going to take a turn

Margie Sounds Good

margie was the name this guy who owned it called this one. imagine this with pink and you have grandpas color. some called it a beige , but to me it looked pink 

      I never knew what her name was but it seemed to describe the old truck very well, it was a 1962 c-10 Chevrolet pickup that my grandpa made his pride and joy, and it was me and my cousin that slammed it against a tree in the woods on a lane as we were speeding around a corner. I kinda slid off the edge from going a little fast and snagged the side right in front of the rear fender well and it bounced off the tire slamming us out into the road. Neither of us were hurt, but the truck finally disappeared after that , grandpa had a new one and he was afraid my cousin and I were going to get hurt in it running around the farm so it had to go. Where the fender was slammed and dented in was on par with the rear tailgate which also had its share of dents some so bad that it made closing the tailgate a real chore by this time of its long life. I could remember getting the truck when it was brand new and grandpa kept it nice for quite a while.

     It had one of those slide in campers I have been thinking about building lately. The ones where you could climb up into the bed overlooking the top of the pickup roof and we would ride up there as he travelled down the road. The truck was pink as grandma was into the art deco stuff of the time and the camper was white. I don’t think grandpa could have a gave a crap what color it was back then as long as it wasn’t yellow. He hated yellow. Myself I can’t think of any color I hate, and although they don’t classify black as a color but instead a shade, it being my least favorite color but even though,  it still has its purpose in life. Grandpa was a large man much like myself and would never think of letting anyone think he was a sissy for having a factory painted pink truck. In fact I tried to find a pic of original factory pink color from that time on the internet and there was none. We should have kept the old girl, she was worth a mint, maybe not then but today on the market I am sure you could have asked just about any price.

      It was in this pickup with the camper and spare tire rack in front of the hood hanging off the bumper for easy access in the front, that I caught my first fish while out camping in the camper, at a creek on a cane pole in the overflow below the Clendenning Dam when I was seven. It was the biggest one caught and we brought it back and played with it till it died. I was kind of sad I remember at the time, but didn’t understand fish very well in fact I was still pretty naïve about life at the time. It was a big event to get away and yet it seems like only yesterday I was there. I drove past where that overflow was with a friend last summer and it flooded my mind with memories as we were in seventh heaven camping out with grandpa and grandma  in their pickup and camper, we felt like we were rich even if we were not.

      Grandpa also used the truck to gather hay bales and one could hardly guess how many bales of hay he would have put on it or for that matter how many tons of sand it had hauled over the years on that old truck. Its little six cylinder engine was still purring when grandpa traded it up for an 8 cylinder Chevy c-10 in 1972. 10 years the truck worked and played with us, and in the meantime I had a lot of memories riding around with grandpa. We would go get lumber and grandpa would record all his purchases on tiny notebooks accounting for every penny we would spend except for our trip to Mc Donald’s after loading the lumber. We would stop at Mc Donald’s and I would have a cheeseburger and fries and grandpa would get the same, and we would sit and he would fudge in his notebook while he ate his sandwich and drank a milkshake and the whole thing would cost maybe 2 dollars and 50 cents at the time.

     The reason he would fudge his notebook was because grandma would want to know what all he spent money on and why he was buying food at fast food places as this was nonsense when he could have had the same thing at home for a lot less. Of course as soon as we finished eating he would say to me you know we got to keep this a secret and he would look at me and wink , we can’t tell nobody not even grandma , if she finds out neither of us will be going anywhere. I would nod yes and as soon as I was home my brothers and sister would wonder what and where were we up to and soon I had to tell. Then everyone would get mad. Grandpa would swear he was never going to take me again but he always did and he would always sit there and record it in his notebook. Then make me promise to not tell like the last time.

    Grandpa cherished his pickup till he was stuck or backing up, and in both cases watch out as grandpa was quite dangerous in both. For some reason he had a hard time trying to turn his head to look behind himself when backing up. Mostly when he was by himself that he would back up until he hit something, then slam on his brakes and cuss under his breath. Trying to see through mirrors was useless and usually ended up the same way with him backing till he hit something. In fact the old Chevy was so tough that the tailgate back then which was usually down was a tale of his bouncing off things with dents almost four inches deep in places where undoubtedly he must have been travelling fast to dent that tough old metal that deep. We would ride up into the woods with our feet dangling over the edge of the tailgate till he was going to backup and everyone knew to pick up your feet or lose your legs . Grandpa meant well but just couldn’t see to back up till he felt the old truck shutter from a violent and abrupt halt then he knew he was back far enough as the dust would fly from uncertain places in the cab with  a fog so thick of loose dust would be so bad he would have to roll down the window and yell close enough as a cloud would erupt out the window. We would yell well enough in return to him, if not he would try again.

