advantage of free garage door plans are available online from Stanley, Sears, Wayne Dalton, and more. Create a garage plan that encompasses everything you want in your garage from a heated garage to unique window choices.

The best part about planning your own garage door system is the choice of installing it yourself. However, in the planning stage, we recommend designing the opening and door size to a standard size, which will result in a door that is more economical and easier to install.

Also, free garage plans are an easy way to troubleshoot for problems before they appear. When designing a garage plan, you must choose what your family needs. When built according to garage building plans, a steel garage can cost you up to 40% less than conventional garages.

Install It Yourself

The installation of an original garage door, whether as a replacement for an existing door or as a renovation, is straightforward. Doors come on a factory fitted steel frame ready for quick and convenient on-site installation. All adjustable fixings are provided. Read through the installation instructions for carefully.

Take into consideration that garage doors are large and bulky, and are therefore handled surest by two people. This makes positioning and fixing much easier and safer. However, the installation of a residential garage door can be technical, and possibly it is not appropriate as a do-it-yourself project for less experienced people.

Proper Maintenance

The leading causes of garage door breakdown and replacements include being hit by vehicles and a lack of maintenance.

The ideal maintenance schedule for a garage door includes washing painted steel surfaces several times a year; painting or refinishing wood surfaces as necessary, lubrication of the rollers, bearings, pulleys, and springs once a year, and making correct adjustments to the counter balance system.

Each of the three standard garage door materials has its own benefits. Wood doors are very insulated and they have an appealing look; however, wood expands and contracts and can warp or crack as it weathers. It will need re-painting or refinishing every couple of years.

Steel doors are vigorous and give great value for your money. Today's steel doors have the look of wood without the headaches of the maintenance.

Fiberglass garage doors are also extremely low maintenance, offering a timber effect without the maintenance of real wood. Use a ½ cup of mild laundry detergent mixed with water to wash both the exterior and interior of your steel or fiberglass door twice a year.

Garage doors are a simple and low-cost technique to extend your home's curb appeal and set it apart from the rest. Garage doors are typically the largest visible building component other than the siding on your house.

Garage doors are now offered by manufacturers in a variety of styles that go far beyond the classical paneled look. Even though there are any amount of designs, most garage doors open upward, and are self storing.

Find Garage Doors in Cities Mentioned below:

·         Garage door repair Hamilton

·         Garage door repair Milton

·         Garage door repair Ajax

·         Garage door repair aurora

·         Garage door repair Barrie

·         Garage door repair Brampton

·         Garage door repair Burlington

·         Garage door repair Etobicoke

·         Garage door repair Markham

·         Garage door repair Mississauga

·         Garage door repair Newmarket

·         Garage door repair North York

·         Garage door repair Oakville

·         Garage door repair Oshawa

·         Garage door repair Pickering

·         Garage door repair Scarborough

·         Garage door repair Vaughan

·         Garage door repair Whitby

·         Garage door repair Woodbridge

·         Garage door repair Richmond hill

[manuelnrue018]

Biggest Garage Door Problem Photo-Eye Sensor Fix Help

Should I Unplug My Garage Opener While Away Or On Vacation

Perform the exact same procedure with each transmitter. The more recent Genie openers with the access buttons on the outdoors bottom cover, press and hold the square button up until a blue light comes on next to the button and release. It will change to purple and begin blinking. Stand back 4 feet and press the remote gradually 3 or 4 times. (If needing to erase all remotes, in-car controls and keypad, hold the square button until the LED turns blue and let go. When it switches to purple and blinks press and hold the 2 triangular button down at the same time until the lights turn blue and release.

Liftmaster Garage Door Opener Opens But Won't Close

) If you need an Intellicode transmitter (GIT-1), you can find them on our Website in the Genie area. If you need a Chamberlain (Liftmaster/Sears) Security Plus transmitter, go to the garage door transmitter area of our Chamberlain shop. Stanley and Linear have similar, rolling code transmitters. To access our transmitters go to Transmitters and Receivers and click onto the suitable manufacturer. In many cases, when a garage door opens or nearby itself, or when you discover your door open, upon returning home, the problem is due to a short someplace. This short is probably to be in one of two places: either in among your transmitters or in the wall button or its circuitry.

Common Signs Your Garage Door Needs To Be Replaced Or Repaired

A short in your transmitter triggers a continues signal to be sent out. As you are pulling out of the driveway the garage door closes fully and appears to stop, however as the carriage and arm run past the down limit and strikes the header bracket it reverses, and the door begins to open, just as you begin repeling down the road. You come home to discover the garage door is up, as if somebody else had actually opened your door. The finest thing to do to fix the garage door issue is eliminate the batteries from your transmitters and try running the door from the wall button.

Want more content on this matter? - Why Not Try This Out: local garage door motor repair

If the problem persists, try getting rid of the wall button wire at the motor head to ensure it is not a short in the wire to the button, then try operating the garage door with the transmitters just. If it stops the problem, change the wires and check the wall button. It is a procedure of removal. To Disconnect the Carriage and operate the garage door manually: Take down on the red cable and knob of the tourist carriage to release the door from the Genie locking system. Operation of the door can now be performed by manually raising and closing the door.

Attempt to keep the cord as parallel to the rail of the garage door opener as possible. You may require to offer the cable a small pull to reconnect. You ought to now be able to operate the door using the Genie garage door opener. The first image shows the genie screw drive carriage connected and the second image shows the position of the carriage when it is detached. To Disconnect the Carriage and operate the garage door manually: Take down on the red cord and knob of the tourist carriage to release the door from the Genie locking system. Operation of the door can now be performed by manually raising and closing the door.

How To Disengage And Reengage Your Garage Door (Video)

15 Reasons Why Your Garage Door Won't Open Or Close

Then by hand lift or close the door till the carriage locks into location. You ought to now be able to operate the door using your Genie garage door opener. The first image shows the genie chain slide carriage position connected and the second image shows the position of the carriage when detached. To Detach the Carriage and operate the Garage Door by hand: Take down and towards the motor or door on the red cord and knob of the tourist carriage to launch the door from the Genie Locking system. By pulling down and at the very same time directing the cord forward towards the door opening or back toward the motor, you are locking the release bar to detach the carriage.

Top 7 Reasons Why Your Garage Door Is Not Closing All The Way

Discount Door Service

1330 W Morning View Dr Tucson, AZ 85704

(520) 579-9084

www.DiscountDoorService.com

https://www.google.com/maps?cid=16286553429910297688

To Reconnect the Carriage: Pull the emergency situation release cord and knob straight down and release. Notification, in the first image below, the slotted gap in the bar, that the red cable is connected to, disappears. This indicates it is in the engaged position. Then manually raise or close the door until the carriage locks into location. You ought to now have the ability to run the door utilizing your Genie garage door opener. The first image reveals the genie chain drive carriage position linked to the garage door. The slotted space in the release bar is not visable. The 2nd image reveals the genie chain drive carriage in the detached position.

