Saw the truck at the tire shop in Falmouth, Maine after being pulled over on the Turnpike by a statie who noticed my inspection sticker was (4 years) out of date. (Difficult to book an inspection at the one garage on our peninsula, and the counties down south--Cumberland and York--impose stricter anti-pullution standards). The cop understood my Downeast-everything-is-different story and gave me a warning on the sticker, instead of mandatory $145 fine (Thank you, sir!) He mentioned that the rear driver side tire on my (1997 Volvo 850 wagon) was "wobbling". I'd felt a vibration but figured I was running the tires too hard and had stopped 10 miles earlier to let out air pressure. Anyway, the visible wobble got me worried, and I was on the road for Boston, lots of traffic, etc. So I pulled off at Falmouth ME where there was a Sullivan Tire shop I'd used before and found to be relatively efficient. I ended up putting 4 new tires on the car and keeping the 2 best of the old (which were actually snows, recommended to me for the car year-round by Alan of Alan's Auto in Portland, Maine, who is half very knowledgeable Volvo guy and half spinmeister-salesman--and I never know which half is talking.) The improvement in road feel was vast and a lesson in how, even if you are a car guy, it's very easy to become accustomed to, and therafter ignore, really bad driving/handling characteristics in everyday wheels.
The bonus of the day was this hardy little Jeep truck which belongs to one of the techs at the shop.
Trucks, cars, highways, landscape, good writing. "You cannot travel on the path, before you have become the Path itself."
PHB
- autoliterate
- Brooklin, Maine, United States
- We own a 1975 GMC Sierra Grande 15 in Maine and a 1986 Chevrolet Custom Deluxe 10 in West Texas. Also a pair of 1997 Volvo 850 wagons. Average age in the fleet is 28 years--we're recycling. I've published 3 novels: THE LAW OF DREAMS (2006), THE O'BRIENS (2012), and CARRY ME (2016). Also 2 short story collections: NIGHT DRIVING(1987) and TRAVELLING LIGHT (2013). More of my literary life is at www.peterbehrens.org I was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study for 2012-13. I'm an adjunct professor at Colorado College and in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. In 2015-16 I was a Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The Autoliterate office is in Car Talk Plaza in Harvard Square, 2 floors above Dewey Cheatem & Howe. SUBSCRIBE TO THE AUTOLITERATE DAILY EMAIL by hitting the button to the right.
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
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