(This one isn’t about signs - it’s just about Lenny’s convoluted way of seeing things.)
Lenny came up to me one day and asked “Who was that old man I saw driving Mr. Ripley’s roadster?” I had not a clue. Lenny came up with this stuff all the time and I mostly ignored it. I’ve heard married people get that way, after a while; the droning goes on without your participation. Like when a game is on and so is talk about the new curtains. “Yeah there was this old guy with grey hair driving the roadster around, Sadday, who owns it now?” Sadday, in the Lenny Dictionary is between Friday and Sunday.
Over the next several weeks the subject of the car came up maybe 4 or 5 times but it wasn’t making much of a dent on my consciousness, until one day we were coming back from lunch and Lenny started shouting “There it is! There goes Mr. Ripley’s roadster! Who is that driving it?” I looked and there was a maroon ‘48 Plymouth 4 door sedan turning the corner. O.K., now he got my attention. “So tell me about this “roadster” you keep seeing and who is Mr. Ripley?” I foolishly stepped into the pile.
“Oh, he’s this really nice kid and his father owns a bank and I’m trying to get my daughter interested in him. I keep inviting him over to dinner but she can’t see him and he’s going to be RICH! one day. Well, he had this beautiful red Model T roadster all perfectly restored, and it wasn’t running so well and he took it over to Stan (Stanley Kupp, a mechanic in our town) and he told Mr. Ripley nobody could fix the car but he’d give him $1200.00 for it and poor Mr. Ripley signed over the pink slip and Stan took a screwdriver out of his pocket and touched something and it started right up. Then he sold the car that afternoon for thousands of dollars. Poor Mr. Ripley”.
In case you aren’t familiar with older car styles, roadsters were made in the 20s and 30s that seated 2 people and had a fold up top, no windows and were the cheapest model on the market. They are not convertibles. Hot rodders like them because they are little and light weight, especially if you take off the fenders. I have a friend, Bud, not Mr. Ripley, who drives one of those cut down Model T fad roadsters, and it’s tiny. It’s also orange, which would pass for red on the Lenny Color Wheel, as would brown. Bud isn’t old but he does have grey hair. But a ‘48 Plymouth 4 door is to a T bucket roadster as a hippopotamus is to, say, a bobcat. Stan refused to work on Jeeps and Lenny had the worst one ever made so he hated Stan’s guts. Well he’s a good mechanic, worked on my stuff when it was necessary, so one time I asked him about this fantasy of Lenny’s. To Lenny any old car that isn’t a roadster must be a ‘40 Ford.
Stan said “Oh, Ripley! He’s a spoiled rotten snivveling little rich kid punk around 20-some whose father owns a bank, or something, because he hangs out there, and he went out and bought this old ‘31 Model A coupé that was the remains of a restoration, all the thrown out parts. It couldn’t run, had about a half of an engine in it, no interior, 2 bolts holding each wheel on, no dashboard, no lights, glass or bumpers or anything. It rolled, but all you could do with it would be to make a planter out of it. It had been painted grey primer, once, but was rusting through. Ripley had no idea what he was doing and gave somebody $1200.00 for the pile of junk, and brought it over here. The damned thing was here for 5 months until some guy came around and gave him 200 bucks for it. I’m glad the both of them are gone. Ripley picks his nose and eats it”.
Bingo! Now I knew just who this guy was. I’d seen him in his bank, nameboard on his desk, and there he was a pickin’ an’ a eatin’ and I was so disgusted I never went near that bank again. Lenny had dollar sign eyes and high aims for this daughter. The other one was “the smart daughter” who was going to become a teacher. She got her credentials after only taking the exam 9 times. Lenny also has a son, and YES, it runs in the family! Son didn’t go to college, but the two daughters did. Lenny often bragged that he had “put four kids through college”. I still wonder who the two lucky strangers are.
On Lenny’s planet there are only Jeeps and Junk. If it’s old it’s either a roadster or a ‘40 Ford.
Posts: 1859 | From: / | Registered: Nov 1998
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-------------------- Jackson Smart Jackson's Signs Port Angeles, WA ...."The Straits of Juan De Fuca in my front yard and Olympic National Park in my backyard...
"Living on Earth is expensive...but it does include a free trip around the Sun" Posts: 1005 | From: Port Angeles, Washington | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
Mike, tell us more about "The Lenny color wheel".
-------------------- "A wise man concerns himself with the truth, not with what people believe." - Aristotle
Cam Bortz Finest Kind Signs Pondside Iron works 256 S. Broad St. Pawcatuck, Ct. 06379 "Award winning Signs since 1988" Posts: 3051 | From: Pawcatuck,Connecticut USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Tee hee.......yer good Mikey. 
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