At the tire store

I needed two tires for my van yesterday, so off I went to the tire store. For me, that's Warholak Tire at Ford Road and Wyoming in Dearborn, Michigan. They're the best: they're helpful, prompt, courteous, and funny, and sell quality tires and do quality work. No, this isn't an ad. But it is my blog and I can promote whom I like. I like Warholak's and you should too.

I said they're funny, and I mean that as a good thing. They joke with you and you can joke with them. And then, a sign in their shop says they treat you like family. Yesterday's tire buying adventure offers a glimpse of all that.

Mike and Paul Warholak are the brothers who own the shop. I dealt primarily with Mike yesterday, though I had a good how's the weather conversation with Paul. Once my van was finished, Mike came into the customer waiting area to tell me such, and to tell me what I owed. I duly paid. Mike said thanks. And then, apparently realizing that I hadn't been in in awhile, said, "And oh, Happy New Year!"

"You too." I responded. Then I added, "Yeah, come to think of it, I haven't been in since last August."

Mike got this big grin on his face and replied, "But it's like you never left." He turned to go to his office.

I thought about that for a second. Then I called after him, "But that's a good thing, right? Mike? That's a good thing?" He ignored me. Willfully.

I think that exchange was funny. And it is part of why I buy my tires there. They're good guys.

Record shifts

Me Grandpa Joe was always proud of his willingness to work. Sometimes this led to impressive results; sometimes to the unusual; sometimes to the funny.

He never went more than two weeks without a job, even during the Great Depression. That's considering he would quit a job, when jobs were scarce. Why work for someone or something you didn't like, he reasoned.

Once he and a buddy found themselves working long hours. They decided, in friendly rivalry, to see how long they actually could work (this was before rules and laws forbade such things). The two of them concurrently pulled 61 hour shifts, which only ended when the foreman ordered, "You're both crazy. Get the hell outta here!"

Joe took a new job once while he was already employed; it paid twenty five cents an hour (significant at that time) more than the one he held. While getting his gear together his suddenly former employer begged him to stay, ending his plea with an incredulous, "So you'd leave me for a quarter an hour?"

"Hell, I'd leave ya for a nickel an hour," Joe said simply as he left.

I don't know about you, but I admire the man.

Me Pops and me Uncle Junior

I really don't know what his actual name is until yet. But we called him Uncle Junior so that's how I know him. Him and me Pops got along quite well. To be sure, me Pops got along fine with everyone in the family. It's just that this morning I found myself thinking about him and Uncle Junior. To my other Uncles, beware. Your time will come.

Pops and Uncle Junior joked around a lot. One time Uncle Junior swore he'd never again go out to dinner with me Pops. He was embarrassed, he said, because Pops ordered a ton of food. Indeed, too much food. "I never saw a waitress bring out a plate with side boards before," he quipped.

Me Pops once owed me Uncle some money. Before a trip to North Carolina, Dad dutifully got together what he owed Uncle Junior. When he saw him a couple days later, Pops gave him the cash. Me Uncle just stuck it right in his pocket. "Aren't you gonna count it?" Dad asked.

"What for? You done counted it a dozen times," Uncle Junior replied. I'll take that a sign he trusted the old man.

As more comes to mind, I'll let y'all hear more.

Deer hunting, Cloyce style

I don't know about in other states, but in Michigan if you hit a deer while driving you can harvest the animal even if it's not deer season. Yet that can be more perilous than you think.

A customer of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, hit a deer while trekking along up north several years ago. It did little damage to his big old van but the deer was killed. Cloyce and a buddy who was with him heaved the unfortunate animal into the back of the van, figuring they would have themselves some free deer meat and deer sausage. There was only one problem. The deer wasn't dead.

Cloyce found that out several miles down the road when the back of the driver's seat got kicked hard. He glanced up to see the deer glaring at him through the rear view mirror. That's when the real fun began.