     It was in much the same way he did when my dad offered to open the gate to the barn while grandpa did his best stock car imitation, while Jim, my brother and I would sit over the wheel wells for added weight and traction in the bed of the truck as he sped through the pasture field, all the while sliding this way and that on the soft slimy mud sometimes sideways scattering mud towards the barn and Jim and I would hold on to the fender tight. The rear of the pickup fishtailed for the barn and grandpa let up on the gas, and then it slid the other way as we passed through the gate and as we did we looked back at dad holding the gate open and as it started to spin and lose traction as grandpa goosed the accelerator and the wheels were spinning as the truck was still moving and it went up over a metal post laying on the ground we had not seen. It picked that post up from the tire spinning over it and shot the post right out behind the truck straight into dads chest almost fifteen feet away just like a six foot long steel spear, and hit him almost knocking him to the ground. We could see the whole thing from the back of the pickup and we yelled for grandpa to stop, but he too must have seen it somehow or heard us yelling as he braked the old 62 to a stop and we all ran back to see how he was doing. Dad ended up in the hospital with a collapsed and punctured lung then pneumonia afterward. Yeah the old 62 brings back memories.

    When I said it had a pink paint job , well that was when it was new because after years of grandpa chewing tobacco and spitting his drool out the window where it would streak and stain the side of the pickup all the way to the tire in the same area where I had slammed it into the tree. In fact when me and my cousin were out surveying the damage we had thought of stealing some Mail Pouch chewing tobacco and spitting it all over the side of the truck so he wouldn’t notice. The stain was part of the reason he was able to get a new pickup, as grandma I think couldn’t bear to see herself climbing into that pickup and riding anywhere with him anymore with that tobacco stain down the side. She wouldn’t let him chew tobacco in the new 72 Chevy but that was also the year he had his teeth pulled and was going to get dentures but died after a sudden illness. We all figured that giving up the chewing tobacco was too much for him to take.

   

what i would like to have, this is sweet and i am not a chevy fan. but this caught my eye

    Have been thinking lately of those times and have been toying with the idea of building my own slide in camper, taking the truck camper and a small trailer out to do  carving shows in other areas where I could pull in and set up and carve a couple of days make a few bucks, or possibly heading to a river someplace and just sleep my time away in that bunk over the roof of my old pickup. I don’t have a 62 Chevy but do have my dad’s old 89 Ford 150 which is from Roswell, New Mexico and is still running good. Want to repaint it and build a camper all out of wood with metal roof. Would like it to reflect my carving lifestyle so would probably adorn it with carvings making the whole thing mine. Just need to work out the shower issue in my head and who knows may still be able to get this together sometime soon. It is kind of low on the list with the cabin taking priority first. Work before play. Anyhow was looking through Facebook and saw this pic of an old Chevy and thought about our old one and all the memories from those days. Not all good, not all bad, just memories still.

     

managed to carve some today

12-28 2014

No Sense Waiting For the First.

greenie and momma duck(brown one) and a couple of  their babies 

 the whole crew in a poorly focused shot taken today

          This is going to be a chronology of events and will follow along my efforts to remodel myself into a new home. The home as it exists will in some ways still be there but I intend to make my accommodations more comfortable. I made up my mind shortly after being busted for the pot charge that I needed to make changes in my life and start taking care of me. The world will always have problems and I am not the one to fix them all and hardly qualified when I find it hard to take care of myself, physically and mentally at times. I went to Dundee falls to sort out a few things in my life and the end result was a major change in me making myself and my welfare a number one priority. Partially because of what happened to me, but more because it stirred something inside me to change my priorities and think more of myself.

 trees to clean up yet

       By now you are asking yourself what the hell the psycho farmer is taking about. He lives alone and has only himself and his dog and all this shit available to him why doesn’t he think of himself more. No one around to stop him or throw accusations at him, he is in the driver’s seat. I guess for me it has been that I am reluctant to do anything because deep down I would have liked to have made this journey with someone in my life. I can’t seem to find the right person. I know she is out there and would have loved to have had input on what I am about to do. I would have loved to have had a woman here to help me. Guess it was never meant to be and I am wasting time worrying myself about what will or may never be. In the meantime I need to take care of myself better.

