<p>Nope. No stinkin’ emus here. Nasty birds. Just nasty. And mean spirited,too.Talons like razors, they will cut you to the bone. Not a good thing.</p>
<p>Just deer for me. Big deer. Cow size deer. You shouldn’t ought to rope them either. Those ornaments on their heads ain’t just for show. Everybody is in velvet now, getting close to market time for us.</p>
<p>Well, shucks. I’m disappointed. I already have deer here. I was hoping for something kind of exotic.</p>
<p>Slugg:
“A Vista Cruiser is a boat…well, technically, it’s a humongous station wagon.”</p>
<p>Why am I not getting this?!</p>
<p>By the way, I just tripped outside for awhile to have a few “corner” conversations…man, I don’t know if it’s me or the lousy weather, but people’s nerves sure seem to be on edge and they’re getting nastier by the minute.</p>
<p>I think I’ll have another beer with some Trident gum on the side (the combo creates an interesting taste sensation…)</p>
<p>Oh come on.</p>
<p>A Vista Cruiser is a classic piece of Americana. The huge stationwagons built by GM (Oldsmobile?) with the slightly pooched out roofline in the rear passenger area with actual glass like a Greyhound Bus. You have to remember them. Chevy Chase’s “family truckster” in the first Lampoon “Vacation” was close to a Vista Cruiser. About 26 feet long. You could only make a uturn in the Astrodome parking lot. Seated 23 if you counted the poor slobs in the rearward facing seat at the very back. Not only were they in another area code, the seats had barfbag dispensers on the armrests. Can you say “carsick”? I knew you could.You’ve got to remember this beast. Most were avocado-ish green as I recall. Oh God, I just remembered. Some were fake woodies. Blecch!</p>
<p>As an added benefit the dash air conditioner couldn’t possibly keep the rearmost passengers comfortable with that Vista glass, not to mention the first down length between them and the a/c. It was always 20 degrees warmer adding to the total experience and barf bag volume.</p>
<p>Well shoot, what do I know? I do remember Woodies (ours caught on f8ire in 1954 with me in it…) but I thought Slugg’s Vista Cruiser was a NEW car - or a remake like the mini and the mob cruiser you see everywhere. CC is an educational force to be reckoned with. </p>
<p>So back to animals in Texas… I hear there are alot of fat pot-bellied pigs that actually drive big black cadilacs…is that true, Mudge?</p>
<p>
On behalf of our many fine Republican lawbrea-makers in Texas, I must object to the use of this medium for political attacks. I am reporting this post. There may be some De-lay in responding.</p>
<p>LOL
curmudgeon; I don’t have much time for this site but how’s it going with the daughter? I ran into someone yesterday who had the exact same surgery as S and she said it took 1 1/2 yrs for the numbness to go away! That seems to be son’s only real problem now. He complains about numbness and swelling, but it’s not stopping him. He looks good, swelling really down, and had Chinese food for lunch! And wants to go back to work.</p>
<p>Just one thing, about the deer, there was a man around these parts, in his 80’s, who kept all kinds of deer in a pen on his property by the road. Nobody knows why he had them there. I think they were pets. He had a beautiful huge white buck in there and the pens were right by the road so we could see them every time we drove by. Well, he went into the pen during a certain time, I think it was mating season, and the buck deer killed him. I don’t know exactly how it happened but the thing jumped on him or knocked into him several times, and the deer killed the old man! A real shame. Nothing but weeds in the pens now. Property is for sale by the heirs too.</p>
<p>
bhg, my male deer (stags) weigh well over 500 pounds. The hinds can weigh 300. Everything on this ranch can and will “stick you, sting you, crush you and kill you”. We have day rates if you don’t need the whole weekend for your family outing.</p>
<p>(There are great risks inherent in what my family does on the ranch. I don’t take the risks lightly. )</p>
<p>
Clarification , please. Are you talking about your critters, your politicians, or my mother-in-law’s anatomy?</p>
<p>Crash, our family car, the lovely and talented Vista Cruiser, wasn’t even new when I learned to drive the fat lard-mobile in 1974. The color was exactly the same shade of my little sister’s face as soon as she’d hop into the beast. I think she was high on Dramamine most of her childhood. To make matters worse, my parents would park her in the ::::shudders:::: back seat.</p>
<p>Mudgie’s description is dead-on! :D</p>
<p>Jym,Could be that it applies to all three. Couldn’t it?</p>
<p>and slugg that high on dramamine line is hilarious. I was our family’s designated upchucker. I had to sit between my mother and father in the front seat when we all were in the car. It started becoming something of a minor social issue around 10th grade.:eek:</p>
<p>I just realized something. There was only a sliver of time between when I was throwing up in my parent’s car , and when I was throwing up in my own car. My, how we grow up soooo fast.</p>
<p>It was my dad that threw up on summer car trips driving between Md. and New Hampshire - smoking two packs of cigarettes in an eight hour span can do that to people. Or else it may have simply been the thought of spending one month with wife and kids by a remote NE lake with nary a bar in sight. Poor guy. </p>
<p>backhandgrip - I won’t take offense that you don’t like this thread - but I did like your story. Very colorful. And tragic. Sure you don’t want to stay for one nightcap?</p>
<p>at least we had a deathtrap microbus for our big family trip from seattle to San diego and each one of the kids had his/her own seat.
