Brother Dan is mending. He drove out my way to get out of the house I expect. He is somewhat at loose ends, knocking around the house for the next month, before he can try to go back to work. The cut from the operation is pretty visible along his neck but not so bad. Also I think he is a bit worried. He remembers as he woke from the anesthetic fog the doctor saying, “We did all we could for you.” Well, he was too out of it to ask for clarification of that ambiguous phrase. Did the guy mean we did everything that it is possible for a human to do or we did everything that we could humanly do for you as a person?
Anyhow that “could” is bugging him. It would bug me because it makes me wonder how much they were able to clean out that artery. Maybe not that much, maybe only all they could. But he will have another scan of some kind in a few days and that should tell the tale. Not that he wouldn’t have had to have had it done in any case. But one would hope of course for the artery to be now 90% clear rather than 50% clear.
We talked a bit and drove around in the old Volvo that I will give to his son, my nephew, Dylan, if the kid wants it. It’s hard to know what the kid wants these days though because he appears to be in a pretty severe I-don’t-want-to-do-a-damn-thing teenage, high school slump. Maybe the idea of getting his license will get him unstuck a bit.
Dan started laughing when he got in the Volvo because it is really a mess inside. The previous owner left the sun roof open; it rained and the interior roof sort of rotted out leaving little pieces of fabric hanging down here and there. Also the exterior is not so hot. But I got the car for 800 dollars from a professor. I told him my Honda was giving out and he said he had this Volvo sitting in his driveway that he wanted to unload. The damn Honda was actually pouring out black smoke. Actually it only poured out for a couple of minutes, but that was enough for people to yell at me or give me the finger. I would yell, it’s going away but they didn’t care.
I have had that Volvo for six years I guess and it has been a faithful car. It’s an 86 with 175 thousand miles on it. I wanted to get it up to 200 thousand. I took it in faithfully for its 3000 mile check up and oil. And, aside from having the front brakes redone, it hasn’t cost much to maintain these past three years. I figure the car has another 50 thousand miles on it at least. The engine and transmission are still in wonderful shape. The battery gave out some years back and I had to look all over for the replacement. Finally I found a place that sold them for 95 dollars a pop. That’s a lot for a battery but the guy said those Volvo engines need plenty to turn them over since they are really redesigned tractor engines.
So I will give Dylan the car if he wants it, though as I said, it is hard to know what he wants these days. But I have to get rid of it in a couple of weeks because each family in the condo complex is allowed only two cars. We have three, now that Carol’s mom gave her a Toyota, so the Volvo has got to go.
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That’s the old Volvo.
