Mark's Off Road Warehouse Fire Thread (3 Viewers)

[65swb45]

The odds are, the house of my childhood will likely be torn down for another of these. Like the story I told earlier of my construction projects in my dad’s warehouse, this house also holds special memories, as I spent several years reconstructing portions of it that were damaged and neglected after the 1971 Sylmar quake, including tearing off and rebuilding the entire garden porch back in 1982.

 

[65swb45]

So now I’m sitting here realizing that a big piece of MY history, the house that has been a part of my life since before I could walk, will soon be no more.

Anyone here know the Dan Fogelberg song “Souveniers “?

“Here is a key to a house far away
where I used to live as a child
They tore down the building when I moved away
and left the key unreconciled “

 

[kulangot]

Mark,

I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your mother, I know that you adore your parents. I hope that you are able to find comfort in the family that she leaves behind, especially your children and grandchildren. Call me any time my brother. You are in my thoughts. Hang in there man. -Stumbaugh

2020 200 Series
TLCA#3531

 

[65swb45]

Mark,

I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your mother, I know that you adore your parents. I hope that you are able to find comfort in the family that she leaves behind, especially your children and grandchildren. Call me any time my brother. You are in my thoughts. Hang in there man. -Stumbaugh

2020 200 Series
TLCA#3531

Thanks for the kind words John. I don’t know that “adore” is the right word to describe my relationship with them. But I had a deep and abiding respect for several aspects of each of my parent’s characters that lasted well beyond the’superman’ opinion I had of them in childhood.

I can distinctly remember being about five years old and wondering how there could be so many different laundry detergents on the market, when my mom obviously knew which ONE was the best, and that THAT knowledge should be so common that the other companies should have failed. That kind of blind faith was gone by 7, for sure by 8.

And speaking of detergents, a funny anecdote in the middle of putting on my new yoke as trustee. In the ‘60s, parents weren’t paranoid about doing things like sending their kids to the market on errands. One day when I was about 7 my mom was low on detergent and gave me $5 to go to the market to get some more. I asked her which size box I should get, and instead of a straight answer, she said ‘It’s the one you can get for $5’.

Arriving at the market, I knew it was pretty obvious that she had meant the 8# box, which was $3. But I saw that the 20# box was on sale for $5! So I dutifully grabbed the plastic strap on the top of the behemoth and waddled up to the register. The cashier and a few other people were amused by the sight of this little kid with a box nearly half his weight. The cashier dutifully rang me up, and I handed her the $5 bill. She told me it was not enough, because there was sales tax. I told her that it was all my mother had given me. She smiled at me (I was a Ron Howard cute kid) and let me go.

I spent the next 20 minutes waddling the three blocks back to our house, taking what I remember to be about five rest stops on the way. It was a muggy day, and I had definitely broken out in a sweat. One stop was at a low stone wall in front of an apartment building where an old man was taking in the morning sun. He asked me something in a concerned way that indicated he thought this was some kind of child abuse. I did my best as a 7 year old to assure him such was not the case, but did not take as long of a rest there as I would have liked to.

My mother was in shock when I came waddling into the house with that 20# box.

The house may not see another year...but that story will live on.

 

[thebigredrocker]

Thank you for sharing that great story. Currently have a 7YO daughter, so I can imagine the pride your parents took in your abilities and sharp mind at that age. Not much is better than raising a son/daughter who can think.

 

[whitey45]

I’m a 70’s kid , and we used to walk 4 blocks to kindergarten, no worries, no phones, no communication, what a different world we live in now...feel sorry for my kids,ugly world we live in these days.. Things will get better

 

[65swb45]

I think I've had one good night's sleep in the last week. I don't feel particularly stressed, but there's certainly been a lot going on. Work at the shop seems to have tapered off, but I'm going in so many other directions at the moment that having some extra time has been welcome, almost a blessing. I am contemplating a moratorium on work, but haven't made a hard decision on it yet.

I've got a couple of good real estate agents bringing me up to speed on what to expect out of the current market, and I feel very fortunate to have them. Both are people I have known for several years, in other contexts. So, I've had the ability to judge their characters somewhat outside of the context in which I am using them now. Hope to be signing some papers in the coming week.

I wish I had some better news to report from the family. Two weeks after we buried my mom my younger sister texted to say that she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and would be having a hysterectomy . The next day my older sister emailed me from the ER in New York where she was under observation for a potential stroke from a dissection of her carotid artery. I guess I can be glad that my mother didn't live to see/hear this.