[seniorveteranscare]

Stanley Haubert used his garage in Carlisle, Cumberland County, to repair cars. He said it helped a lot with his PTSD, but a fire back in January has him focused on rebuilding in more ways than one…

[vaibk007]

Car Polisher Market By 2026 With Top Key Players Like- Makita, Milwaukee Tool, Festool, Stanley Black & Decker

The report presents an in-depth assessment of the Car Polisher market including enabling technologies, key trends, market drivers, challenges, standardization, regulatory landscape, deployment models, operator case studies, opportunities, future roadmap, value chain, ecosystem player profiles, and strategies. The report also presents forecasts for Car Polisher investments from 2020 to 2025.

“This is the latest report, covering the current COVID-19 impact on the market. The pandemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19) has affected every aspect of life globally. This has brought along several changes in market conditions. The rapidly changing market scenario and initial and future assessment of the impact are covered in the report.”

In the global Car Polisher market, the following companies are covered: Makita, Milwaukee Tool, Festool, Stanley Black & Decker, Chervon, Bosch, Hitach Koki, SHANGHAI KEN TOOLS, Meguiar's, Griot's Garage, NOBLE

SPECIAL OFFER (Avail a flat 20% discount on this report)

Click the link to get a free Sample Copy of the Report at:

https://www.reportsnmarkets.com/request_sample.php?id=50499

Market Segment by Product Type:

Electrical Polisher

Pneumatic Polisher

Market Segment by Application:[i]

Automotive Repair Shop

Automotive Care Shop

Others

Key Regions split in this report: breakdown data for each region,

Asia-Pacific[China, Southeast Asia, India, Japan, Korea, Western Asia]

Europe[Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia, Spain, Netherlands, Turkey, Switzerland]

North America[United States, Canada, Mexico]

Middle East & Africa[GCC, North Africa, South Africa]

South America[Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Chile, Peru]

Buy Exclusive Report:

https://www.reportsnmarkets.com/checkout?id=50499

Influence of the Car Polisher market report:

-Comprehensive assessment of all opportunities and risks in the Car Polisher market.

-Car Polisher market recent innovations and major events.

-A detailed study of business strategies for the growth of the Car Polisher market-leading players.

-Conclusive study about the growth plot of the Car Polisher market for forthcoming years.

-In-depth understanding of Car Polisher market-particular drivers, constraints, and major micro markets.

-Favorable impression inside vital technological and market latest trends striking the Car Polisher market.

The report has 150 tables and figures browse the report description and TOC:

https://www.reportsnmarkets.com/report/-COVID-19-Version-Global-Car-Polisher-Market-Status-2015-2019-and-Forecast-2020-2025-by-Region-Product-Type-End-Use-50499

What are the market factors that are explained in the report?

-Key Strategic Developments: The study also includes the key strategic developments of the market, comprising R&D, new product launch, M&A, agreements, collaborations, partnerships, joint ventures, and regional growth of the leading competitors operating in the market on a global and regional scale.

-Key Market Features: The Global Car Polisher market report evaluated key market features, including revenue, price, capacity, capacity utilization rate, gross, production, production rate, consumption, import/export, supply/demand, cost, market share, CAGR, and gross margin. In addition, the study offers a comprehensive study of the key market dynamics and their latest trends, along with pertinent market segments and sub-segments.

-Analytical Tools: The Global Car Polisher Market report includes the accurately studied and assessed data of the key industry players and their scope in the market by means of a number of analytical tools. The analytical tools such as Porter’s five forces analysis, SWOT analysis, feasibility study, and investment return analysis have been used to analyze the growth of the key players operating in the market.

The research includes historic data from 2015 to 2020 and forecasts until 2025 which makes the reports an invaluable resource for industry executives, marketing, sales and product managers, consultants, analysts, and other people looking for key industry data in readily accessible documents with clearly presented tables and graphs.

Contact Us:

Reports N Markets,

125 High Street, Boston, MA 02110

sales@reportsnmarkets.com

+1 617 671 0092

[whipplefilter]

what if fillmore died or was killed by something after getting into a really terrible close to friendship ending argument that leaves everyone feeling horrible after with sarge before the two could make up? how did fillmore die? how does sarge cope with the grief of losing his very best friend?does he feel like it was his fault even if there was nothing to do to control it? did he have any regrets? how does everyone else react? what were fillmore's last words? how did the funeral go?

As unlikely as it might seem, all of these ideas are addressed in some form in this fic. Warnings: major character death, PTSD, grief/trauma. Just remember, anon–YOU asked for deathfic!

Fic: Tripmaster

All cars die alone. That’s just the way it is.

Maybe your engine blows, or your battery dies. Maybe it’s something less dramatic–you’re getting your suspension replaced, and the mechanic leaves the garage but you’re not ready. Maybe you’re in the desert, and something breaks. Timing belt? And you’re alone.

You can’t move.

But see, you’re a car. You are motion. You are an assemblage of parts and you are meant to move and your engine is meant to pump and your fluids are meant to run and you’re supposed to move through your gears and generate kinetic, electric, everything heat–you are a machine and you are a spirit and if you are not that machine, if you are not that system existing in that car-ish way of yours, then your spirit cannot stay.

If you are alone, then no one can call for help. There is nothing to remind you what you are, and your spirit unmoors. Give it enough time, and it leaves.

Your parts can be replaced, and your body repaired. But your spirit is a delicate thing, and if it loses the pulse of your machine-ness, then it departs.

And so do you.

That was always the threat, back in the war. Sarge remembers the POW camp, and marching through the jungle to get there. The hot breath of it as the humidity ate at their canvas and surely other, deeper things besides. It wasn’t uncommon to overheat, or flood.

We will march you until you break, their captors threatened.

Then we will leave you. And you will die alone.

There are days when the memory hurts as much as the death march had. On these days, Sarge separates. He becomes one young soldier in the jungle and an old one in the desert. He folds all his fear and pain into this young Jeep and he abandons this younger self in time. He leaves his anger in another version of himself, patrolling the halls of the VA past door after door of broken promises and robberies of war.

He leaves his happiness sometimes, in a frozen version of himself he’d give the world to never have to leave like that: A Sarge full of laughter and precious memories. But these memories he cannot take with him without also taking memories of death, and so he abandons them too. Perhaps it’s better this way, though. The pain he leaves behind should have something bright to keep it company.

Sarge closes his eyes and he accepts that sometimes the only way to live through pain is to desert it. Cover its grave.

Pain isn’t supposed to happen here, though. Not now. Not in Radiator Springs.

But here he is at a funeral in the desert.

He pushes sand over the grave, just like everyone else.

He buries his best friend.

It wasn’t supposed to be Fillmore.

Lizzie will probably live forever, but he, and Doc, and Sheriff–they each had some sense of their own mortality.

Sarge had 20 years on Fillmore. He was never supposed to be the one to bury him.

