Mud blogging.... pun intended...

 Not sure what to write today but I felt like writing something. I don’t have access to cable where I live and satellite is more than I want to spend. I use my phone or my iPad as a hotspot but it seems my provider is good at throttling back even though I have the most expensive plan they offer. It can be quite frustrating. I also am stuck with free tv at the moment so I don’t get many channels. I watch GritTV and MeTV a lot. I’m not a reality show addict at all. I do stream Amazon Prime and HULU so I get movies but I miss a lot of college football. Listen to me whine!!!

The sun is out it’s 32 deg F. and warming up. The snow is almost all gone but when the snow leaves the mud laughs at us. There’s a story in there somewhere. I was sitting here wondering who would appreciate mud. It’s not like mosquitoes, nobody likes mosquitoes. Mud almost was in that category until I thought about the part mud plays in the world. 

Mud advantages and uses list, (not all-inclusive by any means..):

• Making bricks - Not all mud is the same. I have spent some time studying adobe since I was a teenager. I like adobe homes. The thing I find about adobe homes is they really seem to utilize the mud that is local to the location of the house. It can be shaped, formed any way you find appealing to your eyes. It’s got insulate properties for weather extremes hot or cold.
• Pottery - Jars, pots, plates, bowls, cups, you name it. Art, some of it is also used to dye materials (go swim in the red river, anything white will be red when you get out, again a story there that I’ll tell another time).
• Entertainment - It’s a form of entertainment in the world of offroad vehicles. Take a glance at youtube for offroad mudding. There is also the world of mud pit racing. I did that once back in…. anyway… I was the first vehicle through the pit from the start to finish. Apparently, one of the local news stations recorded it and used my run as part of their advertisements for the mud races for several years after that. If you were wondering it was a 1977 Ford F-250 4wd with 4-inch lift kit and 40” Gateway Gumbo Mudders, 351M engine with a  manual transmission. the paint was gray with a black interior. Great truck. Somehow National Geographic was at the event taking pictures and writing a story. I wasn’t in National Geographic but my Herman was. It seems he raced his Honda 3-wheeler into the pit, rolled it over, buried his face in the mud, stood up wiping his eyes. It was a great photo op and worthy of making the National Geographic magazine a few months later. I may still have a copy of it around here somewhere.
• Pizza ovens - Had to put this in here even though it could’ve gone under the first bullet. An outdoor fired pizza oven can cook pizzas like no indoor oven ever has. Again youtube has some incredible videos of building outdoor pizza ovens and cooking pizzas.

While mud is an annoyance most of the time I can see that it doesn’t always receive adequate representation. Maybe it’s time for a campaign to promote the qualities of mud…. 

 

This was my first 4x4. It was a Ford F150, 3-inch lift kit, automatic transmission, 38.5” Gateway Gumbo Mudders, no engine mods. I installed an overhead console from Johnny’s Custom Trucks. Pioneer stereo and CB radio… old school.

We spent every weekend on the Arkansas river playing in the sand. Once in a while we’d run over to some vacant land that was being CopperMill apartments and play in the MUD. Usually had three of us always roaming around, I had no name for my truck but the other guy's trucks were known as Okie Outlaw and Wild Cherry. A friend of mine named Mike drove Okie Outlaw and the same aforementioned Herman drove Wild Cherry. I could fill pages with stories of our adventures but I’ll save those for another time. I will add a few more names but no last names exercising proper etiquette. Brian drove a light blue Chevrolet, David had a red Chevrolet, Charlie had a Brown Ford Bronco. I’ll give kudos to a guy named Scott who drove a truck named White Buffalo for rescuing me one night behind Indian-Springs country club trying to get out of the river. I’ll add that story then be done for the day. I liked a young lady named Ellen from south Tulsa but guys driving 4-wheel drives weren’t real popular with most dads. We never dated seriously but we had a great time just hanging out. We had been talking on the phone late one evening and decided we’d go 4-wheeling. The problem was she had to sneak out of the house to go. I parked a block away when I picked her up around 11:00pm. We grabbed some Icees at QT and headed for Indian Springs. We raid all over the river and had a great time except I broke a rear driveshaft around 1:00am. I can’t remember if I pulled the driveshaft or wired it up but I could still move using the front driveshaft in 4wd but it made my truck a front 2wd in the middle of the Arkansas River and a lot of sand between us and the trail out. around 2:00am we made it to the riverbank which had a steep bump to get up on the trail out. That’s where we stopped. Stuck. We stayed calm but the back of my mind was panicking, missing woman, dad with a shotgun, police hunts, dogs, jail, all kinds of things going through my mind. Turned the truck off locked the doors and we walked through the woods in the dark for about a mile to a Circle K. It was closed but the pay-phones (yes they were a thing) were outside so I called David. Basically said you have to pick Ellen up and get her home for me before the sun comes up. He agreed so I hung up and we sat down on the curb in front of the store. And sat there. And sat there some more. Around 4:00am I called David back. His response was I fell asleep, I’ll be right there. He finally got her home around 5:30am and she made it to her room without being discovered at least if her parents knew they never said anything. Sidenote: They moved to the Northeast not long after that… At 7:00am I called Scott and requested his help. Scott picked me up at the Circle K and we drove back to my lonely blue truck. Scott backed up to the front of my truck so we could hook up a strap and easily tugged my beast up the embankment. Unhooked the strap, I think we agreed on my buying him a case of beer at some later date and White Buffalo disappeared through the woods. I drove home in front 2wd stopping at the parts store on the way and bought the parts needed for the repair. Spent the afternoon fixing it made it to Brookside that evening and later spent the night on the river at 56th and Riverside. So many stories and old friends, great life!

Enjoy your day! Eat good food! Spend time with people you love!

BTW enjoy the next pic…. it was the late seventies… lots of willie and merle on the radio between the Lynyrd Skynyrd, CCR, Molly Hatchett, and of course ZZ top…. 

I’m sure there’s a story here too…