Trying to keep my head amidst all of this, I jokingly said that all the women in my life have come to ill in the last two years, between Tina with her eye, then Olivia, then my daughter, then my mom. Now both my sisters. Well I forgot Sam, my adopted sister that owns the FJ40 camper. So I reached out to her by text: she fell in her house, five point landing, with a broken toe and a lump on her forehead!

Enough? Apparently not. My SIL texted two days ago that he has been diagnosed with MS.

I'm hear to tell you it feels F'ing weird to be the Rock of Gibralter in the sea of drama that is going on around me.

I'm really glad I have a new bicycle to ride around on, by myself, and just have time to sort things out.

 

[greenfox]

I'm sorry to hear about your loss old friend.
I also lost my father in june.
Will have to catch up something.

 

[n2666s]

Mark my heartfelt condolences belated but just got the news; am just recovering from surgery; Bummer; my heart goes to you ; having felt the loss of loved ones all 2 parents and in laws + our oldest son, Toyota lover and helper; there will always be an empty space left..........hang in there strong can give a call if you get down!

 

[n2666s]

Mark; am soooo sorry but she is in a better place ; a song that means a lot to me having experienced the loss of both mother and mother in law; had to leave Mom in Fl. and knew it was going to be the last time I would see her alive; kissed her good by as i left and turned away and then was the last one to kiss her lying in her casket as the lid was closed
Dani and Lizzy
Dancing in the sky

 

[AntFarm]

Mark, so sorry for the loss of your mother. Take care of yourself. You have helped out more of us out here than you know. Both with our cruisers and in life in general. I especially enjoy your stories. It's no surprise that you come from a long line of great storytellers.

 

[65swb45]

I'm sorry to hear about your loss old friend.
I also lost my father in june.
Will have to catch up something.

Ryan!

Its great to hear from you! Do you still have the little teardrop trailer you built with your dad? One of the coolest father-son projects I ever saw. One of things I never really did with my dad was a father-son project. Honestly, I think the closest we ever came was working in the same room at the same time.

In the pic with the McMansion, you can see the two front doors of our double bungalow. My family lived in the north side, and my dad’s parents lived in the south side. When my grandparents moved back to Europe, my parents split the south bungalow, renting out the kitchen and bedroom as a bachelor flat. The dining room became our den, and the living room became a workroom, where my dad set up two workbenches, one for him, and one for me. This was during the ‘Hudson Jewelers’ era, a story I believe Ive told elsewhere.

While my dad was at his workbench taking out the larger imperfections from the lost wax casting (@4x4veteran )of literally hundreds of rings, I would be at my own workbench, either building small, funky things out of repurposed scraps collected for just such opportunities, or dissecting small mechanical things to learn how they work. Occasionally I would cross the room to ask my dad if he had a tool to accomplish a certain task that I hadn’t figured out yet. But nothing like what you and your dad had building that trailer. I can still remember that big, slightly goofy smile you had on your face when you told me the story about that trailer. You were SO proud.

Cherish those memories.

Folks one of the funniest moments I ever witnessed occurred at Surf N Turf with Ryan and his family. We were all sitting around the Ramsey camp (that’s Ryan’s last name) because it was always a fun place to be, and their son started complaining about being cold. Brenda (Mrs. Ramsey) being oh-so practical, and not wanting to miss out on our humorous and very fast-paced conversation reached over to the kitchen box and pulled out a 40 gallon trash bag and told him to wrap himself up in it!

He had no sooner finished pulling up the bag than @calico kid put a flashlight on him and said “Look, they’re throwing away a perfectly good white kid!”

 

[65swb45]

Well, it’s been a VERY eventful couple of weeks. A real emotional roller coaster. Too tangled up in trustee/estate affair to post up all. But I did write up a new short story which I posted up in the chat forum:

https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/a-twist-of-fate.1224212/#post-13342929

Enjoy.

 

[65swb45]

Today would have been my mother’s 85th birthday. This last week has been HUGE for me in terms of going down memory lane. I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about all the off-road campfires I’ve played my guitar at for the last 40 years.

Among other things, being adrift in a sea of memories makes you realize when you’ve lost one of your anchors.

