Remembering a fine teacher,

HI Folks,
My brother sent the news of Lon Davidson's passing this morning via text and I have to admit, I am truly saddened by Lon's passing. My brother hit the nail on the head when he mentioned in his post that Lon "was the coolest". Indeed, he was. I can recall we, (the kids in the classroom) all loved to see him walk in to the classroom. He was always dressed in starched, button-down collar shirts, often blue in color, sharply creased khaki "chinos" and penny loafers with leather heals that clicked along with each step he took. And the way he walked had "cool" written all over it.
His laugh was infectious and it seemed he (and we) laughed a lot in class. There was the time Mark Dehn had to recite "The Charge of the Light Brigade", a difficult task at best. Mark tried with all his might but for some reason "Brigade" always came out "Brigrade". I recall Lon holding it back as long as he could then burst out laughing. The best part, he was not laughing at Mark and Mark and the rest of us knew that. Not at all. He was laughing because he absolutely loved the heroic effort by Mark to stop saying "Brigrade". When Mark was finished he walked over to Mark, put his hands on his shoulders and thanked him for his work while making sure we all understood that this was a tough assignment and, like Mark, we all needed to give it our very best shot. The "teaching moment" was born.
In another instance, he was literally bent over laughing behind the curtains of the stage at Morgan JH as I completely forgot my lines in a play we were doing for the entire school. I thought he would pass out as he dropped the cue card and held on to a nearby post. The play went on. My acting career came to a rather ignominious ending.
I recollect when Lon made the entire class recite "The Jabberwocky". There was not a kid in the class who did not almost fall out of their chair laughing as each and every one of us just hammered the recitation.
I recall Lon modeled for Seattle First National Bank, if I am getting that right. He was on a billboard that was standing to the right of I-5, somewhere between Northgate and downtown. I remember thinking that was about the coolest thing ever. And he had a houseboat on Lake Union. And he let some of us call him "Lon" when not at school. So cool!
Although I remember the "cool" part of Lon Davidson, that was not the best part. He was an excellent teacher who engaged each and every one of his students in the act of learning. He seemed to love teaching and made going to English class an absolute joy.
Lon, you will be missed. You did what all great teachers do. You left an indelible impression and, for what it is worth you left me with some very powerful memories.
Thank you.
Rest in peace.
M.I.T.

Helping a friend

My friend,
Thank  you for  the kind words. It worked out very well, didn't it my friend? For those who may have no idea what Doug  and I are talking about here is "rest of the story".
My friend bought a beautiful 1997 BMW 840CI some time ago and drove it up to the Seattle area. In short order he found himself unable to drive the car due to unforeseen circumstances. For any number of reasons the car was relegated to sitting, unprotected in the back yard of a Bothell mechanic's home for about five years. That is when I asked my friend if he would like to put "Plan T.I.M." into action. After some time my friend agreed to let me give it a go and I was off and running.
Step one was to procure the car. That took a little doing because the mechanic was a schmuck. To accomplish this I rented a UHaul trailer and headed north to Bothell to snag the car from the clutches of the aforementioned evil mechanic. Meeting with him was more than a little awkward, I must say. He was not a nice man. Be that as it may, a friend helped me load the car on to the trailer and off we went. Upon our arrival in Gig Harbor we put the car in the storage facility and I returned the UHaul.
Next came the clean up. Apparently, over the five years the car was outside the engine compartment became home to a fair number of bees. The hives were seemingly everywhere. I even found a few underneath the gas cap access door. Go figure! To counter this, I pressure washed the entire car. Yuch!
It became obvious that the longer I waited to sell this car the more opportunities there would be for problems to arise. Sitting outside for five years was not kind to this vehicle (a gross understatement!). I endeavored to persevere.
After some preliminary mechanical work on the car I parked the car in the storage area and began my pursuit of a title. It took over three months to get my hands on a valid California title but I did get it. Believe it or not three months was much quicker than normal thanks to a special operations unit attached the the California DMV.
Title in hand, I listed the car on Craigslist. I had two suitors right away. The first buyer was a fast talker who wanted to take the car for a test drive. We headed out. He knew the car was powerful so he stepped on the gas, not once but twice. Remarkably, the car responded beautifully. Then it happened.
A radiator hose blew and water was streaming from the engine compartment to the windshield with smoke following closely behind. "On a test drive?" I thought. "Are you freekin' kidding me?"!  We nursed the car back to our departure point where a mechanic took a look at it. Turns out the entire radiator was gone. I had no idea what to say to this guy except, "Thanks for coming". He still wanted the car so we set a price, much lower than I hoped. With a transaction meeting set for the next day I arrived on time. He failed to show. Undeterred, I promptly raised the price of the car and called the second suitor. It worked. The car was sold that day at the higher price.
The agreement I reached with my friend was the following: I would take care of the car and absorb all expenses associated with getting the car ready to sell then recoup my costs upon sale. That was all I wanted. The rest of the money, about 3/4 of the sales price, went to my friend. That was it.
From start to finish the "T.I.M. Plan" for the BMW took about 4 months. It really did work out well.
The primary goal was 1. Not to allow the "schmuck" mechanic in Bothell to let a fine car rust into oblivion and, 2. To get some money into my friend's pocket prior to the holidays. I accomplished both.
Altruistic? My boy, don't give me so much credit. I really wanted to see if I could meet those two objectives and I truly enjoyed doing this for a life long friend.
In closing I must say I learned two very important lessons from this little adventure:
1. Helping folks can be a great, rewarding adventure.
2. I am forever and eternally A TOYOTA/LEXUS MAN!
Happy New Year to all of the 69'ers.
Tim