Sarge stands sentry above Willy’s Canyon, staring out at Willy’s Butte as the sun comes down over it. It goes warm red, purple. Catches fire with a spirit all its own.

He thinks, Fillmore likes bonfires.

Maybe in some past, with some cautiously jubilant Sarge (whom Sarge must leave now, must bury with all the rest), Fillmore still does.

Maybe he still does.

It’s 2011, when Fillmore dies. In a few months, Sarge will turn 70. (Fillmore never will.)

Lightning just turned five. Sarge doesn’t remember what it was like to be that young; it’s possible he never was. By five, Sarge had seen a World War won and many, many lives lost.

Lightning’s never even thought about death before. He’s acting like he just rolled off the line.

“Why was he out in the desert?” Lightning asks, brow furrowed and heart broken. “Why was he alone? What did he say to you? Did he tell you?”

The question Lightning really wants to ask is Why is Fillmore gone? but he’s at least old enough to know that there is no good answer to that one. There never is.

Truthfully, if Radiator Springs knew why Fillmore had been out in the desert alone like that, it would destroy them. They might never recover.

“Are you annoyed with all these questions?” Lightning asks, when Sarge stays silent.

“We had a fight,” Sarge answers truthfully, even as he knows he shouldn’t.

They’d had a fight, and that’s why Fillmore had gone out to the desert. That’s why he’d wanted to be alone. Why no one had been able to find him in time.

“It’s my fault,” says Sarge.

“No, it’s not,” says Lightning.

It is, though. Lightning means to be kind but the only reason his insistence comes so quick and so urgent is because it it is any other way, Radiator Springs could not hope to handle it. The town is made of gentler things than truth. And so, it can’t be anyone’s fault their friend is gone. The world could never be that dark.

But Sarge is not five. He is not fifty. He remembers the Bataans and the Koreas and so very many horrible things this one sweet town could never dream. And it’s his fault that Fillmore is dead.

In his dream, Sarge drowns in a vortex of water. Then he’s awake in the sky, high above the canyons. His vision is crosshairs–he’s a bomber. No, surveillance. He’s an aircraft. He’s flying high above the canyons, red gray orange, and in his head, Fillmore corrects, “it’s more of an ombre burnt sienna, wouldn’t you say?”

He is looking for Fillmore.

More to the point, he is finding him.

Sarge could have found him, if he’d taken to the sky. If he’d been born a plane, none of this would have happened. He could have saved his friend.

It’s his fault.

He should have been born a plane.

Every night, Sarge dreams of flight.

It’s his fault.

Imagine him, in the desert alone. He has to know he will die; Fillmore’s always been very attuned to such things. He’s seen drugs rip spirits from bodies; he’s seen rust do it, too–poverty. Bullets. Fillmore knew death, perhaps even better than Sarge. (Sarge, who splits it away from him. Locks it away until it comes howling back, scraping at his door. It’s what they’d fought about, that day.)

He’s in the desert, alone.

Sarge can’t imagine any more than that. he He can’t imagine Fillmore’s last words, last thoughts. What peace he’d made during his last few moments, under the sun and moon in the desert. All Sarge can think about is he was alone.

He was alone.

He was alone.

He was alone.

–and we will leave you here to die.

Fillmore died alone.

Sally’s headed to the county seat. She has to file the death certificate.

“Whoa, alone?!” Lightning’s panic is evident.

Sally starts to cry.

Sally doesn’t want to think about it. She doesn’t want to be afraid. She wasn’t want to remember that Fillmore is gone and it’s the desert–their desert!–that took him, even though her errand is his death certificate and that means of course she has to think about it. She’s like Sarge in that way; she needs to be apart from the reality of that. Just for now. Just to keep her head above the sorrow.

Lightning’s not like that at all.

This is something the two of them probably cannot understand, but they’re not good for each other in this moment. Probably neither of them want to think about that, either. It feels like everything is falling apart.

“Stanley and I were never married, you know,” Lizzie says out of the blue, or maybe not. It’s hard to tell with her. Sometimes it feels like stories get knocked out of here like they’re dominoes in a line.

It shouldn’t matter. Married, not married. Here’s the town and there is Stanley’s statue, which Lizzie loves so much. But today it feels sad, and it feels like everything falling apart.

Because Radiator Springs is meant to be happy and its founding myths are of romance, of passion, and bliss. But Fillmore is dead and under that cloud, even the small things feel like a miracle tumbling down. Turning to dust.

Sally does not go to the county seat.

Sometimes when Sarge dreams that he is flying, his engine stalls. He spirals down and down and down.

As he falls he thinks, this is unforgivably sad. He is going to die, and Fillmore is going to die, and the whole town–this will destroy them.

This is all so unforgivably sad.

Then he wakes up. He’s not dead.

He is still unforgivably sad.

Maybe one day, Sarge will wake up and the town will wake up and there will be a rhythm to their lives again. This is probably true. But it’s not true today, and when Sarge wakes up he’s sucked into a sea of overwhelming dread. Not that there’s anything to confront today but its emptiness. It’s just so, so impossible to think realistically about a comfortable future because today is not fine, today is not good. Tomorrow won’t be either. And that feeling is inescapable.

Today, it does not matter if it’s going to be okay or not.

‘Going to be’ won’t buy you nothing.

Today, this pain is endless. The logic of time, the future, eventualities–none of it matters. Loss does not care about logic.

So Sarge drives out to the desert. Sarge drives to the place where they’d found him. Where they’d found his body. It’s just a stretch of dirt like any other, somewhat off the road. Maybe it had been a good place for stargazing, or sunset contemplation. To Fillmore, one night, some weeks ago, it had been a nice place. It had been a place he’d wanted to be. Now, of course, it’s haunted.

Sarge is certain it had not been where Fillmore had wanted to die.

Sarge is not alone.

When he leaves, due east, Radiator Springs follows. Together they cast long shadows down the road, one meeting the next until they form a jagged, spindly crack of shadow that stretches from town to the place–that place–and together they live in their grief, which cannot be outrun it cannot be skipped over it cannot drift gently away from its dock.

Maybe one day, this will pass. Tonight, that future does not matter.

When Sarge dreams that night, he is flying.

[stargatesandgarage]

Tips Why to Choose Automotive Garage Doors

Under the low temperature when there is a heavy snowfall or during the mid-night when you have got returned after paying a visit to party or from any personal occasion or event and looking for a garage key to open the garage manually is somewhere proves hectic and frustrated that can spoil all your frolic mood. Thankfully, now there is an excellent solution for the electric garage doors are a great help in our lives. The panel and sliding garage doors that can be found in both residential and industrial environments, and other motorized devices for industrial environments, for example, the photoelectric barriers or doors. These automotive doors prove to be worthy that exceptionally accepted by the society in New Jersey. Altogether, garage doors in New Jersey have really proved their best in bringing up all types of dynamic needs and requirements.

Below are the some key features of automotive garage doors that are being widely used in the region of new jersey.

