Puttin’ On The Brakes 3/16/18

Meaher State Park, Spanish Fort, Alabama

Sooner or later, you have to work. Even when you’re retired. Of course “work” means different things to different people. It could be leaving the house to earn a paycheck. It could be doing domestic chores. Regardless of what “work” means to you, I think everyone will agree that Blaine had to work today.

And work hard.

It’s hard to replace brakes when –

you don’t know where auto parts store is
you have a depleted supply of tools to work with
you have a weather-imposed deadline because you have no garage

It was supposed to start raining today about 11am, but he really had no choice as our brakes had been grinding and squealing the past couple of days and getting progressively worse.

He set out for supplies about 8:15am. But the gps took him in a really round-about way and it took him an hour to return.

Now the trick is to get the Jeep jacked up and the tires and wheels off with simple equipment (aka, no power tools to aid him). I watched every so often from inside. He was really yanking hard on things! I felt bad.

I also watched the front moving in. From my perspective it was really cool to see!

This was when we first got up and the sunrise was shining on it.

IMG_3496

Nearly clear skies on the other side!

From his perspective, he was groaning; both with pain and the stress of the imminent deadline.

Two different men stopped by to offer an extra jack or words of condolence/encouragement. I don’t think he stopped working to talk to them. Deadline, remember?

For my part, he did actually ask me to help him. Twice. I cleaned grease off the new rotors (whatever that does) and later, watched to see if wheel #1 turned when he turned wheel #2. It didn’t. He didn’t seem to like that response.