     I have also been reluctant to invest to much in this house or abortion as I call it, it could be referred to as a cross or hybrid house trailer combo, or a Houser as I will now refer to it. My brothers are not from that breed of trailer trash wannabe’s but somehow two of them have seen that trailers are a quick easy solution to a living arrangement. In the progress of things, I have eventually ended up in the aftermath of their efforts over time. I have spent hours remodeling and improving on their Houser’s or what they have left me only to come to the conclusion it is still a trailer. Plain and simple cold in the winter with a crawl space underneath that disgusts me to no end to have been under to do anything. I can’t stand spider webs in my hair and face, and snakes and wet damp ground. Also there is usually no room to move when you are as big as I am. Anyhow any reluctance to build could surely be overcome with the satisfaction and knowledge I am in control of what I’m going to build and I need to make those changes to the design to make sure I never have to worry about crawling under a trailer again for any reason.

some of the wood i have harvested so far

      I was also torn about making a decision as to how and what to build. Lately I have been spending a considerable amount of time trying to come up with something unique and yet of the country heritage a log cabin offers. At touch of new mixed with old, still have not thought about all the design parameters as to make it senior proof. Who knows what lies in store with our lives and I want it to be simple and yet something everyone would want to spend time in. I think instead of two bedrooms, one for company, one for myself, I intend to make me a guest cottage that will be included in my plans.

     Again one reason I was reluctant to do much in terms of building or remodeling was that we are in the process of establishing the farm in a trust. I am not really sure how it will all end. All I know is I will have a place to live the rest of my life. This also includes our other farm in Tuscarwas County. Currently I have other brothers and sisters living and utilizing housing there. As well my sister lives in the main house here on the farm currently. t is kind of hard to invest in something you will never completely own but in essence  I have been doing that for years as I have spent countless hours for which I will never be paid working and taking care of our family’s interests and preserving it thus far. It is hard to just walk away and do something else, especially at my age

more logs to be skinned

.

greenhouse this time of year. 

    So I hope you can see it has been a conflagration of events, a literal firestorm of impending life courses that have drawn me to this point in my life where I have to just let everything be. If this is my destiny then I need to make this mine where I am now. No one else in the family is clamoring to get it, and I have been planted here , I just need to repot and let my roots grow and make this place as well my  mom’s house and this farm a showplace where what we do in terms of landscaping and home improvement becomes who we really are. My main goal is to leave the place a lot better than when we found it. It will also serve as our grandparents and parents have always desired a place to fall back on in hard times.

     In regards to that, just the other day someone asked to go deer hunting and I had to refuse. We have coyotes and deer here in this area and from what I have seen and heard from hunters I would say our wildlife is somewhat in check or balanced as it must have been a hundred years ago before man. The coyotes are eating the young deer and limiting the deer population. The coyotes are around us everywhere and yet we never see them and only hear of them as they bay their presence at us over a shrill sound or the call of the night. I like the idea of having wild life here if we ever should need it to survive to me is priceless. To be able to go out your door and bring food to the table if necessary is something everyone should have.

carving i am working on

    We have never saw the hard times of depression or never had enough to eat, but what if we should need to eat. Is it worth someone filling their freezer now just because they like to hunt our deer?  Isn’t it worth letting nature win for now so I can assure it may be there later? Our family has a history of getting by and doing with less. Oh the miracles we have performed with almost nothing. Given that we utilize all we have then the possibilities may be endless. That is what I intend to do with what we have here on the farm look at what we have and make the best out of it. Bloom where I am planted. It is my hope that everyone can do this in your life. Make the most of any situation you may find yourself in. if you are sitting in a pile of shit let the warmth surround you and then plant some seeds , get up and move one . We all have those days. Think yourself out of that box.

     Well it is my intention to do that as I take you the reader on my venture of building myself a better way of life with what I have available to me.

my loan goosey 

     I started out not knowing what to write and mainly to tell you I had the chance to take another load of salvaged limbs off the downed black walnut to my storage area to be processed more later. The brush I am placing around  the perimeter of the farm to prevent people from trespassing, trying to give them a natural fence excluding them from entry by only one way,  and that would be from the lane coming into our property. Well I need to get moving and I may not post every day but will try and do my best. If interested in helping me with my quest. Email me and lets see if we can work something out.  Would enjoy the company. 

trying to set myself up better

A Change of Pace

now why would i want to get rid of this? 

