Happy Mother's Day

As promised, grist for Larry's humor mill.
My new '62 F100, 260 cid V8 (kicking out a blistering 130+ HP) with the classic Ford pick-up four-speed, three speeds and one gear you use every month or so, whenever you want to pull a stump.
Years ago, I had the unforgettable experience of pulling the identical transmission from my old '59 and it was a milk-strainin' ball-jammer. Probably on the order of 200#. Just the thing to bench press while you lay in the gravel with dirt falling in your eyes, especially in view of the 1/2" of congealed grease/mud all over it.
Good times...
By way of contrast, my '65 Chevy panel truck had a tranny that was so easy to handle, that the last of the three clutches (Yes, three. More about that later) I replaced was accomplished in an hour and forty-five minutes. The last thirty minutes was spent pricking around adjusting it.
As I recall, it only took three wrenches and a throwaway line-up tool.
The reason for three clutches is this:
When I bought it ($300), the seller told me that the engine, a 250 straight-six had originally come out of a Camaro - like that's a feature ("You mean this twenty-year-old Navy surplus, shore patrol truck that's held together largely by haze-gray paint has a Camaro engine! Bitchin'!").
The problem, I found out much later, was that the car version of the 250 used a smaller fly-wheel and so, less clutch.

I put 30,000 miles on it and it only stranded me once - and that was a broken belt.
Back to my new jewel, check out the Pakistani, taxicab eyebrows.
Okay, Larry's reader are starting to nod off.
Here's the short version: About seven years ago, I had a break-down (we're not talking vehicles now). No biggie, unmanageable anger, a trip to the emergency room, some tranquilizers and all was wonderful.
Found out, as a result of this, about the wonderful world of psychiatric meds. I went through a few different ones until I (and my Caring Professional) settled on what I eat now, Zoloft, Welbutrin and Trazadone.
The pills don't fix the entire thing, just gives me some space between feelings, impulses and such. I still act stupidly from time to time but nothing like the pre-med me.

One incident to illustrate the old love able me.: Driving out to a job one morning in my '72 F250 (I've got a thing for old shit-boxes) with a hippie-box on the back to store my tools, a zippy little rice-burner, so certain that my lumbering old ass was going to slow him down, passed me, in an intersection, crossing two sets of double yellow lines.
So I stayed six feet off his bumper at 80mph for fifteen miles or so. I showed him slow.
This is why, even though I love guns and am obviously obsessed with weapons, I won't carry a gun (minus a specific threat - have yet to have one, a threat that is. One of the bennies of an anxiety disorder is good risk assesment skills).
Anyway, what I've figured out is that I have a constant edge of anxiety that's like an electrical current - kind of like a never-ending fight-or-flight mechanism.
The stress that builds up from this has to ground out somehow. Way back when I was a little kid I unconsciously hit on anger as a method. It's a nice strong emotion - very cathartic.

Of course, I never realized until very recently what was happening. All I knew was that I became a raving, screaming asshole every now and then.
Larry, George, you've been the undeserving recipients of a very watered-down version of my aforementioned road rage.
The good news is, that once I get a solid handle on what's going on, I stop so you can both count on much more gentlemanly behavior from yours truly.
This is a tedious topic.
Knife pic above: I reworked my Kuk.
I made the original, based on a WW1 knife, issued to a regiment raised by the Maharajah of Jodhpur.
I didn't know at the time that a Kukri can be had for very little money, a real one, made by Gurkhas.
So, no one took the bait, it's mine by default but the circa 1916, Asian sub-continent sized handle had to go.
The other is my latest faux "Theater V44". This one is drifting dangerously close to being an art knife.
The handle scales were a sudden brain-wave. I cut a piece of bird's eye maple into slices. I glued two of them at a time to a piece of leather with the waney edges inboard and a space between them.
That space was then filled with black epoxy.
Voila.
An earlier V44 comes next.
It's sold and I'm sad to see it leave.
My first attempt using the WW2 vintage, "high-tech" Plexiglas spacers.

I've babbled long enough. I've cards to scan to send to the Grandma.