Are Festivas generally, almost invisible cars?

[bobstad]

way too horny here...

the regular GM horns are not disc shaped like the festiva beep horns, and are the size of a fist. the caddy horns are clearly marked E A D G whatever note they generate.

I've tried multiple searches and not finding the guy...hmph. I even found 2 threads i participated in about horns. the good thing is they are pretty inexpensive even if you don't get a friend's price you can buy several and combine them or put on different ones if you change your mind. Any fullsize car from the 80s or 70s will have a BIG sound, it just won't be that caddy sound we are fond of:

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/sh...ighlight=horns

Thanks for the reply. Nice to think of another person who gets off on that caddy horn sound. Those other GM horns were the ones I was finding, which always seemed too far gone to use. My other problem was lack of horn buttons; though now either the J. C. Whitney source or the same thing locally at the seconds grocery/variety store even more cheaply, would be compelling. If I were as enthused about the horn idea as with the VW.

That car, was much more of a freak show than the Festiva however. For instance, front bucket seats from a 1950 one-ton GMC panel truck and back seats from a 1967 Camero, both pair fitting amazingly well. This region, all of the county, has only two wrecking yards, too; since so heavily yuppified and into environmentalism in an ad hoc, superficially conscience driven way IMHO. Not very good for the wrecking yard hobbiest.

[200KGPGTP]

I want to install a train horn.

On the OT, I had wanted one ever since my sister's friend Annie drove me and her dogs to the park in her Festiva.... and that was when I was like, 10-12.

[getnpsi]

Inland parts of the states tend to have more yards as rent is lower.the sacramennto area is teeming with the rusty gold as the lower desert of cali, and its much drier

[bobstad]

some rust, more dust, & the times in between...

Inland parts of the states tend to have more yards as rent is lower.the sacramennto area is teeming with the rusty gold as the lower desert of cali, and its much drier

Skagit county, King county and Thurston county, all due south of here, all have lots of wrecking yards and are just as soggy. Just more population; so not as finicky as here where lots of students stay after graduation from the local state university, with tons of choice waterfront locales to live at on Puget Sound if a person is a little advantaged.

I do agree about inland areas having good wrecking yards, and have been to Sacramento, from Eureka, CA which is where I got the '87 Mazda 323 13" rims for my Festiva, for ten dollars each quite a few years ago; while in King county south of Seattle about two years ago I got the four nice KIA 13" rims to use once the Aspire brake swap is done, for $15 each, no tax. Problem being in Washington state, "inland" is a real long haul to get to; "the other side of the mountains" as people used to say, now "the Cascade curtain."

There are lots of wrecking yards around Yakima, WA though my favorite was in the apple town of Brewster, WA on US 97 within about fifty miles of the Canadian border, a real desert area in the rain shadow of the Cascades along the Columbia River; beautiful and scenic with a slow economy, though also the only area on that side of the state with relatively progressive politics. In part due to the Colville nation, the largest reservation in the state, in Washington's largest county also the one with the least population in the state.

There, I got inexpensively two front bucket seats for my '66 VW "square-back" that fit perfectly, out of a '50 GMC panel truck; and a nifty rear bumper from thick steel stock for the VW off of a similar car someone had welded to match the front one, made so the car could be towed easily, that made a great anvil I remember I paid ten dollars for.

Those front seats the first time I drove with them, reminded me of a water bed; and the right one was also a jump seat which folded up neatly, allowing great access to the rear from that side of the car, and lots of space to store all sorts of things I used living out of the car most of the time we were together, from '82-'94.

The original VW seats had finally worn out and collapsed; so I'd been driving for a long time using an aluminum lawn chair, all propped up with rope and pieces of board everywhere. Until finally I got pulled over for some reason by the state patrol who gave me a warning ticket, when I'd been only a few miles from Brewster; where I'd gotten that rear bumper earlier.

I'm real burnt out on that society though, the impoverished cannabis culture of the region; I had to struggle to escape for so many years. A person tends to wonder where their soul has gone to, often now as this area has lots of close ties to that; while I'm someone forced to flee here from a hostile situation in California where I'd lived far longer than anyplace else in my life, nearly a dozen years until early in '08.

So many people who were relatively idle often getting high lots of the time; and all sorts of personality struggles and manipulations due to poverty with friends you tend to miss a great deal, casualties of that. Big time Rainbow Family/Grateful Dead country, for instance; with a whole vast array of social proclivities often difficult if not depraved to try to negotiate, you learn by chance and experience.