      Well coming up on the New Year and reflecting on the old has recently had me thinking of what is best for myself. How can I most benefit myself in the future when I am not able to do half of what I am doing now? How do I want to live and where? Pretty much the where is all figured out since I really hate moving.  So it is the how I am more concerned with. Am I going to stay in my piece of shit trailer, it isn’t that bad and keeps the rain out most of the time, or am I going to replace it with something else? If I am I need to devote all my effort into building something else, but what?

     I have talked this over with a bunch of friends and most came to the same conclusion , you are getting old and feeble , when this happened I don’t know but apparently it is quite obvious as it seems to be the trumpet call of my queries. They say you need to prepare yourself for that day when you can’t do anything but sit and look. Well I hope that day never come but still I have seen some old folk forced out of their home mainly because they were not able to negotiate stairs, or family and friends were afraid of them falling. Well hopefully i can avoid those pitfalls by designing the perfect senior place.

     Well if I did nothing at all the trailer wouldn’t be very senior friendly. It already has a roof leak and yes I can fix it, but usually once a trailer roof starts leaking it is going to leak forever, also some times by the time you realize you have a leak there is already roof rot going on and structural problems as they are made cheap. The roofs are flat for the most part and you could cover them with another roof as the central section already has, but still it is just a trailer under a roof. Not the kind of place I want to live in the rest of my life as it is dreary and architecturally unappealing when I know I can build a better house. All the time and effort that would go into building on this piece of shit, would better be spent building the ultimate senior house.

entrance 

       I have no desire to move elsewhere unless it is beside a lake or river and build something or to just have a cabin to visit in summer as a getaway . Regardless I plan on making hay, doing the greenhouse thing, and carving as long as I can here on the farm. I am also a big fan of the view out my windows and need to take advantage of those more. As far as I know our family intends to keep this property in perpetuity as long as possible and for sure as long as us kids are survivors and in need of a place to live. We have taken steps to assure these properties will be preserved, and it is in my interest to have a place to live where I have my freedom and can live cheaply, as well be able to provide even a part of my food as needed  or at least have that advantage afforded to me. I would like also to have the privacy I need to maintain myself for psychological reason. It drives me crazy to live where people are coming and going in your life constantly. Some people thrive on it , I don’t. I think it tends to lead to ignorance as you assume all is well with a person as you never have time to interact due to the commotion of life. People have been known to lay dead in the street for hours until someone comes along and cares enough to check to see if they are ok. We ignore our fellow man and build walls emotionally to even be concerned as to the health of others as long as we are ok, then everything is fine. I think rather than be ignored in public I would much rather make sure I do it in private if it is to be done at all, so the further away from mankind the better. Doing this alone will put you back in touch with nature which isn't all bad.

side view

       For me considering all my options, I am single elderly now that I have reached the ripe old age of 59, I am handicapped, meaning I have a back injury that prevents me from doing some things, and making tasks normal for some folks getting increasingly harder for me to do. Also I have available to me , here on the property , enough materials to build me a house for free if I really wanted to. as well  I have the place to do it as I intend to replace the existing structure with a rebuild on the same foot print where it already exists. And in the long run should it ever be necessary that we would need to sell the property then it would increase the resale value of the property compared to what it is today.

     I just know I need to take care of my future and myself presently in a much better way than I have to this date. My time to be able to make major changes as this are limited and I have no intention of letting time slip by on frivolous other tasks less important to my welfare than this. This has to be my primary goal or objective for the next 2 years. I hope to have something completed in less but at the minimum you need a t least 1 year from time logs are cut till a person should live in a cabin. Grandma told of a family that moved into a log cabin back in Monroe county and all came down with pneumonia that killed all the kids, two I believe and the wife, and he was sick for a while as medicine in those days was mostly home cures. You know like, make a poultice out of road apples and apply to your chest every hour. The moisture from the logs wicked into the inside cabin air and was ever present in the cabin, and with it all closed for winter, made fresh air less available, so this moisture contributed to the pneumonia problems as grandma suggested or heard.  

