Gone Fishin’ Or Will Soon That Is

So today is Friday, 08/13 and I’m catching up and getting current on happenings through this afternoon. The timeline is convoluted; past, present, and future are not entirely distinct. Maybe they never were, are, or will be.

Wednesday was spent recovering from the 1100 mile drive down here. Just laid (layed? lied?) around most of the day talking with my sister and nephew, and eating, and binge–watching Dr. Pimple Popper, a gorgeous, personable TV dermatologist on The Learning Channel who helps people by removing terrible cysts and other horrific growths that profoundly affect their lives, and not in a good way. Gruesomely fascinating, you can’t bear to watch but at the same time are unable to look away.

My brother–in–law Joe is out of town, he’s a road warrior. He will be returning Thursday evening. Wait, it’s Friday. Pesky timeline. Anyway, you know what I mean. Back to the eating. I did not expect to lose any weight down here, and in fact I have become resigned to the certainty that I will not be getting my pants taken in any time soon. More likely the opposite. Kismet, I accept, no, I embrace you.

I did call around to find a metal fabrication or welding shop that could repair the right fender on the bike trailer. I think I said left in a previous post, but it’s the right side that got damaged. After a couple of false starts, I came across Matt the Welder. Really, that’s the name of his business and what he is, eponymously delightful, you can check him out on Facebook. He works out of his home just five miles away in Plant City. He told me to come on over with the trailer and he’d have a look.

On the way there I drove past an elementary or middle school, not sure. There was a line of parked cars in single file a quarter mile long on one side of the school driveway and the same stretching into the distance on the other side. They were parked in the driving lane, pulled over to the right but still taking up maybe three quarters of the lane. I had to pull over to the left halfway into the oncoming traffic lane to get by them. I inferred that all were parents waiting to pick up their kids when school let out, not sure when that was supposed to happen. Completely understandable, have I said we are in Florida? The COVID capital of the world? Anyone who lets their kid get on a school bus around here, well someone should call Child Protective Services immediately. I don’t have kids but if I did I’d be in line with all the others for sure.

So I get to Matt the Welder, the person and the place, and he’s this tall, strapping, handsome young man, very friendly, and oh so talkative, maybe garrulous is the word I’m looking for, no that’s not it, the (largely one–sided) conversation was not of trivial matters. It was OK, I learned a lot about repairing vintage tractors and how hard it is to get good steel at an affordable price. There is, you know, a global supply line backup of, well, world–wide proportions affecting just about any industry you care to mention.

He assessed the damage, went over to a scrap pile, and came back with an 18" long piece of 3/16" angle iron. He said he would grind off the old, poorly designed and under–engineered bracket, weld on a piece of angle iron, then drill new holes for the bolts and nuts that secure the upright part of the fender well. He also said he would repaint everything gloss black so it would look like original equipment. For $80, only, I could hardly believe my ears.

Then I found he meant he would do the same to the left fender assembly for that price, not for each but in total, so that both sides would match and be equally robust. I took out four twenties and handed them to him right there before he came to his senses. I left the trailer with him and he said he would call me the next day, Thursday. And so he did, yesterday, and I went and got the trailer and am still marveling at the KICK ASS job he did. Before the repair, those fenders would wobble back and forth a little if you pulled on them. No more. You could rest an engine block on either one of them and they would not budge a tenth of a millimeter. So if you’re in the Tampa area and need some emergency welding or metal fabrication done, look no further than Matt the Welder, click the link right now!

After I got back to the house, my sister gathered me up and took me out shopping for a new pair of sandals, flip flops I would call them. I have a great pair I got quite some time ago, and they were coming apart at the seams, quite literally. I also needed some new clip on sunglasses. We went to Kohl’s first looking for the sunglasses and flip flops but but found only the latter, a fine pair indeed. On the way to the register we passed through men’s clothing and I also found some cargo shorts, a great pair in a great color with a great fit. Then we went to Walmart where I knew I could find the sunglasses, and I did.

Then Sis took me to some local warehouse selling nothing but shoes, rows of them stretching to the back of a huge room, like the library stacks in The Magicians, must see on Netflix. There she found me a pair of designer, dress flip flops at a ridiculously inflated price. Of course I bought them, who wouldn’t? She thanked me for the outing, said it was the most fun she’d had in days. She works hard, very hard from her home office arranging mortgages for people who would not qualify for one with a traditional lender. It is saintly work.

Today Joe and Joey and I went fishing. They belong to a boat club where you can reserve and rent all kinds of boats. There’s too much to relate in this post, so watch for the next one. I’ll just say this: Fishing isn’t about catching fish. It’s about drowning worms, or in our case today, live shrimp. I’ll try to get the post out tomorrow morning if I am not called to eat. Once that begins it is not a trivial matter to stop, at least around here.

All the best,
From Tampa, Florida on Friday, 08/13 at 4 PM
Rex