Roll Call
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My neighbor's son is a pastor at a church in Marble Falls. I had a full rack of Mike's clothes that I donated to a community service organization that supplies recently released prisoners and others down on their luck to have a wardrobe for interviews. Some even still had the sales tags attached as they were things his Mom would send for birthdays and he never wore them. I felt that it was the best use and lo and behold one day after doing lab work in Marble Falls last fall I stopped at the local Blue Bonnet Cafe and saw a guy wearing one of his shirts. It could have been that the guy bought it at the store but I just knew it was one that I had donated. Now, most of his hunting gear I did try to sell at the local church garage sale and I couldn't believe that people would want to bicker over a brand new pair of insulated pants that still had the price tag on them would only offer $15 for a $85 a pair. I brought most of the items home. Rather, I gave them to his hunting buddies up in Kansas and Michigan, where they really needed the stuff. It was amazing to me how many people wanted to just be given things after he passed. His nephews drove down from Emporia one Memorial Day weekend a couple of years back with their truck and took home most of the tools and equipment that was just sitting in the She Shed. Cleared out about 6 cabinets worth of nail guns, saws, table saw, etc. They have a classic auto shop there in Emporia and Mike used to work there when their dad, Mike's sister's husband, operated it. They to this day don't ever forget to thank me when they use a tool they got and tell me how it helped in a restoration project. They got Mike's dad's 1973 El Camino and restored it. It's beautiful. Mike was supposed to get it after his dad passed but he never went to get it. We would always take it out for a ride when we went to his Mom's. I still have in the She Shed a 1973 Bronco (that he refitted into a rock crawler) and an original 1974 Bronco that is painted UT Orange. Everytime some guy sees them, they go gaga.
#RCJH GO KU
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That’s a nice story — seeing his shirt put to good use
And those Broncos sound awesome! Love that era. Although I could probably do without that shade of orange…ha.
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@rockchalkjayhawk I want to puke every time I see it. Funny story about it tho. Mike saw the 74 Bronco parked at a local building supply company and waited around for the owner to show up and when they didn't, he put a note on the car's windshield saying "If you ever want to sell it, give me a call." Couple of years later, he got the call and the guy had lost his wife and was doing down sizing and decided to sell it. We had so much fun running around in it and always got HORNS UP every time we were in it.
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@RockChalkinTexas-0 Sounds like "she shed" needs to be renamed "warehouse"! I'm very impressed by all the things you've done to keep Mike's spirit alive for yourself and the girls. So many legacies. Not many people do things for released prisoners who need so much help to start fresh.... When I go, all that will be left are a few dusty legal opinions no one will read. Well, that and a thousand plumbing, electrical, and drywall repairs in our series of fixer-uppers that no one will even notice...AND hundreds of posts here on Buckets, of course!
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@mayjay I call it my own Home Depot. The building is 40' x 60' and there is a section for each: electrical, paint, automotive, air gun nails and staples of every kind, along with a section for his woodworking stuff and 4 different shelves with 5 levels in each that he welded to hold all the lumber. It has a loft which houses all the parts he took off the 73 Bronco and cabinets he built all around it. Has a bathroom and an office. It still has way too much crap in it. He built a warehouse and office space for his friend's landscaping company and the leftover cedar stumps and columns he used to make a bench in his office and an L shaped desk in addition to the paneling and cabinets he built for the office. I know because after he passed, I went through everything to find out just what was in there. I didn't realize he had so much stuff in there. I put a $15K HVAC unit in there to keep the stuff from getting baked. He would open the big garage doors on 3 ends and do his work outside mostly. But I didn't want to have to have the doors open just to be in there, and I didn't want any snakes or other things getting in there, so to keep the stuff from turning to crap, I did that the year after he passed. It has been worth it.
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I found some pictures and scanned them. This is the 73 Bronco before and after:
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This is the UT 74 Bronco and still looks great. Both vehicles went into the shop when he finished and they haven't been outside since. He would start them periodically and run the engines, but sadly since he has been gone they have just sat there, but at least they aren't in the elements and they have been covered this whole time. The other picture is of the office he put inside the "shop" as he called it and shows his desk and cabinets he made. He put the shop up all by himself. Borrowed a crane from the guy down the road. He was a master craftsman.
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He shot that deer in Winchester, Kansas at our oldest friends' place.
This is the evolution of the She Shed:
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@RockChalkinTexas-0 Jeff county Kansas!
Absolutely do not click (new video sept 30 2025): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjs1LR1sarQ
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@RockChalkinTexas-0 Hey! I've been to the Bluebonnet Cafe 50 times! My dad lived in Marble Falls and Horseshoe Bay for many years!
America! Where you have the right to be wrong.
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@BShark Yup. When we lived in Leavenworth, our best friends bought 50 acres outside of Winchester off 134th Street and are still there. They have horses. It seemed like another world from Leavenworth in 1975 and lots of parties at the pond, fishing and his brother had another plot off of 92 by Springdale. Mike would go every winter to hunt with the two of them.
#RCJH GO KU
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@nuleafjhawk Bet you they still have the same menu that you last saw! They added on a back room. How 'bout them pies when you first come in!!! I go to do my lab work in Marble Falls just so I can eat there after.
#RCJH GO KU
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@RockChalkinTexas-0 We had quite a bit of excess land. But it became a burden more than anything. Paying taxes on it, and we were in a bad agreement with some farmers from before I was born. Sold it quite a ways back. Definitely took some losses in the 2008 recession but at the time safe stock plays seemed smart. In hindsight, would have been better to do anything else with the money.
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@RockChalkinTexas-0 LOL. The pies are fantastic. I love the vibe of the place, like going back in time - in a good way. It's probably been 15 years since I've been there
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Just getting back on the site after about a month. My excuse for my absence is like others... I lost my dad on May 3. At 91, he had plenty of good years and was probably more ready than the rest of us.
He complained of pain (more than normal) in March and April. My mom had a lot of tests lined up. But when he collapsed in his bathroom on April 22 they found his pelvis had a fracture that had been there for a while... and they found lots of lesions, which had weakened the bone. They accelerated the tests and found his skeleton riddled with metastases. Turned out to be advanced metastatic prostate cancer, which is what I was diagnosed with 10 years ago.
How, you ask, did my dad's rapidly rising PSA (7.7 in 2023 to 288, a few days before he died) go undetected?? Apparently his urologist decided it was ok to stop testing his PSA in 2023. By the time his cancer was discovered from the scans, he was dead before the biopsy results came back.
The moral of the story is: GUYS, get your PSA checked regularly and DON'T let a doctor talk you out of it. They are cheap. There is no good reason to not track PSA.
My cancer was not caught early because of a recommendation by the US Preventable Services Task Force ruling in 2012 advising against routine PSA screening for all men. The USPSTF significantly changed its prostate cancer screening guidelines in May 2018. Too late for me and many other men across this country. The harm is incalculable. Still, I've been fortunate to manage it for nearly 10 years with the amazing medical care at a Cancer Center of Excellence.
Rock Chalk!
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@bskeet I'm sorry about your dad! I'm glad you have yours under control. It seems we all have a lot going on. There are some nice KU fans on here that care about each other.
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@bskeet man thats a lot. Glad you shared, and Im sorry about your dad. I had no idea about any of that. It makes me marvel at the people i already admire online when I then realize all the other stuff they are dealing with.
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@bskeet Please know that we all on this board care enough for one another and have this board to share in the crazy, good times as well as the sad imes. You're in my thoughts.