      Aesthetics is a major concern as I try to improve the overall look of the property and incorporate landscaping and overall simplicity of construction into a visually appealing home that is not only good to look and  is earth friendly , but is also good to look from at sites here on our property I enjoy looking out my window at now. Of these most notably would be he activity at the ponds I built years back. I have a tractor available with a bucket to raise timbers as opposed to lifting. It is a replacement for my back and though it takes time to do stuff with it , it is far safer doing it with the tractor and thinking the project out in those terms of utilizing what I have available to me now in terms of resources and materials need to complete a new house. I also have a dump truck available to haul materials I need in quantity like gravel for concrete, as well I own a mixer for making the concrete. I have most of what I need available to me now and intend to take advantage of all my resources when I design this perfect house.

     This would create a perfect storm for most the most imaginative part of my soul as I intend to use my talents in carving to add personal touches to the structure I build to make it mine and memorable to all who would want to visit and view carvings of wood displayed as I think they should be as I incorporate the carvings into my overall structure. This is why I am having a moratorium on my carving and will refuse to accept any requests for a carving from anyone else except what I need and desire to furnish my own house.  I also plan on writing as I proceed in the design process and provide pictures to document my building process on my blog as I go along.  And since I am single and if I die single then everyone can have an auction of my carvings after I am gone and have a big party as they scatter my ashes here on the farm as I prepare to take my next journey into the afterworld.

the view i want to capitalize on minus the screener , it has to go this year. either i get it working or get rid of it .  notice the downed trees above the spring. 

young love?

 Some See a Weed, Some See a Wish

I See a Magic Stick

       I kind of had eyes for a girl who was riding my bus back when I was about 16. Yes folks I wasn’t allowed to have my license till I was 18 years old, as it was clearly Mom’s rule that none of us would have our license till we were 18. She had messed around and was hauling half of East Sparta around and using the family car as community vehicle eliciting an enormous amount of popularity among her classmates that had even fewer cars during the post-World War 2 times. My Grandpa’s and Grandmas car at one time or another had hauled the south side of Canton around that time and Mom was going to make sure we didn’t follow her slide to immorality of being the one in control of transportation in a car less community. Cars were tanks on wheels back then and mom had a key to the gas tank here on the farm, and made sure she knew how to use it in case someone around would need a ride.

      She was not going to let us go that way so I was forced to ride in a school bus till I was 18 years old until mom sensing a need for me to have my license was finally allowed to take Drivers Ed , and have my license in my senior year,  even then mom was reluctant. So day after day I would run for the bus as I was always late, down our long lane and just jump on in time as he rolled away barely able to find a seat as the bus would lurch forward propelling me to the rear of the bus as the momentum increased, then I would find an empty seat as I slam myself down  and ride in silence , as most of my friends rode in other friends cars at that time, and I was too far out of the way to come pick up.

       After school and as we were waiting for the buses to show up after their first round of dropping off elementary kids , we would maul around and talk with other students in classes usually below us as Susie was . I had noticed Susie and she was quite good looking at the time and although I was shy I did manage to finally strike up a conversation with her as I had noticed her watching me, giving me the eye. You know the one. Where you look at them and suddenly they look away and then their eyes dart back to you and you look away shyly. Well after doing this for like a couple of months and being pressured by summer vacation I felt it was my duty one ay to try and break the ice after learning a clever maneuver guaranteed to fetch a woman’s heart , or piss her off badly. I think I managed both with Susie.

    I said to her about how lovely the dandelions looked.

    She looked at me incredulously thinking like just what is this big oaf trying to impress me with his sensitivity towards nature to show her what a well-rounded learned individual I was  . Surely this can’t be passed and so Susie looked at me with her cute young smile and leaned towards me and said shyly.” You don’t say!”

     And I returned quite quickly with “Yes I do, I went on with did you know that  when a dandelion goes to seed , and that is not the yellow flower, but instead the seed head and I reached down and grabbed a seed head up to show her , and I went further and holding the dandelion up close to my eyes and pinched off a couple of the white flowery seeds from the fluffy white head, and continued explaining how if you take a pinch of seeds and place them anywhere on her body, that I can find it with the rest of the seed head as the dandelion has magical ,powers not normally known to man. Anyhow it already had the power to tell if you like butter by simply holding a dandelion blossom under your chin and if it glows yellow then you like butter. So would it be such a far reach that the blossom head could find a pinch of seeds anywhere on her body. And I was willing and ready to show her.

