I knew it. One of the places that the offspring and I stopped at (before Kung Fu Tea) was the legendary S&H Hardware. The last of the they have everything neighborhood hardware stores.... As we were driving-by, I saw the owner, outside, haggling with customers over prices with the 20-or-so shiny new Toro™ snowblowers of varying sizes, that they had lined-up out front, like a new car dealership.. So... I stopped-in. Did I need a shiny new Toro™ snowblower? No. Ok, yes, and no. I have a near 20 year old NOMA 2-stroke snowblower that has earned its keep MANY times over in the past decade++. Its first heroic efforts were in the blizzard of 96, where it was tested well past its labeled capacity of 1800lbs/min. I fired it up, the morning after the blizzard, and it ran hard for 13+ hours straight, as me and an army of 6 or 7 neighbors, with shovels , dug out the 4 + foot deep snowdrift that was about 100 feet wide at the end of our block. I was mixing oil/gas and filling on the run. I nearly did-in the belt on its first use! It was shredded, but it kept going! That was 2 belts, and a new Tecumseh carburetor ago... Almost 2 decades later, shes pretty tired . The bearings are loose. The auger is worn, and Ive had to weld a few places on the handle, where the metal has fatigued... ...but even so, a 2-second spray of starting fluid, and 2-3 pulls on the cable, and the 3hp Orbital 2 stroke motor roars to life and moves a helluva lot more snow than one could ever shovel by hand. I work her much more gently than I used to, and. She can still get the job done. So..why was I looking at a new one? Because I know nothing lasts forever . So I hop out of the car and proceed to haggle. Dudes not bending much. I follow him into the busy store, and while he is telling another customer that he is the son of the original owner, I remind him that I used to work with MY uncle, in hardware wholesale, and that I remember his dad. Conversely, he remembers my uncle. Additionally, he kinda remembers me (from back in the 70s & early 80s). He also knows I shop there all the time. Suddenly, he decides to make a sale. Pretty good deal, too. He also makes sure to assemble , service, add oil, gas and test every machine. Sold. We waited. They brought out my shiny new machine.... one single pull, and she fired right up. After all... its a Toro. We loaded her up. At that very moment I KNEW it would NOT snow enough, to even use the machine, today. Youre welcome.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 13:07:03 +0000
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