The enraged and injured deer showed its displeasure by wreaking havoc on the interior of Cloyce's van. It jumped, it kicked, it bit at Cloyce and his passenger and at the walls of the van and seat backs. The motions rocked the vehicle back and forth so hard that Cloyce had trouble keeping his van under control. And the deer, I don't know, brayed, bleated, roared, whatever noise it is that deer make, until the sound itself was deafening.

It took Cloyce about a mile to find a spot next to the road big enough to pull into. When he could finally stop, he and his friend leapt from their seats and into safety. They watched as the van was still being beaten up from the inside, until Cloyce muscled up the courage to open the sliding door. The deer shot out like shells from a shotgun and ran about 50 yards into the forest when it collapsed, presumably really most sincerely dead by that point.

But Cloyce had lost his appetite for deer sausage by then.

Zeke's Driving Test

Back in the day many of us Cosgriffs lived and worked near Wayne State University in downtown Detroit. Now I can't speak for how they are recently, but as I hear few complaints I'll assume they're much better. But in the seventies and eighties WSU students were notorious walkers and drivers. Notorious that is for weaving in and out of traffic in their vehicles and vaulting across the street on foot trying to make their classes. Warren Avenue between Interstate 75 and Trumbull Avenue, a course about a mile and a half long, was the major roadway where all the action took place. It could be a harrowing drive if you didn't pay attention.

Uncle John, who me Pops called Zeke, noticed this as well as the rest of us. He used to quip that the road test for new drivers ought to be making it from I-75 to Trumbull along Warren without killing two people.

You caught that, didn't you? He was willing to spot you the first fatality because in that stretch of road you were going to kill somebody. And it would not be your fault.

Personally I think old Zeke had the right idea.

Winning is winning

I had the pleasure of playing in the 121st Annual Detroit Men's International Bonspiel this past weekend. I think I've played in about 30 of them. We did all right, missing out on advancing by about a half of an inch: that's how close our last rock was to scoring the winning point in our last game. So it goes; we had fun.

Curling bonspiels are different than a lot of tournaments. They aren't double elimination or anything like that but, rather, come with game guarantees. You are guaranteed to play a certain number of games, typically 3 or 4 depending on the length of the spiel. With the Detroit Men's, it's a four game guarantee. Everybody begins in the championship or 'A' event. Lose and you drop to the B, lose again the C, lose again to the D, lose then and you're out. You've played your guaranteed four games.

But I remember one time, I assume because of a scheduling quirk or an odd number of teams or some other unusual circumstance, that in order to make sure everyone got to play a fourth game, the Detroiters were forced to add events. Events E through Q were invented basically as dumping grounds to give everyone their fair share of play. Events E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, and Q were one-offs. And that was the year Team Cosgriff won the prestigious J Event.

We've done better. We've won the B, C, and D Events in the past. But we honestly, and proudly, can claim to be the sole ever J Event winners in the history of the Detroit Men's International Bonspiel.

We're still waiting for our trophy though.

Baseball on the freeway

In these days you rarely see pickup baseball games. When I was a kid we played pickup baseball all the time. So did me Pops. In fact, he and his friends played a very rare type of pickup ball. They played it on the Lodge Freeway.

Not once it was open for traffic, of course. But when the Lodge was being built in the early 1950s it ran right alongside of the house he grew up in. When the roadway had been graded but not yet paved, he and his friends would go down on Sundays, set up bases, and play baseball on the Lodge.

A nearby bridge, the Warren Avenue bridge in fact, had already been completed. It overlooked their makeshift diamond. Pops said that every time the guys went down to play, a crowd would eventually form on the bridge (and also along the service drives in place) and watch the games, cheering the young men on as they pitched, hit, and took the field.

They were only able to do it for a few weeks one summer, until the freeway construction had progressed to where play was not possible. But boy, I bet that was a sight to see. It was exactly the sort of thing which happened when neighborhoods were neighborly.