     Well she contemplated the idea for about a second and was curious enough to play along and somewhat excited about the idea of me running a fluffy dandelion around her young body. I told her to hide it as I offered her a pinch and I turned around and hid my face to assure her I was legit. I could hear her say, “Oh no, not there,” maybe once or twice as if she was really thinking about it or just toying with me. Finally I turned around and Susie had a smile from ear to ear, saying I would never find it. I thought, maybe I won’t but at least I will have fun. A far cry from what I would normally do at the bus stop like melt in the sun. Anyhow I started up by her face and said it’s getting warm, and I moved lower down her body and around with a getting warmer and colder here and there as I would venture around shaking my now limp dandelion head as my sweaty hands shook from the excitement of being this close to someone I had really liked. She too, had reservations about letting me wander around with my limp dandelion head sniffing out her nervousness as eventually after scouring her body and not coming up with anything I returned to the area around the bottom of her neck just brushing the head under her chin, making her jump a bit but she allowed me to continue as I said hot, hot, wow this thing is getting hot, shaking the head a little bit to dramatize the event. I told her to open up mouth as I shook it by her mouth indicating she may have it tucked away in her mouth and reluctantly she opened her mouth to prove it wasn’t there and as she did I shoved the dandelion head into her mouth making her gag on the seeds and she started laughing and coughing knowing she had been had. I laughed so hard and then helped her look for seeds she was still spitting up and gagging on, then letting her know drool was running down her chin. I guess the random acts of kindness after making a fool out of her impressed her and soon we were going with each other, just like that.

    Susie and I exchanged phone numbers and a time we would call each other. I never realized how simple it was to become involved in a relationship of boyfriend- girlfriend basis. I didn’t have to kiss her or anything else just give her my class ring. The largest ever sold at sandy valley as far as I know. A massive gold nugget in size 14, which probably took an ounce of white gold and twelve elven Dutchmen a year to engrave as it was so huge. I placed it on her hand and she tried it on and could actually put 2 fingers in the same ring hole as mine. It was that big. She took it home and wasted half a spool of angora and eventually decided there weren’t enough rabbits alive to ever get it to fit so she hung it around her neck. We talked nervously on the phone as the phone slipped nervously out of sweaty hands twice that night as I tried to be cool on the phone that night.  But then she broke up with me the very next day. She claimed the ring was giving her a neck ache and was making her bend over from the weight. She didn’t know if she could stand up to the load, besides everything was moving to quick. Susie was my first and soon she was quickest relationship I have ever been in. I missed her but not a lot as when I looked back on the memories there were only a few, and mostly of me taking advantage of her. When I think back I still have to chuckle when I think of the story.

     I was kind of devastated, maybe it was because I was unproven, a virgin when it came to relationships. Not knowing what went wrong or right as it was all over way to quick and not even a kiss let alone anything else. Much simpler times back then I must say.  Well many have come and many have gone and still I think it was possibly the simplest one I had ever been in. By chance years later I had the opportunity to run into Susie at a farm store of all places when she was with a friend shopping. Purely by accident and I never recognized her and it was only through conversation we had come to the conclusion we knew each other. She was married and living almost 80 miles way and over 30 years had been passed through our lives to achieve this chance encounter. I was so glad she was able to recuperate so well after our relationship and move on with her life. It was a good thing we were not together still as with the frontage she owned by then along with the weight of the ring she would have had road burns on her nose.

      I eventually had the ring stolen and of course my first woman was gone , married and moved on. A fitting end to both. Guess it was never meant to be.

blame the guy in the photo

A Couple of Days off From Writing

all spit and polished ready to go to the ball with a lovely lady in waiting on my class reunion day2014

        I am at 27000 plus hits on my blog and have over 500 pages I have wrote that if they were full size would be about equivalent to the novel ‘War and Peace’ of which I started years ago and found way to dry a reading after a while, and have since refused to pick it up again, this is just my opinion. If you have read it then kudos to you as you are one in a million who have attempted and succeeded and probably couldn’t tell me what it was about today. Most people read to enjoy what the writer has written and in my opinion again, if I am not able to catch your interest in the first paragraph then the chances of you completing everything I write are slim.