Very convenient, since we do not have to get out of the car, the remote control up to a distance also can open the garage do. Plus door key does not need to take with us, and the danger does not threaten people to stay home if the door key and there is no one to open, you have to park on the street. It is easy to operate garage door opener that revolutionarize the system of opening and closing the do. whereon updated and latest types of garage door openers in new jersey with different styles and designs have been entered in the market. With these automotive doors; it will be easy to get with garage door opener repair in case of any problem. Touch of a button to open or close the do. where it is impossible to forget to lock the door; which may have occurred more frequently in the conventional door. Using the remote control do. opener is simple that anyone can use it easily, even in older age groups as well. Even kids with age of 11 to 15 years cal also operate the garaged doors conveniently. With these automotive doors it will easy to get with garage door replacement in new jersey that does not need any kind of hard stuff and that can be offer at affordable rates. The automated garage doors look great, many types to choose from like sectional door, panel do., decorative, wooden, aluminum, metal, tilt-up do. and many more where a wide variety of colors and patterns available. Technically, highly reliable security products certainly do not forget to lock the do. when exiting. Besides these, there are many benefits and advantages for automotive garage do. that can fill your life with comfort and luxury. As with due time many manufacturers like Horman, Stanley, Raynor, Amarr, Liftmaster, Craftsman, C.H.I, Garaga and many more that do not only offer automotive garage do. but also suggest you the best door that suits your needs and budget.

Garage door in Canada :-

Garage door pinole Garage door pacifica Garage door opal cliffs Garage door oakley Garage door morgan hill Garage door moraga Garage door monte sereno Garage door milpitas Garage door mill valley Garage door millbrae Garage door menlo park Garage door martinez Garage door los altos Garage door bell Garage door temple city Garage door monrovia Garage door culver city Garage door san gabriel Garage door la puente Garage door rancho palos verdes Garage door bell gardens Garage door azusa Garage door covina Garage door la mirada Garage door cerritos Garage door glendora Garage door rosemead Garage door paramount Garage door diamond bar Garage door arcadia

[stargategaragecalifornia]

Garage Door Openers - Which One is Right For You

So you go to your local Sears store and there is a whole wall of garage door openers. The sales associate is helpful and shows you ALL the items. But you just leave confused. I'll make it easy here and give you the simplest way to figure out which Craftsman garage door opener is best for you.

There are five basic steps to help you get the right door opener and installed in you location.

Step One, Measure the height of you door:

Step Two, Select the HP (horsepower):

Step Three, Select the type of garage door opener:

Step Four, Select the type of remotes you need:

Step Five, Professional Installation or Install it yourself:

Step One, Measure the height of you door:

Measure the height of the opening, not the door itself. Most garages door openings are around 7 feet high. If your opening is 8 feet, 9 feet or 10 feet you will have to buy an extension in addition to the garage door opener itself. If it is around 8 feet buy the 8 foot extension. If it is 9 or 10 feet buy the 10 foot extension.

Step Two, Select the HP:

There are two horsepower ratings for most garage door openers. 1/2 HP and 3/4 HP.

If you have an aluminum, aluminum insulated, or fiberglass door a 1/2 HP is plenty strong to open both a single car (7 to 9 feet wide) or a double car (16 feet wide) door.

If you have a wood door, a door with windows installed in it, a steel door or one of the new doors that look like they are off an old carriage house I recommend you go with the 3/4 HP door. (If a magnet sticks to your door it is steel.)

A new single car carriage style door can use a 1/2 HP opener. If you have an extra tall door (9 or 10 feet) or a door that is wider than 16 feet I also recommend you go with the 3/4 HP door. If you have a one-piece door (usually and old door made out of wood) I recommend a 3/4 HP door.

Step Three, Select the type:

There are three basic types of garage door openers. Chain drive, belt drive, and screw drive.

Chain drive garage door openers are what you are used to. They are reliable, noisy and usually last a long, long time. They come in many different sizes. For example, Sears has an economy version, homeowner versions and heavy duty versions. These chain drive garage door openers are usually the best value and can be easily sized for you garage door. You can buy extensions for the opener for 8 foot and 10 foot doors.

A Belt drive garage door opener is relatively new on the market. It uses a metal reinforced belt instead of a chain to make the drive much quieter than a chain drive. It's usually a little faster than a chain drive opener. If your garage is under the living space of your house and it sounds like a herd of elephants in your bedroom when someone uses the garage door the quiet belt drive may be the best choice for you. You can buy an 8 foot extension kit but not a 10 ft.

Screw drive units feature the fewest number of moving parts. They are powerful and quieter than chain drives. I believe Stanley was the first to introduce the screw drive garage door opener 15 years or so ago. Stanley is not making garage door openers anymore but Sears and Genie still have these available. I expect the screw drives to be replaced with "torsion spring" technology in a few years. You can buy an 8 foot extension for this type but not a 10 foot.

Step Four, Select the remotes: There are different types of remotes. Single button - one button, one door. Mini - small remote to hook right on your key chain. Three function - more buttons to control more doors and even the light in your home. Wireless keypads - attach this to the outside of your garage to open the door securely and safely. Finger Print Wireless Keypad - accepts only the fingerprints you have programmed into it. Great for families with children. Door Monitor - You can use this inside your home to check if the garage door is open or not.

Find Electric Gate Repair Services in Cities All Over Florida List Mentioned Below:

Find Gate repair Services in Broward County:

Electric gate repair

Electric gate repair boulevard gardens

Electric gate repair Broadview park

Electric gate repair coconut creek

Electric gate repair cooper city

Electric gate repair coral springs

Electric gate repair dania beach

Electric gate repair davie

Electric gate repair deerfield beach

Electric gate repair fort lauderdale

Electric gate repair franklin park

Electric gate repair hallandale beach

Electric gate repair hillsboro beach

Electric gate repair hillsboro pines

Electric gate repair hollywood

Electric gate repair lauderdale by the     sea

Electric gate repair lauderdale lakes

Electric gate repair lauderhill

Electric gate repair lazy lake

Electric gate repair lighthouse point

Electric gate repair margate

Electric gate repair miramar

Electric gate repair north lauderdale

Electric gate repair oakland park

Electric gate repair parkland

Electric gate repair pembroke park

Electric gate repair pembroke pines

Electric gate repair plantation

Electric gate repair pompano beach

Electric gate repair roosevelt gardens

Electric gate repair sea ranch lakes

Electric gate repair southwest ranches

Electric gate repair sunrise

Electric gate repair tamarac

Electric gate repair washington park

Electric gate repair weston

Electric gate repair west park

 Find Garage Door County Broward County:

  Garage Door repair boulevard gardens

Garage Door repair broadview park

Garage Door repair coconut creek

Garage Door repair cooper city

Garage Door repair coral springs

Garage Door repair dania beach

Garage Door repair davie

Garage Door repair deerfield beach

Garage Door repair fort lauderdale

Garage Door repair franklin park

Garage Door repair hallandale beach

Garage Door repair hillsboro beach

Garage Door repair hillsboro pines

Garage Door repair hollywood

Garage Door repair lauderdale by the sea

Garage Door repair lauderdale lakes

Garage Door repair lauderhill

Garage Door repair lazy lake

Garage Door repair lighthouse point

Garage Door repair margate

Garage Door repair miramar

Garage Door repair north lauderdale

Garage Door repair oakland park

Garage Door repair parkland

Garage Door repair pembroke park

Garage Door repair pembroke pines

Garage Door repair plantation

Garage Door repair pompano beach

Garage Door repair roosevelt gardens

Garage Door repair sea ranch lakes

Garage Door repair southwest ranches

Garage Door repair sunrise

Garage Door repair tamarac

Garage Door repair washington park

Garage Door repair weston

Garage Door repair west park

Garage Door repair wilton manors

[housebuilding47]

Tips About How To Select And Set Up A Replacement Garage Door

Ways to Select and Mount a New Garage Door

One of the most familiar kinds of garage doors often utilized in home garages are retractable, canopy, side hinged, and sectional retracting doors. As compared to old garage doors, new garage doors are much more intelligent, long-lasting, useable and secure. If you are intending to change your existing garage door, you have to take into consideration the best ways to plan and deal with garage door replacement.

Residential garage doors are developed to look beautiful and give new functions like automatic door openers and more. Canopy garage doors, which roll up manually, are good choices to automatic doors.

If driveway space is a problem in your home, then sectional garage doors are the way to go. Also called up and over doors, they open up as well as close vertically and also store along the ceiling. This enables autos to park within inches of the door without diminishing capability.

Custom made garage doors can be created based upon your specs.

Preparation is the Initial Step

Take advantage of complimentary garage door plannings are readily available online from Stanley, Sears, Wayne Dalton, and more. Develop a garage strategy that includes everything you want in your garage from a heated garage to unique window choices.

The best component concerning considering your very own garage door system is the option of installing it on your own. In the planning phase, we suggest making the opening and door dimension to a standard size, which will result in a door that is a lot more cost-effective and simpler to mount.

Also, totally free garage plans are an simple way to fix for problems prior to they appear. When developing a garage strategy, you need to pick what your household needs. When constructed according to garage building strategies, a steel garage can cost you as much as 40% less than conventional garages.

Install It Yourself

The installation of an original garage door, whether as a substitute for an existing door or as a remodelling, is straightforward. Doors begin a factory fitted steel frame ready for fast and also practical on-site installation. All adjustable fixings are supplied. Read through the setup instructions for meticulously.

Consider that garage doors are big and also huge, and are consequently handled best by two people. This makes positioning and dealing with much easier as well as more secure. Nonetheless, the installment of a home garage door can be technological, and also perhaps it is not appropriate as a diy job for much less professional people.

Appropriate Routine maintenance

The leading reasons for garage door failure and substitutes consist of being struck by cars anda lack of upkeep.

The perfect maintenance schedule for a garage door includes cleaning painted steel surface areas several times a year; paint or redecorating timber surface areas as essential, lubrication of the rollers, bearings, pulleys, and also springs once a year, as well as making proper changes to the counter balance system.

Each of the three basic garage door products has its own benefits. Timber doors are very protected as well as they have an appealing appearance; however, wood expands and agreements as well as can wrap or chip as it weathers. It will need re-painting or redecorating every couple of years.

Steel doors are energetic and offer fantastic worth for your cash. Today's steel doors have the appearance of wood without the frustrations of the repair and maintenance.

Fiberglass garage doors are likewise extremely reduced maintenance, supplying a timber effect without the maintenance of actual timber. Utilize a 1/2 mug of mild washing cleaning agent combined with water to clean both the outside and also inside of your steel or fiberglass door two times a year.

Garage doors are a practical and low-priced strategy to expand your residence's curb appeal and also establish it aside from the remainder. Garage doors are commonly the largest visible structure component besides the siding on your house.

Garage doors are now offered by suppliers in a range of designs that go far beyond the classic paneled look. Although there are any kind of amount of layouts, the majority of garage doors open upwards, and are self keeping.

[junker-town]

The secret life of Floyd Lippencott Jr.

Jere Alhadeff

To hide his career from his father, drag racer Bob Muravez assumed the name Floyd Lippencott Jr. But he couldn’t outrun the truth.

BURBANK, California — The old drag racer is huddled inside his cozy backyard garage, the place where he has long spun his wrenches on carburetors and crankshafts.

For Bob Muravez, it’s a messy laboratory of sorts. He has spent years there, under autopsy-room-bright lights, grease trapped deep down inside his fingernails, modifying versions of the dragsters that once ruled the racetrack.

His walls are a photographic record of his best checkered-flag memories. Long-wheel-based dragsters hurtle along straightaways in a blur of motion, their fat racing slicks furiously spinning, raising smoke and dust like demons incarnate.

The photos depict a world of super-fast cars and cocky young men hungry for speed, where winners and losers were separated by fractions of seconds, at speeds so fast racers needed parachutes to slow down. Before he retired in 1971, Muravez won more than 600 sanctioned drag racing events across the U.S., becoming one of the most recognizable names in his burgeoning sport. In Muravez’s fastest run of his career, he reached 249.59 mph in just 5.89 seconds.

Yet at age 82, the old drag racer is most famous not for his speed, but for his secret.

For five long years, between 1962 and 1967, Muravez protected perhaps the most closely-guarded mystery in modern sports: An alter-ego who took full credit for his thriving racing career.

Every time he hopped behind the wheel for another wicked-fast run down the track, the wiry 140-pound Muravez became Floyd Lippencott Jr., the name he assumed to hide his real identity from an unlikely foil: His own father.

Ralph Muravez was a Czechoslovakian immigrant and self-made businessman with a third-grade education, a demanding taskmaster who founded a local washing-machine empire. Along with his Maytag repair shop in Burbank, he owned 5,000 washing machines in apartments across Southern California.

In 1958, as part of his retirement strategy, Ralph handed over majority control of the operation to his sons, Bob and older brother Ralph Jr., known as Bud. Ralph wanted to spend his retirement years enjoying the good life, visiting the world’s exotic ports aboard his 42-foot motorized sailboat.

He was his own Sinbad the Sailor, Bob recalled. But when it came to his son’s racing, he was more like Captain Bly. The last thing he wanted was to lose his rebellious younger son to a fatal dragster wreck. “In his eyes,” Muravaez recalled, “he was building something good for the family and he didn’t want to come home to find that one of his only two sons had died on some racetrack.”

The father issued his son an ultimatum: Quit racing or leave the family business.

Muravez devised a solution that would be unthinkable in today’s hyper-connected world of smartphone cameras and competitive press. With the aid and consent of reporters, photographers, publicists and even drag racing officials, Bob Muravez invented an entirely new identity.

