Hobbies

First of all, thank you for all of the kind thoughts and comments following Pete's Mom, Anne's passing last week. The funeral was yesterday and we are trying to adjust to a new normal. The house is so quiet! Anne was very hard of hearing and loved game shows on TV. There were always a lot of bells, whistles, yelling and laughter coming from her room. She never missed The Price is Right in the morning, or The Wheel of Fortune at night. We had The Game Show channel on cable TV for her and she watched endless hours of Family Feud. She loved Steve Harvey. Pete misses her horribly, but we will get through this. 

I thought I'd show you some of Pete's hobbies tonight. He's a collector and a fixer upper. We both like things that remind us of our childhood in the late 50's and early 60's. 

Aren't these great? The pump has a reproduction globe on top, but the rest is original. The tractor in the second photo usually has a big pot of geraniums on the seat in the warmer weather. That's the chicken coop behind it.

These are some more of the Wheel Horse garden tractors he collects. He finds them in all conditions. Some are just used for parts, others are complete and he just needs to tinker with the motor, the carburetor, or the brake lines to get them working. There are some that stay inside the barn, too.

He has a few cars, but some are going to be sold this spring (I don't think he'll sell this one though!) Again, he likes the mechanical restoration - everything under the hood. When everything is running well, he often loses interest. Then it's time to sell and use the money for a new project.

Above are two photos of our basement pinball room. He has found these in all conditions, too, and has taught himself to fix them. They are quite sensitive and seem to need a lot of TLC to keep them running. I love this hobby! During summers when I was in high school and college I worked at a small local amusement park. It had a good sized arcade, and after hours the staff honed their pinball skills.

Jukeboxes are a natural extension of the pinball machines. Same thing here. Most of them don't work when he gets them and he works his miracles. I found a program on the internet that lets you type in the titles of the music and the artist and then you can print out the old-fashioned labels so everything looks legit. Some come with old 45's, some with cd's. We find songs we like on ebay, but also have a huge collection of 45's and of cd's that we bought very cheaply.

We used to go all over New York State and even to surrounding states to track down "projects" and parts. We would make a day of it - always searching out a fun local diner for lunch. We weren't able to travel any distance when Anne was with us, and that was fine. But now I'm hoping that we can start taking our little trips again.