Things which flourished, a little like the wrecking yards do too, with cheap rent and wide open spaces, less damp if a little colder than along the coast. I'd say I'd gotten a little "off-topic" for the general discussion forum; except that cars are so intertwined with lifestyle in that realm.

[Safety Guy]

Bob, you should write a book.

There may be a market for your countercultural, historical, meandering musings!

Karl

[getnpsi]

Ive always enjoyed bobs tangents. The more of his posts you read the more you understand him,and them. They are aleays descriptive, especially ones like above about topography and geography. It makes me want to head up there, maybe take an extra week when i attend the february festiva meet

[bobstad]

"A Book"

Bob, you should write a book.

There may be a market for your countercultural, historical, meandering musings!

Karl

I think about that. I don't feel in many instances anyone writes a book or books alone. I've dropped back to posting here, getting momentarily burnt out posting long comments in Facebook. I recognize a wealth of things to write about; but, difficult organizing that. I can see I'm becoming a more readable writer; from practicing knowing people will perhaps actually read me.

I dreamt of a fairly famous avant garde musician friend this morning, looking at some sheet music she'd been composing on, just a glance at the title and lined manuscript music paper; and started writing my own score on similar music manuscript paper. What I ended up with though, was whole notes stacked in chords, page after page after page of the same notes measure after measure, balanced on top of each other like eggs. Being sixty now, living comfortably if wretchedly & in isolation; having a compelling notion of a sense of a potential product, can be irksome.

My friend, a Seattle woman ten years my junior I've been getting to know since moving here to Bellingham February of '08 seems to find me amusing, I get to talk with five, ten or fifteen minutes at a time, months apart usually feeling off balance; who also seems someone I need to impress somehow, with my writing prowess. Seeing her unexpectedly October 20th at a social function, a book introduction, she introduced me as a writer to someone a woman an elder, an important Seattle poet I'd never known of. Which is more or less like getting called a sex fiend, being called a writer in my shoes, is one theory; that since my friend is a jazz musician as a saxophonist, isn't too cumbersome a concept. So, the process of getting "up to speed" kind of baffles me; yet a riddle I need to solve.

You have to imagine the situation, the Festiva is sort of a condensed metaphor of. For instance, as the tip of an iceberg in a flotilla of those; a bullying retired military man, the apartment manager here three years until he finally croaked, pulling all sorts of illegal stunts and misrepresenting himself harassing me, all on a wholesale basis with enough knowledge of the law and my resources, to operate with impunity.

When he finally died, I greatly appreciated; who though insane, also seemed a part of a loose knit, right-wing reactionary realm able to network amongst themselves. You have to imagine that several of Washington state's large public insane asylums were shut down in the early 1960s due to budget constraints, so there has developed a de-facto corporate modus operandi to maximize their profits, dealing with the large number of low-income people on assistance; many of whom though hardly all, suffer some sort of mental difficulty. Which is a large part of a porous apartment ghetto society, such as this neighborhood is; built in the '70s here.

Which I see as problematic to these eras, sometimes seen in millennial size segments; compounded by my problems of physical disability, education and radical leftist political point of view. Which is greatly antagonistic to many conservatively held opinions; that so-called "needy" people of worth all genuflect to the dominant culture's religious values and institutions in "redeeming" themselves. The habit of a rich empire, fundamentally confused about social values; patterned upon many which have preceded, already fallen.

In a rare personal instance this can be funny; as someone I'd liked a lot in Berkeley in the mid '90s when I'd been living out of vehicles there, with a wife and two young sons who is Jewish, wanted me to "convert." That is laughable, not only with a "from what" point of view being hilarious; but, also as they were anything other than religious. But, he'd really disliked the liberal local Jewish culture of Berkeley, rabidly wanting to get his family to Israel; so that I'd of worked into this scheme somehow.

Now this can feel generally more attractive if even more remote, as I seem to have a lot of Jewish friends from quite a variety of situations throughout adult life; and have been reading Howard M. Sachar's books addressing Judaism as someone himself proud of being Jewish, also a great historian and writer. Problem being, I think monotheism itself an obnoxious phenomena, as a stone atheist though spiritually minded, a little hostile towards liberal feminism greatly seeing women's oppression as a class issue generally, with a love of radical feminist type women; which paternalistic patriarchy is so integrally entwined with as the ground troops of monotheism, a vast oppressor.