Photographers never took his picture without his face being covered with a helmet and mask. Floyd never did interviews. Bob did those later. Joked Muravez: “Floyd did the driving and Bob did the talking.”

The National Hot Rod Association even issued Muravez a professional driver’s license in Lippencott’s name, the only one without a picture. In the winner’s circle, friends-turned-imposters donned his protective fire suit and kissed the trophy girl while a smirking Muravez stood in the background.

Left: Muravez collection, Right: L&M Films

Decades later, wearing a white T-shirt, blue jeans and a thick mop of hair, Muravez could still be mistaken for one of those lanky car-crazy kids racing as a teenage rite of passage. Yet the need for speed has dissipated for Muravez, like air seeping from a leaky tire. He hasn’t had a speeding ticket in 40 years.

Now he uses the garage to relieve the stress of running the Maytag repair business his father started during World War II. He’s more often concentrating on honey-do projects than fixing dragster engines.

But Floyd Lippencott Jr. motors on. Both Muravez and Lippencott were inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame. And Muravez scribbles down two names whenever he’s asked to sign his autograph.

While Muravez no longer races, his mind still lives in the cockpit. He’s nervous by nature, hands fidgety, bolting his food like he’s rushing to start another race. “I’m a drag racer,” he said. “I’m either idling or going full throttle.”

The years have brought Muravez perspective, but some feelings never pass. To keep both his racing career and his alter-ego alive, the old drag racer admits that he paid a steep price.

Muravez came of age in the 1950s, a lifestyle captured by the film American Graffiti, when he and his buddies lived for their street rods. They’d cruise around the parking lot of Bob’s Big Boy, attracting looks from both the popular girls and less-popular cops, both of whom hounded them incessantly.

Muravez loved both cars and women. Before he was married in the 1970s, he was engaged seven times, and bought seven rings.

And yet, while he nurtured a James Dean persona on the street, his home life followed a different script. There, his demanding immigrant father called the shots. Ralph wasn’t a drinker, he was just mean, unvarnished. He was also a respected businessman.

In the Muravez household, Bob was relegated to second-son status behind Bud, a golden-haired boy who excelled in school and was his father’s favorite. As a child, Bob spent years confined to a sanitarium while suffering from tuberculosis, which also afflicted his mother Edith. He also struggled with dyslexia, a yet-to-be diagnosed condition that confused his hard-charging father.

Family friend John Moore calls “Uncle Ralph” a product of his time. “Ralph was hard-nosed. Lots of men of his era were like that,” he said. “I think Bobby felt overlooked as a boy. His father was busy building his business and he had one healthy son — there just didn’t seem to be time for Bob.”

Ralph lost his own father at a young age. One of five children, he entered the U.S. through Ellis Island in 1908. Not long afterward, his alcoholic father went out one night to play poker and never came home.

Relatives say the experience hardened Ralph towards his own two sons. “He mistreated those boys,” recalled cousin Glenn Clifford, now 84. “He could be cruel.”

To survive the Depression, Ralph sold Hoover vacuum cleaners door to door in Beverly Hills. In 1944, he opened a Maytag sales and service shop in Burbank. An old photograph shows him posing jauntily, leaning against the last in a line of retired washing machines. A sign reads “Keep Out. WASHING MACHINE GRAVEYARD. Let them rest in pieces.”

Muravez collection

Ralph loved boats. He built them and took them out on ocean trips, often with Bob in tow. Whenever the boy became seasick, the disgruntled father would drop him off at the nearest point onshore and order him to walk back to the harbor.

Bob worked in the repair shop from age 10. Ralph’s brand of you’ll-do-as-you’re-told discipline was stifling. “My father would always say, ‘When I tell you to do something, you start doing it before I even finish,’” Muravez recalled.

Bob would accompany his father on service calls, carrying the tool box with its hoses, screwdrivers and pliers, learning the washing machine repair trade. Wearing his Maytag hat, Ralph imposed rules that were Depression-era tough. “He’d say, ‘Don’t ever let me hear you say, ‘I can’t.’ If you tell me you don’t want to do something, fine, but never tell me you can’t.’”

In 1954, when Bob was 16, the old man asked if he wanted his own car. Here was a wide-eyed teen growing up in post-war Southern California, at the time of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, when politicians dreamed of going to the moon. The automobile had begun to dominate American life. Seemingly every new product featured sleek aerodynamics, from lamps and toasters, to bullet bras and cars with snazzy hood ornaments and elongated rear fins.

You bet he wanted his own ride.

Ralph called a Hollywood automotive dealer, who told him about a used car for sale. Days later, father and son pulled up outside the Beverly Hills estate of actress Betty Grable.

In the garage they marveled at the sort of car that might frequent a teenage boy’s dreamscape: a white, six-cylinder 1953 Corvette convertible with red interior and a mere 1,800 miles on the odometer.

The kid saw it this way: His father never hugged him. There were no parental pats on the back. That just wasn’t Ralph.

The Corvette was as giving as the old man would ever be. And it was perhaps the greatest gift anyone could give Muravez — a chance to go fast, a chance at status.

Of course he’d take it.

Muravez had just died and gone to automobile heaven.

That Corvette changed everything.

It took an awkward kid forever on the periphery and put him centerstage, behind the wheel of a sleek, sexy performance car.

The Corvette became Muravez’s calling card. He show-boated around town, and joined a local car club called the Road Kings, where members paid dues and worked on race cars.

Muravez also street raced.

He settled grudge matches mostly at night, on lonely River Road near the Forest Lawn cemetery, or on the gritty concrete bed of the LA River beneath the Sixth Street bridge. Those quarter-mile contests were replete with kids giving the go-signal at the starting line, and onlookers ready with buckets of water to douse engine fires.

It wasn’t long before an unwanted observer began to appear in the racers’ rearview mirror: a Burbank cop the boys knew only as Officer Stanley. On weekends, he’d lurk in the gas station parking lot across from Bob’s Big Boy, in the heart of a two-mile teenage cruising stretch.

“He’d write you up for anything, even a bad lightbulb on your license plate,” Muravez recalled. “We didn’t like his attitude.”

When he was 19, Maravez joined fellow Road Kings member and future drag-racing star Tommy Ivo in a teenage prank to spite the dreaded policeman. Muravez snuck beneath Stanley’s patrol car and tied a rope around the rear axle, affixing the other end to a nearby pole.

Then they hopped inside Ivo’s T-bucket roadster, revved the engine and took off past the gas station. Stanley gave chase, but not for long. The pole stopped the cop car dead, and Officer Stanley lurched forward, breaking the steering wheel. “We hid Tommy’s car in the garage,” Muravez recalled. “And we didn’t bring it out for a very long time.”

Left: Steve Reyes, Right: Jere Alhadeff

But by then, those Burbank glory days were nearing their end. One night, Muravez ducked into a back alley to ditch a pursuing black-and-white. The cop later stopped him, warning that the next time he ran, he’d shoot. “That scared me,” Muravez said.