       Not that everything I write is worth finishing or appealing to the masses. And sometimes it may only appeal to me as a writer trying to be understood. I try to write on subjects I feel you as a reader would be interested in, although you may not have experience in those areas, surely I hope you may glean just one thing from it. Writing every day in my blog is an exercise to me as I try and streamline stories I have to tell in a format that inspires other stories from me or will illicit similar stories or parallels from you the reader can relate to, of similar situations that have occurred in your life.

     Life moves on was selected as the name of my blog after careful consideration and some web searching that encouraged me to utilize the well-known phrase as the broad forever forgiving banner I post my stories under. Just like the banner, everyday my life does go on, having celebrated my fifty ninth birthday yesterday and I took some time over the past couple of days after finishing a series of blogs on my personal happenings around the issue of abortion that occurred in my life. Regrets, I have plenty but regrets in life are like words used in anger, often misunderstood, full of passion yet worthless when you still have to live your life. To the contrary they are full of lessons to be learned by someone, though not me, and only as long as I can relate my experiences to someone else as I am too old to worry about the issue anymore. I have slipped over the threshold where it is of no concern to me or the kids I never had. At this point I am just relating what happened to me, to maybe help someone else someday. Or better help those who know me personally to understand my flaws, and understand flaws in themselves, and that no one is perfect, no matter how high you hold them in esteem.

      I think it is part of a writer’s duty to express those flaws in terms the reader understands and can relate to. If everyone had a perfect life than how boring books would be. I can imagine the smell of hazelnut in a cup of coffee, but till you drink of the bittersweet taste do you realize a fondness, or a rejection of the taste. I have never been fond of it while others doctor their coffee with hazelnut and sugar so much that one can hardly taste the coffee. This analogy refers to the senses I invoked while describing the coffee as either being with, or without hazelnut, and I am sure most if not all people have tried hazelnut at one point or another. Some people love it because it is cool and will have it no other way. Some truly love the taste; I truly despise the taste as well a majority of Americans can also do without it as opposed to those who have to have it in one form or another. This is a weak example of reality and relating to the reader. If the character you are describing drinks hazelnut extract in his coffee, then one might find that person to be a little trendy and not typical as compared to your normal coffee drinker. It might be in character to describe him or her that way based on what your character is like, and actually enhance the reader’s view of that person or totally disregard them on that basis. Experience of the author has a direct impact on your writing. You need to live the stories you tell to some degree.

     I need to be descriptive and offer insight into the personal side of life. Have I lived my life enough to be a writer? That is a question a lot of writers have to face at one time or another. You either read and copy, or live and tell in order to write successfully. You have to research if you really don’t know anything about what you are writing about. Gut feelings are nice but are hogwash in a learned person’s hands. I wonder in amazement at young people who have never lived much of a life, are becoming writers when they hardly know what they are talking about. How can you speak freely of the sacrifice of a farmer when you have lived in a city all your life?

     To me, I think writing is a learned process I am finding as I go along. I write from my heart and mind relating experiences, and inventing as I go along in a hopefully cohesive planned manner to ultimately come to a conclusion. Tough job even for a professional, let alone an amateur like me. I have written enough now that I find myself missing it as if the world needs to know what all is going on inside my head. To me that is a scary thought, but most of the time what is going on with me is also what is going on with you. It is just that I have the time and opportunity to talk about. A friend of mine whose opinion I cherish greatly once told me that writing is cheaper than therapy, and I really believe that is so and suggest that anyone who thinks they have a story to tell,  should try and tell it as it is good for the soul to unload now and then. You never know who is listening and how it may affect their life if the story hits home.

     I am just reflecting over my past year of writing, of which I am now finding time to finally go back and critique myself as I view my old blogs and try to understand where my mind was at the time. It is interesting to see how my writing style has changed to some degree as well, I think my overall structure and a continuing need to be brief and summarize to avoid not being read is important in blog writing to be interesting enough to hold the readers attention. I mean if all I do is fill a blank space then what am I accomplishing. I judge how well or how poorly I am doing, by the reader counts. Some days I have 5 readers and other days I have 60. I look more at an average as I write on a variety of subjects, and understand people don’t check my blogs daily. This is alright, and they may not read every one, but for the most part I have a following of about 30 readers per day. If I drop too far below that then I know I must be doing something wrong and need to change. Still sometimes I will continue just so others can see that I completed the story line I was working on.