Of course that meant me brother was actually sitting in the luggage area but it was the 60’s! who needs seat belts?</p>
<p>ek: whats a PITA?</p>
<p>BTW we had an icon Car too. A “Country Squire” station wagon, in the precise shade of blue you’d turn while holding your breath in a looooong tunnel. Luckily no barfers in my family (till I had my own children.) </p>
<p>Our great, dumb black lab Sparky was left in the car for a few hours once. He had some seperation anxiety. He ate the whole dashboard!</p>
<p>I’ll have a tequila shot. No, make that two.</p>
<p>SB: PITA = Pain In The A…</p>
<p>My first car was a bouncy blue Rambler American that smelled funny. I used to tell people it was my dune-buggy, but I think it just didn’t have any shocks.</p>
<p>Hit me with a shandy tonight, in solidarity with Londoners everywhere.</p>
<p>oh, I’m a well known PITA too!! Glad to know I’m not a dusty dry little healthy bread item.</p>
<p>Here, here. Mootmom, and I’ll have a black and tan.</p>
<p>Or some California red. No longer Almaden Mountain Home as when I was a teenager, but nevertheless…</p>
<p>Here’s my car trip story from childhood.</p>
<p>My dad was afraid of flying. His parents and my mother’s parents were all from the East Coast. So, we drove across the country a couple of times with 3 kids. All tow-heads, just for the visual. Lots of chocolate milkshakes and hamburgers.</p>
<p>Anyway, remember plasticine?</p>
<p>We made plasticine pancakes in the “wayback” of the Ford stationwagon. Left them on the wheel wells when we went to get some of said chocolate milkshakes and hamburgers.</p>
<p>They melted.</p>
<p>Ugly.</p>
<p>I LOVE wathing KEPT on vh1…man its funny</p>
<p>anyway, off to wine and cookies, DH is away golfing in Tahoe…woohoo</p>
<p>My father bought a new “Country Squire” every two years. Each summer, the family piled in for a drive to holiday home rented for the two week vacation. At first, the drive was eight hours. Then it extended to 12 hours as my parents ventured farther afield (Gulf Coast, 1970). Then my parents lost their minds and decided to drive eighteen hours to Cape Cod…with their six kids, ages 2 to 10, packed into the wagon–including a stop to walk the Paul Revere trail in Boston and a trip to the museum to see an Andrew Wyeth show.</p>
<p>The “way back” was the prized position, of course. A written schedule controlled squabbling to a certain extent.</p>
<p>Typically, we left before dawn, the luggage rack groaning with gear and picnic supplies. No one was allowed to go back to sleep until the rosary had been recited. In full. </p>
<p>Can’t say it made me a fan of long automobile journeys, though my DH and his family love nothing better.</p>
<p>On one trip my father got so exasperated by the internecine warfare that he told us we could have a present if we could just go without fighting for one day. I will never forget his surprise and affection when we did it. I don’t remember what the present was though…</p>