So, I guess people who write books I'd imagine myself capable of, do so with scanty resources; and probably network successfully. Which is where I'm stuck; amidst certainly lots of wheel spinning, lack of traction and the occasional so far recoverable dramatic skid. A mythically proportioned, esoteric bootstrapping; annoying for the perceptions of the waste, carnage and dim likelihoods involved.

A few stories for instance, I seem to rewrite over and over again yet with better which lay untouched I'd like to get to. Or having to put up with this stupid cramped apartment, still as when a youth overwhelmed often; by the clutter of someone prone in most instances, to want to sit rather than stand. As ramifications of spinal disease long in my past, creating an unusual proportion between the otherwise standardized faculties of the more able-boded. Despite being enough physically capable, that the world I have to confront is as if normally endowed. I think of "handicap" as with race horses, lugging an additional load; or the realm in golf which is so porous and often corrupted amongst betters, sandbagging playing their game. Which I am often accused of doing, living my life.

For next to nothing in comparison to the corporate looters of the public; though a target people are encouraged to focus on. An illusion of democracy, more a totalitarian era when people are encouraged to spy on each other; with plenty of percs if you can get into that. The creepy apartment manager here, nothing to Spokane during the early '90s, or more recently exiting Eureka, in the misogynist, hostile take-over of my apartment through '07 and the mafia style ground work laid for that. Which in itself is a microcosm of the fall of one of the town's two once thriving hospitals Eureka General, and the corruption which ensued in Saint Joseph's following their unbidden aggressive corporate take-over of the other.

Creating a climate within which the regional medical establishment is made to nervously ponder their vulnerability, more so if serving low-income clients or patients. Where in 2002 my primary care-giver Kevin LaPorta was murdered, a youthful forty-seven year old acupuncturist then I'd gone to nearly weekly almost four years; whose treatments were like an excellent analgesic lasting a couple days, easy to imagine perhaps contributing to a synergistic effect helping to animate atrophied back musculature, that is my long term therapeutic goal. A grizzly crime perpetrated by the grandmother of his nineteen month old daughter he was in a custody battle over, with the mother he'd never married; from my point of view in hindsight, an amazingly bizarre experience. As well as a shocking crime against someone I'm sure many people admired; so in effect as much against a certain community that was widespread, as the situation with the two hospitals there.

I see that same sort of a vaguely progressive energy here, professional people drawn to a region by the natural beauty; I sometimes label "where advantaged yuppies come to breed" who seem to have little idea of the long standing society they are entering. Targeted as naive sources of considerable resources; if not as Kevin, much more sinisterly. I used to think of someone's doing a book about his crime like Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" until I bought a dvd version of the movie based upon the book; which has an offensive theme music song, stylizing Gypsies with the two murderers. There is so much in Kevin's death which is unexplained or even unimaginable; who had a mountain place he lived at alone raising yaks and other animals, commuting three times a week to a private practice office or the clinic where I'd been a client.

Yeah. Write a book. In '97 staying the summer with friends in Onion Creek, WA where the general store a couple miles down the road features a small park with a BBQ and often live music played by locals on Saturdays, bluesy fare with electric instruments; also public showers for a quarter where people with land, getting established frequently lack wells or running water; the general store had a free book exchange, two for one along low shelves on a long wall under the windows which ran the length of the front of the place, with lots of the sort of paperbacks and some hardbacks people read through cold winters, where spring comes late and fall early.

One book I got and read that summer and liked was by bandleader, musician, actor, comedian and vocalist Desi Arnaz. "A Book." Hey, you should write a book: His autobiography. So, let's see, besides not being famous, a band leader, a working musician, actor, comedian or vocalist as well as being a pauper; I'm also not well informed about book writing, except reading a couple biographies about novelist Malcolm Lowry a while ago; and one about a year ago about the Russian Chekov. Or whatever they include in someone's books about them; usually very scanty information.

"A Book:" You imagine him hearing often from Lucille Ball, right? "Up to speed" seems a long ways off; in that regard.

[bobstad]

Funny thing, she also drives a Festiva!

[bobstad]

Maybe our cars are trying to mate with each other?

[bobstad]

Get me Venezuela on the line; and ship us an Orion!

[bobstad]

fob Puget Sound.

[bobstad]

better make that twins; right!