By that time, Muravez had amassed an astounding 28 speeding tickets. His license was suspended for a year. His father took away the Corvette.

At home, tensions mounted. By the summer of 1957, Bud was married and Ralph was fixated on his younger son, who had graduated high school the year before. “We butted heads,” Muravez recalled. “He didn’t think I had any direction. I didn’t like him telling me what to do.”

Eventually, Muravez moved out. He slept inside his hand-me-down 1956 Chevy Belair convertible, and later sold the car to afford living expenses that included $8 a week to rent a room over a friend’s garage.

He got a job working at a buddy’s family machine shop and was doing well. He’d even gotten a few raises. Nearly a year after Muravez left home, Ralph approached him about coming back to the Maytag shop. They reconciled in part because they recognized a shared flaw: Their stubborness.

“He realized where I was coming from and I realized where he was coming from,” Muravez recalled.

Still, Muravez never fully returned home. He only saw Ralph when he showed up at the repair business. And while the young Muravez no longer had a car, the kid still had an incurable adrenaline addiction.

Those days, along with a lot of other Burbank kids with hot cars, Muravez hung out at Ivo’s garage, where he performed grunt work like wiping down tires, washing engine parts and polishing cars.

“He was a footloose and fancy-free kid who tripped over his own feet when he walked,’ recalled Ivo, now 83, famous for his light-hearted putdowns. “But he loved cars.”

Muravez went to the racetrack as Ivo’s gofer. He’d run his Corvette there before, but now he was ready to launch a new chapter of his racing career in earnest.

His relationship with his father was seemingly mended. Ralph had come to terms with his son’s wild side.

That peace would not last long.

Muravez loved the drag strip scene, with its camaraderie and testosterone-laden competition, being able to put pedal to metal without a cop car in sight. Racers were a colorful, braggadocious crowd, boasting nicknames like Sneaky Pete, Wobbly Wheels, Snake, Mongoose, Zookeeper and The Hunter.

Soon, Muravez built his own dragster and started winning races.

Then he got lucky.

In 1961, he began driving for John Peters and Nye Frank, a Santa Monica, California, team that owned the sport’s top racing car. In the years before, they’d developed a twin-engine dragster later known as the Freight Train for its sheer ferocity and the way it belched locomotive-like smoke while crossing the finish line.

What followed catapulted Muravez’s racing career: Peters took a foolhardy kid and helped turn him into a professional driver. Said Peters: “We won a lot of races.”

One old photo offers a closeup view of Muravez in the Freight Train’s cockpit, looking as much like an aerospace test pilot, or cosseted Hazmat worker, as an ambitious risk-taker seeking new speed records.

He wore circular goggles, a dual-cylinder breathing apparatus and facial heat shield to protect him from the spatter of hot oil thrown off the up-front engines by the brutal G-forces. And that helmet? Well, that wasn’t going to protect him much in the event the good Lord decided that he’d flirted with nearly-inhuman speed too many times. If that unfortunate eventuality occurred — if the engine exploded, or he flipped that dragster — nothing could save him.

Back then, as the saying went, drag racing rules were written in blood. “Gee, another guy got killed?” a driver would say. “Sorry to hear that. When’s the next race?”

In the late 1950s and 1960s, the mounting death toll in the sport led car builders to innovate, like adding a parachute when they learned mere brakes could no longer slow down a speeding dragster, and shoulder and lap harnesses to keep drivers from being thrown out of tumbling cars.

While Muravez was serving as one of drag racing’s guinea pigs, he still worked five days a week at the Maytag shop, racing on nights and weekends. Ralph barely took an interest in his son’s career, and never once saw him race.

Leslie Lovett, National Hot Rod Association

Then in March 1962, Muravez won his first major championship race in the so-called Top Gas category — in which dragsters used the same gas as street cars — at the Bakersfield Fuel and Gas Championships.

Well, that got Ralph’s attention.

By then, Ralph had given each of his sons a 40 percent share of the business and dreamed of sailing on his boat, stopping just long enough to cash his profit-sharing check.

A dead son would ruin that dream.

Within days of Muravez’s first major racing victory, Ralph approached his 24-year-old son and gave him a choice: Either quit racing or lose his share of ownership in the family business.

Choose family over dreams.

Appease the father.

So Muravez made one of the most difficult choices of his life. In June 1962, he abandoned his passion. He continued to go the races as part of the team, but served only as a crewmember, not as a driver.

For the next five months, without Muravez behind the wheel, the Freight Train did not qualify for a single race, despite being piloted by such famous names as Mickey Thompson, Tom “the Mongoose” McEwen and Craig Breedlove. Several drivers complained that the powerful race car pulled dangerously to one side, and there was talk of scrapping the dragster altogether.

Muravez begged to differ. One night after the Freight Train failed to qualify at Lions drag strip in Long Beach, Muravez accepted a dare from driver “Wild Bill” Alexander to slip behind the wheel himself. He took the dragster for what he called “a nice easy pass” down the quarter-mile track.

Seconds later, when the run was done, he heard the distant roar of the crowd. He lit a cigarette from the dragster’s glowing disc brake. Back at the pit, he learned that he’d set a new world speed record of 185 miles per hour.

That settled it: Muravez would go back behind the wheel, against his father’s wishes. He soon captured the National Hot Rod Association’s 1963 Winter Nationals trophy, under the name “John Peters.” The Freight Train was the No. 1-rated Top Gas dragster in the nation.

A drag racing legend was born.

One day, a young sportswriter named Steve Gibbs was filing a story for the weekly racing publication Drag News on the race results at the San Gabriel track.

Muravez asked that he not use his real name. “When he won the race, I thought, ‘I’ve got to make up a name,’” recalled Gibbs, who later became competition director of the National Hot Rod Association.

The author of one of his college textbooks came to mind — Lippencott. Gibbs couldn’t recall the first name, so he improvised — Floyd. In a final flourish, he added a Jr. “I had no idea the name would become a major piece of drag-racing trivia,” he said.

Muravez immediately ran with the alias, even adding a middle initial “J,” later explaining that it stood for “genuine.” “I was a lousy speller,” he laughed.

Convincing people to keep his secret wasn’t as difficult as Muravez — Lippencott — imagined.

He often bought pictures from moonlighting photographers, so they were eager to keep him happy.

And frankly, he added, racing officials didn’t care what name he used, as long as he continued to draw fans to the track.

Just to be safe, Muravez made sure there were no cameras around when he slid behind the wheel of his dragster. After races, he did interviews with his helmet and facemask still on.

In February 1963, Muravez won the Winternationals in Pomona, California, his very first race since returning to the sport as a driver. With Muravez in the game, The Freight Train was finally back.

In the winner’s circle, his roommate, Rex Slinkard, donned Muravez’s leather racing jacket and stepped up to accept the top award, his arm around the trophy girl. The real driver laughed in the background, knowing his secret was safe for yet another race.