 

[65swb45]

I put off posting in the hopes that something definitive would have happened with my mom's house, or the house I grew up in. No such luck. COVID has been a game changer in the real estate market, weaponizing tenants so that you can't sell anything that has been rented without some hoop jumping. I'd never heard of 'cash for keys' before; now my days are spent wondering how much it's going to cost to get my mom's tenants to leave. Worse than that, the people who want to buy the house in LA are 100% developers who want to knock it down and build a high-end McMansion.

Ever heard the saying 'No good deed goes unpunished? Well, my mother the kindly landlord had two units that were rented forever ago to people who, partially based on LA rent control laws, were eventually able to retire on rents that have become WAY under market.

NOW we're being told that those circumstances may have created a 'low income' flag in which NOTHING can be built on the property that would displace a low income person, as defined by some amorphous statute. Only time will tell if the law has made this house unsellable. We are in escrow, but escrow has gone into limbo while our buyers 'investigate' whether or not they can build what they want.

In the meantime, my younger sister is recovering well from her surgery, and the doctors told her yesterday that she is cancer free.

My daughter sent us a video yesterday from the doctor's office: #2 is in the can! Due the middle of April. They are awaiting final results on genetic testing for problem markers.

My SIL has begun a series of very exotic and expensive treatments for his MS. I put two and two together pretty fast on this one and asked my daughter flat out: if there is a problem with this fetus, there will not be a number 2.

It's already bad enough that we can't see number 1. And now that my SIL sees potential co-morbidities around every corner, I'm beginning to wonder if we'll EVER see her.

Oh, and did I mention that we've learned that the tenants who rented my mom's house are using it in part to shoot porn? She would be turning in her grave. My older sister, the one we were worried about having a stroke last month, has hypertension, and is really worked up about this.

Rebuilding parts, riding my bicycle, and the love of a good woman are what's keeping me going right now. I would happily exchange a few kind words on an Internet forum for a few more sales: the slow pace of my parts business is not helping my mental state. :sad:

STEP UP FOLKS...please.

 

[1911]

Sorry to hear all that Mark, especially the health problems of your family. Good news about your sister though.

Not much advice to offer here; maybe try and focus on the positive things and be grateful for them, stay as busy as possible (even if it's not work - lose yourself in nature, music, service to others, etc.), Try to recognize the the things that you have no control of, and let them run their course with as little worry as possible. Put your energy into what you can control or influence; mainly yourself in the long run. If nothing else, we can always choose how we react, even to bad situations.

Meanwhile, you have a lot of friends here who are thinking of you and rooting for you, myself included. Thoughts and prayers headed your way.

Lee

 

[Drake2]

Just found myself here in this thread...Condolences for your loss Mark. My mom passed back in 2011 and have since moved my father in with me and my family. I can remember the day of her passing like it was yesterday, but now it is from a different point of view, one that is much less painful. Immediately after her passing I threw myself into rescue mode. I could see my dad was totally lost without her and so I did everything I could to take her place. Help with paying bills, writing checks, grocery shopping, laundry, etc...because she did all of that for the household. Going into rescue mode for me was a way to pass the time without having much time to think about anything other than "what's next on the to do list". Close credit cards, change vehicle title names, update will's, call everyone in her address book, and other things that are too much to list. I was actually working 2 F.T. jobs at the time so adding all of this new work did not allow for any downtime which was a good thing, but not much sleep either. I guess the point I am trying to make is passing time will be your friend. Anything you can do to pass the time, stay busy, do all the things you have been wanting to do but have not taken the time to do. It is now up to you to carry the torch she left for you. Use the things you have learned from her to better your life because that would surely make her smile. Feel free to reach out if it would help in anyway and in the meantime we will continue to keep you and your family in our thoughts here in Wisconsin.

 

[65swb45]

Sorry folks. The last month has been filled with more drama than any soap opera I could ever imagine, and definitely more than I want to post. Hopefully will have some resolution(s) by Thanksgiving.

 

[65swb45]

Over the weekend I had a realization: somehow, it never occurred to me that there would come a day in my life when I would want to ask someone from the older generation ’do you remember...’ and there would be nobody left to ask.

It's strange and different, but only slightly melancholy.

 

[65swb45]

Ernest Hemingway once said “A writer must write what he has to say, not speak it.” Some folks think I’m a pretty good writer. Here’s a link to one of my latest:

https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/tales-from-the-east-mojave-part-3-the-legend-of-markguyver.1231168/#post-13467138

Another thing I’m doing a little more of to keep my sanity.

In lieu of signing a guestbook, hit a like button or something so I know you dropped by.