[DriverOne]

Bobstad, your handling of the American-English language puts you well beyond many with which I have the pleasure of communicating. Amongst my top three preferred diversions is in fact the written word (or should I say, the correctly written word) as an art form, whether it be book, song, or the like, and you sir exercise my vocabulary to an extent which I have not experienced in an exceedingly long while. It's exciting to "get back on the bike" as it were, and refresh my memory of a word, or learn the parameters of a new one. I say, don't sell yourself short. In fact, the ponderings of the well-written, theological mind would stand to return a society that has severed itself from such referential observations - via technology - to a stronger, more informed and balanced community, if only for those individuals who choose to attain an educated point of view beyond the boundaries of what they might find with a remote. Some would go as far as to demand it of you, as to protect the true art of communication, because of your exceptional vocabulary.

It seems, if I'm correct, that you have a bittersweet opinion of the area in which you live. I myself have traveled to and through Washington state to make deliveries (I'm a truck driver of three years now), and while I live in South Carolina, I often think fondly of my time spent in Washington (Kent, Seattle, and surrounding areas) and would share it with my wife if I ever had the chance. As a side note, and to inform you a bit of my state's situation, unemployment is a way of life, and education 'reform' seems to be a means to acquire books to use as chocks for buses in need of repair. Needless to say, it would be beneficial to leave, and I have set my sights on your state. Would you persuade me to avoid setting up camp, or perhaps stand at the border with spike strips for our moving van, and so save our lives? Your advice would be well received, considering a move of such magnitude would be final.

I actually spoke with my wife this evening about the visibility of our Festivas (both red), and we joked about mounting amber strobes and carrying traffic cones to both locate our cars in parking lots as well as remind HUMMER drivers of the existence of other vehicles in traffic. Her '90L+ will be fitted with two horns in LX fashion; one from a Ford Ranger pickup which, dismounted from its frame, mounts to the stock Festiva location, and is further amplified by the original shroud/bumper, and one $60 Advance Auto 150dB blast horn, complete with its own relay, in the opposing location. My intent is to wire a toggle switch in the dash that will give her an option between "You have offended me," and "F:sex: YOU!"

[bobstad]

Home is where the old fart is?

Aw, I don't think Washington state or Puget Sound are too much different than anyplace else; though in my life simply a little disappointing to end up back where I started, when my heart is really in the bay area a lot. I even own the Tony Bennet LP!* Without a turntable.

My life has necessarily been one of adventure, a strange capacity to meet a crisis more or less well enough while languishing almost as if in hibernation at other times: Trying to make the most of that reading and writing, as an alternative to the boob tube or radio. Out of my problems of disability; which has given me a regular stipend over a long period of time, combined with a reasonable intelligence, and some imagination.

And I'd say a good love of other people; even if feeling isolated from them too much, often times. I end up straddling between two camps, those who are creatively employed and others who wish they could be; with all the diversity that represents, and a lot of struggles.

*With his hit tune from before my time, I guess in the 1950s; "I Left My Heart In San Francisco," for those of you for whom his name doesn't mean much if anything? A friend "fred" my care-giver the fall of '04 is a professional community and labor organizer there, also a trained puppeteer; who I keep in touch with emailing, as someone in my dreams from time to time she likes me to share with her. Almost like someone progeny; since we are a quarter-century in age different. Funny to think she was about ten years old when I got onto SSDI/SSI assistance.

[bobstad]

I did have a friend Matt Kelly in Spokane during '89 and the early '90s, who was from South Carolina; an often homeless street musician as a songwriter/guitarist, who was raising his eight year-old red head daughter Miranda as a single parent, congenially with her mother who'd long been married to another man.

My impression from him was that he'd thought the existence he found in Washington state, even in Spokane which many people find a pretty wretched place if they are low-income; was preferable over the poverty he'd experienced where he'd come from.

Sort of an interesting person, a pugnacious character of an Irish extraction, about 5' 4" so not much of a threat to the people, mostly his friends, he'd pick on when drinking too much.

Also a great intellectual, whose songs were thoughtful reflections on his life and the people around him; whose "When I Win The Lottery" I think I may've inspired by my assistance income from social security, that was a lot more steady money than many of our friends then came by, and certainly Matt.

Calling himself a "Buddhist Maoist" you might imagine his notions about a livelihood and career; would call into question many a more capitalist person's point of view. Who had a substantial following of younger adults he helped guide with his ideas on life.

These sort of protagonists, seem to often fall by the wayside; for all their rarity and value. That is a bad reflection on the general society, they see so much within worth the changing of.