Floyd J. Lippencott Jr. continued to win races, hundreds of them. But perhaps one too many.

In May 1967, after winning the Springnationals competition in Bristol, Tennessee, Muravez made a mistake: Flush with victory, sitting inside The Freight Train’s cockpit with his helmet and facemask off, he was approached by reporter Keith Jackson from ABC’s Wide World of Sports. “You’re really popular,” Jackson said, thrusting a microphone in his face.

“Yeah, we have a lot of fans in the South,” Muravez answered.

On the long drive home, he realized what he’d done. While his father was not a regular viewer of the show, Muravez had nonetheless put his face on national television. There was still a chance Ralph would somehow see it on the boat’s TV while out on a weekend fishing trip.

Left: Eric Ricman, Hot Rod Magazaine; Right: Muravez collection

“I thought, ‘What am I gonna do?’” Muravez knew the segment wouldn’t air for a week, so he hatched a plan. He borrowed the TV from Ralph’s boat — saying his was broken — so his father wouldn’t catch the Saturday sports show while out on the water. Not only was Muravez’s racing career now in jeopardy, but so was the tenuous relationship between father and son.

But Muravez couldn’t control every factor. Ralph liked to relax after a fishing trip with a few boilermakers at Burbank’s Elks Club bar, where a drinking pal broke the news that his son Bob had actually been racing as a professional driver for six years — all behind his back.

At first, the old man wouldn’t believe it, until the friend returned with an Orange County Raceway program that pictured his son.

The next day, Ralph stormed inside the Maytag repair shop showroom, surrounded by two dozen new washers and dryers.

It was early in the day and there were no customers. Just Ralph and his two sons.

The old man was furious. He was already going through a painful divorce, and now this. He thrust the racing program at his younger son, after making an X with a pen like it was Exhibit A in a trial.

There was Floyd Lippencott Jr. — Muravez — staring up from the page.

Ralph and Bob faced each other.

“Have you been driving all these years?” the father asked.

“Yes, I have,” the son replied.

“You’ve been lying to me,” Ralph said. “You’re no son of mine.”

When Bud spoke up in his brother’s defense, their father banished both from the business. He threw a hammer through a window and reached for another before both sons stopped him.

A neighboring merchant called the police. It was a messy scene. Ralph finally roared off in his 1959 El Camino, but not before threatening both boys.

“I built this business,” he said. “And I can destroy it.”

He vowed to never speak to either one for as long as he lived.

He kept his word.

What happened next was a family car wreck.

Ralph and Edith finalized their divorce. He wanted to keep sailing. She wanted to stay close to her family. The boys battled for control of the family washing machine business while the father made threats. He eventually remarried a woman half his age and moved into the bungalow the family had kept for years on Catalina Island. He later became Avalon’s assistant harbormaster.

He started to get drunk regularly.

“He was tired of it all,” Muravez recalled. “His world was crashing in around him and that’s how he dealt with it.”

Bob’s wife Sharon is more harsh. “Ralph was a bastard,” she said.

Without Ralph’s looming shadow, Muravez kept racing, but he did not retire Floyd Lippencott Jr. He even added the letter “e” at the end of the name to make it look fancier, more French. Years later, he played along with humorous public campaigns sponsored by racing cronies that promoted Lippencott as a candidate for California governor and U.S. president.

At the track, Muravez liked to taunt competitors. “Have a good race,” he’d say. “But if you beat Floyd, you beat nobody. He doesn’t even exist.”

Muravez retired from drag racing in 1971 when the National Hot Rod Association discontinued the Top Gas class of competition. He briefly returned to take part in exhibitions over the coming decades, but the final flag had fallen on his racing days.

He married Sharon in 1974 and raised two sons, Michael and Peter. He was always careful not to be overbearing like his own father, to let them pursue their own lives.

After his brother sold his share of the business to pursue an equestrian career, Muravez continued to run the shop under its original name, “Ralph’s Electric.”

Muravez spotted his father a few times over the years. When his paternal grandmother died in 1975, Muravez saw Ralph at the funeral, but kept his distance.

One day, Bud passed his father on the Avalon boat dock.

“Hi Dad,” he said.

Ralph ignored him.

In the early 1980s, a possible truce loomed. A drinking pal of Ralph’s walked into the Maytag repair shop, saying the old man would like to see his sons. So Sharon sent Ralph a letter with a picture of baby Michael. “It was a very welcoming letter,” she recalled. “I went into detail, extending an olive branch.”

A week later, they got their response — a handwritten letter. “It was full of hate, saying ‘I no longer have a son and therefore I have no grandchildren,’” Sharon said. It included a copy of a letter Bud’s wife had sent after having the couple’s first child, with the same invective response.

Sharon Muravez

“I thought, ‘You bastard! How dare you?’” Sharon said. “I threw the letter at Bob. I was upset, but he kept things inside. He just accepted it.”

The two rarely, if ever, mentioned the letter again.

Ralph died in 1993. Muravez was never told of the funeral. He doesn’t even know where his father is buried. Both Bud and Edith are gone, too.

Now, there’s just Bob. And Floyd.

“Ralph died a bitter, lonely, broken, miserable person, alone in his motorhome or camper or whatever the hell it was,” Sharon said. “There was nobody around him, nobody who cared about him. Bob could have been there.”

These days, when Muravez talks to groups, the audience gasps when it hears how Ralph disowned his own son. But Muravez slowly came to terms with the pain through stoicism.

He understood that old family stubbornness. Amid that last faceoff in the Maytag shop, before Ralph threw the hammer through the window, Muravez knew something very important had come to an end. “I realized at that moment that there was nothing I could have done or said to bring back my father’s final words to me.”

They hurt, of course, but Muravez also felt a sense of liberation. He no longer had to do something he truly loved in secret.

The lies were finished for good. Ralph could control his son no more.

While the father never forgave the son, the son has forgiven the father.

“I carry my father right here,” Muravez said, pointing to his head. “I understood him. I was the second-born son and I knew what that meant to him. He believed that the father was the ruler of the family, no matter what.”

Inside the garage where he bonds with friends like a teenage gear head, Muravez still quotes Ralph’s homilies. He considered what was left unsaid with his father.

He likened the loss to seeing colleagues die in dragster crashes. “The racetrack is like a war zone,” he said. “You tell a friend, ‘Be safe,’ and he goes out and dies. You wish you could have said something.”

For years, Muravez has kept a slip of paper inside his wallet, which he consults whenever he is overcome with a sense of loss — of long-ago racing friends, and Ralph.

“The clock of life is wound just once,” it reads in part. “And no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour.”

There are also words Muravez tries to forget. For years, he kept Ralph’s spiteful last letter in his office safe.

So where is it now?

Inside the garage, he moves his hands as though crumpling an imaginary piece of paper, and tosses it over his shoulder.

He flashes a look of hurt and sadness. “You only have one father in life,” he says.

Suddenly, he has to go. There is work to do.

Those machines aren’t going to fix themselves.