Bob Sleasman's Blog, May, 2009

Bob's Blog

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May 1-31, 2009

I plugged my mp3 player into the surround sound receiver and have Toby Keith and Trace Adkins banging out tunes. The subwoofer is shaking the pictures hanging on the walls, which mean it’s time to pound on the keyboard.

Since I came off the road I need to have my head in a special place before I can blog. I mostly do it late at night when my demons visit me, tonight is one of those nights. I believe I have mentioned my demons before, but I don't know how much detail I went into it. I will do that in this nights blogging or the next time I blog.

This was an up and down month on a couple of fronts. I'm not going to go by days or weeks in chronological order of things as they happened, I prefer to just wrap my mind around on what happened. Let’s get to it.

My brother David and I went up to his son’s house, where my 16 foot deep V fishing boat has been stored for the past three and a half years. This was early in the month. We uncovered what was left of the cover, which wasn't much, cleaned out the leaves and small branches that had gotten into the boat, thank goodness the boat is aluminum so there was no damage to the boat. The motor was also covered and when uncovered showed no damage. The trailer is galvanized and was in good shape. The tires showed no sign of rot, which was also a good thing. We collected the batteries, trolling motor, and various odds and ends that were stored in the garage. After hooking up the trailer to my F 150 and checking the lights we brought he boat to my house.

We let the boat sit overnight. The next morning my brother and I washed out the boat and then sprayed Simple Green on the boat, both inside and out as well as the motor. We then scrubbed the boat and motor with a semi soft brush and rinsed it off. When we got done the boat looked like brand new. I wrecked my back doing the work, and paid the price for a good week, but it was worth it. My brother had just found out he had cancer and wanted to go fishing before his surgery. He has had cancer three times before. He has had colon cancer once and liver cancer twice. I only knew one thing at this point, and that was if he wanted to go fishing, then by God he was going fishing, no matter what price I had to pay. That week I charged the batteries. After more than three years of sitting both batteries, which were deep cycle batteries, held a charge.

Fishing we went. It was on a Wednesday, the following Monday David was having his surgery. God smiled on him that day, he caught four nice post spawn largemouth bass. And me, I got to spend an afternoon fishing, talking about nothing important, and laughing with my brother.

The Monday he had his surgery my mother and I spent the hours in the hospital waiting room with David’s wife and three kids. The surgery took less time than expected. After about four hours, maybe less, the surgeon came out. He said that the tumor, which was very small, was on his diaphragm and not his liver, as was where it was thought to be. The surgeon also said that the tumor was so small and isolated that he might not need chemotherapy. We waited until my brother was taken to his room then my mother and I just visited him for a few minutes. David didn't know we were there, but we needed to see him.

David stayed in the hospital for six days I think. He was discharged Memorial Day weekend. He is doing well with his recovery.

Donna had been running as much as she could but things are getting very tight for us. She manages to get home the weekend before Memorial Day. The next week she got a load delivering to Quebec on Friday. She was only about four hours from home so she came home for the holiday weekend.

We decided to have a cook out. We called my two daughters and made a family day out of it on Sunday.

Donna had a pickup early Tuesday morning; it was a T-VAL load picking up a few miles away from the house. If I remember right the load was going just south of Boston. She left Monday, Memorial Day evening. She didn't think the neighbors would appreciate her starting the reefer at six in the morning.

The bills keep coming in. With the insurance company not paying my for my back injury I need to look at where I could free up some much need cash. Donna has been taking all loads that bring us a profit, but with freight being so tight and the low freight rates, some extra money was needed.

The one sure source of generating money was selling off the guns I knew would bring a good return on the money I spent on them. I knew I would most likely never be able to replace them, but I had to step up and do something and selling my guns off was all I could come up with. With the new administration now in power people are buying AR style rifles as fast as they can find them. For those who don't know, AR style rifles are civilian versions of the military M16 assault rifle. There is a fear, well founded, that a gun ban will be introduced that will ban these types of rifles from being sold.

I brought a pre-ban Ruger Mini-14 up to the gun shop I do business with and left the shop with cash in my pocket. That evening I put an ad in a local buyer/seller magazine called The Want Ad Digest. It cost me $14.00 to post the ad for my A2 style AR15. The Want Ad Digest is published in print and on the Internet. Two hours after posting the ad the rifle was sold at my asking price. That evening the buyer picked up the rifle with cash in hand. I showed him two other AR rifles I had, an AR15 flattop and an AR10 which is like an AR15 except in .308 caliber instead of the standard .223 caliber. The AR10 was a sweet rifle. It was a target model with a 24” stainless steel free floating bull barrel, it had never been shot. The guy wanted it and asked if it was for sale. I told him to let me think about it and to call me the next day.

I had so many calls on the rifle I had sold that I had to call and see if the ad could be pulled, I got lucky and they pulled the ad

The next day I got a phone call from the guy who bought the AR from me regarding the AR10. I really hated to part with it, but when I quoted him a price and he said he would take it I had no choice but to sell it, the profit was one I couldn't turn down. The guy left his work ran to the bank and put cash in my hand within an hour. From the sale of the three guns I was able to generate $3,500.

It was a very unpleasant thing to do, selling those rifles, but it had to be done.

That same week I sold off my entire inventory of knives that I was slowly selling on eBay. I was offered $1,200 for them and I accepted the offer. I brought in a total of $4,700 of much needed capital.

More bad news this month, my daughter’s boyfriend found out he has stage four bladder and kidney cancer. He will have to go to New York City for treatment in June.

On an up note my newest granddaughter is doing very well. She now weighs a health 9 pounds.

At the end of the month my brother is doing well with his recovery from surgery. Freight seems to be picking up a little for Donna. And life goes by at varying speeds. May ends, only God knows what June will bring. Blog Author Top of Page Bottom of Page