Memorial Day Outtake: 1970s Orange and Yellow in the Same Lot, and How We (mis)Spent Our Sunday

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– Posted on May 28, 2018

I hope all of you Americans are having a pleasant, safe and relaxing Memorial Day Weekend. We haven’t. I’ll explain at the bottom.

In the meantime, here’s a couple of bright and boldly colored survivors from the 70s in the same parking lot downtown. The orange Maverick caught my eye first, but when I stood to shoot it, I realized there was another brightly colored 70s survivor in the background.

 

Wearing its full complement of battering rams, this Maverick is from 1974 or later. It lasted through 1977, after which the drastically different Fairmont replaced it. Yes, that was quite the contrast, jumping from 70s wide lapels and bright flared pants to a trim European outfit.

You know which I preferred, by a wide margin. And that goes for the interior. But the Maverick got the job done, if not exactly in a very joy-inducing way.

The four door arrived for 1971, with an extended 109.9″ wheelbase. The fact that the Granada also had a 109.9″ wheelbase was pure coincidence. Ok; by now you know I’m not always to be taken at face value. FWIW, although the Granada did share the maverick’s wheelbase, it used a wider version of the Falcon Platform chassis and body.

There’s not exactly an abundance of these still driving folks to work downtown anymore, so this brought a shiver of joy to my Maverick-adverse heart. Scarcity will do that. I spent way too much time in these at Towson Ford in 1970-1971, so it’s taken a while to get to thta point. Especially when it’s orange.

 

Let’s go check out the little yellow 914 over there. What’s rather remarkable about it is that like the Maverick, it to is just an old, original car from the mid 70s, and also still hauling someone to work. it may not be in the same league as Vic Cecie’s 914, which took him out West recently before its unfortunate run-in with a goose. And which has been lovingly upgraded over its many decades of ownership.

 

Actually, this one isn’t exactly just stock either, by the looks of that upholstery and the dash pad.

 

They do stand out in a sea of white and dark colored cars, and under our gray May skies.

On Saturday night, we headed out to the Mt. Pisgah area for our daily evening walk. Standing here on the end of this spit meditating on the various ripple patterns was an effective antidote to another stressful recurring family event that happened that afternoon but I won’t go into here. Let’s just say it involved antidotes too. And that we’ve come to use this spot and technique quite a lot the past few years.

After the view and ripples had done their job once again, we headed up the abandoned road in this nature preserve along these side branches of the Willamette River. As is the custom way out here, Little Man was let off the leash. And I had just finished remarking how much more settled down he is given that he’s now Middle Aged Man. Suddenly he heard or saw something in the underbrush and woods off to our left, and gave chase. The terrier in him had kicked in, and there was no calling him back. We heard and saw him for a while, and then suddenly no more movement or sound.

We were some 100 feet above the river below, and the drop off was extremely steep, with cliffs part way down. There was no way I was going to risk my life or limb for a dog in this dangerous Poison Oak overgrown terrain with darkness approaching.

We came back in the morning, wearing clothes more appropriate for the job. I finally found where he was by following the river bank through terrible undergrowth, crawling at times and getting soaked in the water, thanks to his crying. He was stuck up on a cliff edge some 15-20′ above me. There was absolutely no way for me to get up it. And even if I could, what was I to do? And getting down to that spot from the road was impossible too; too seep and overgrown.

So we drove home, changed out of my soaked and Poison Oaked clothes, and called the Sheriff Department. Initially I was told that the Search and Rescue team only does humans, not dogs. But it turns out they were obligated to do so on days when the animal shelter and its volunteers are closed.

A deputy trained in rescue and a volunteer showed up, and I led them to the spot. I went down to the bottom again, and when i got there, the deputy had already rappelled down to the ledge and found Lil’ Man, who had obviously fallen down the bank and fortunately stopped on the ledge before falling down the cliff.

Here’s a crop of the shot of the deputy rigging up an improvised harness in order to lower him down to me. At this point we didn’t know if he was hurt or not; if he had been, they would have had to get their boat to pick him up at the river bank.

But after we got him out of his harness, he stood up and was quite eager to walk out of there, if a bit delicately and slowly.

Here’s the rescuers and bad doggie after we got back to the parking lot.

Jason did a superb job, and Lil’ Man has lost off-leash privelages. It looks like he knows that already.

He and I are both thoroughly worn out; I did more bushwhacking and climbing than I’m used to, my legs, arms and face are scratched up, and I will undoubtedly have a florid eruption of Poison Oak rash starting tomorrow, unless my vigorous washing with Tecnu worked better than I’m expecting it to. Apparently LM didn’t enjoy his night out under the stars on that cliff ledge very much.

Hopefully your Sunday was a bit less eventful. That’s the plan for today.