     In summary, through this all I am learning how to write well I hope and look forward to writing again this next year. Maybe somewhere along the way I will go back and edit my book and publish it as I should, good or bad. I would also like to start a new one and would like to share it with the reader’s on here first. I found when writing ‘Trip to Sequoia’ I was glued to the stats to see exactly what parts inspired people most when reading it for the first time. Some things I thought were great were actually nothing when it came to those who were actually viewing it for the first time. Maybe it was my delivery of what I was trying to achieve. I don’t know, but having that response instantly was worth noting and worth trying to understand. I have been away from the book for a while and I’m ready to read it again with fresh eyes, like it was my first time and make more editing changes. I had people interested in buying it before and never acted on it because I had done it in such a hurry that I knew it was not the best I could do. Now I have that chance to go back and polish it and hopefully get it to a saleable place.

     In the meanwhile I am going to keep on keeping on. Continue with the blog, and hopefully hit a 40000 hits goal this year, as well continue to learn more about myself as a writer and an artist, and a carpenter of old world values of which I will describe more in detail later. I also hope to encourage you the reader to follow and respond if moved to do so, and let me know what is right and wrong about what I am doing. Also we all must keep in mind that if we succeed or fail, that it is not so much of  an overall quest we should achieve, but that we must remember that regardless of our action, that all life still moves on, and it will, whether we want it to or not. 

is it the beginning of an end,or the end of a beginning?

The Beginning of the End

        I arrived at the hospital and Mona looked a little green in the gills as she sat there in the chair and filled out the papers releasing her from the torturous hell she was just through. She could barely walk, and as is hospital procedure, they helped her out to the car in a wheel chair, and she uncomfortably fell into the seat. I helped her straighten up and we started driving home  neither of us saying much till we had left the hustle and bustle of the city behind , she turned away from me and tried to rest her head against the side of the door and just sleep her way out of the nightmare. We drove in silence.

     After about an hour of driving she informed me she needed to go to the bathroom. I exited the interstate and found a gas station as she didn’t want anything to eat as she was still nauseous, she just needed a bathroom. I helped her into the gas station bathroom and waited as she went about her business. She looked like hell to say the least, as the ordeal had taken its toll on her. I asked if she was ok upon her coming out of the bathroom, and she said she was still passing blood but they said that should quit soon, and that they had checked her out thoroughly and she seemed to be ok.

      When we were back on the road she seemed to be more alert and I asked her how they did what they did. I knew they were using saline injections but knew little beyond that. She said when they started the procedure they basically take these large hypodermics and inject saline solution directly into the fetus from outside her stomach till it dies and aborts. The saline won’t hurt the mother as it is expelled through the uterus but the fetus can only take so much and then it expires and then they administer drugs like oxytocin to start premature expulsion of the fetus and complete the abortion. She said it felt like her insides were tearing out and it nauseated her really bad causing her to throw up. But she said you needed to keep the toilet clean as that is where the fetus was going to end up and that they would retrieve it from there and eventually dispose of it. After about 4 or five injections she said she felt like the fetus or baby was coming and ran for the toilet and it delivered into the toilet. I am telling you this as she told me and never have I related this story to anyone but one friend and wish I never did as he blabbed to her sister about it. She said she had to look at the fetus, or baby and it was fairly well formed enough to determine it was a male child. This little bit of information I could have done without as it killed me deep inside.  A little piece of me died right there, so to speak quite literally and figuratively.

    A nurse came in and retrieved the fetus from the toilet and disposed of it with little fanfare and attended to Mona who was still having contractions that were doubling her up. She said the cramps continued for another 2 hours and finally subsided as well the blood had also slowed. She said that they said she would spot blood for a week or two, then start cycling normally after a month or two. She turned to the window with her back towards me and sat with her arms clenching her stomach for the rest of the ride home, not saying much. I went as fast as I safely could wanting to put this behind me, until at last I pulled into her drive. Luckily no one was home and I helped her up stairs to her bedroom, and then to the shower and back to bed. She promised to call me if anything was wrong but that she needed to sleep and heal. She called the next day saying all was fine and she felt better.

     We would get together but not as frequently as before and birth control was used but things were not the same, and soon we were slipping apart. I confided to her brother in law what had happened and he told her sister and that was the beginning of the end for us as she claimed to have lost trust in me. To me it was a heavy burden we were both carrying and I don’t know about her but for me it was eating me live, as well I could feel her avoiding me and it was affecting our relationship. I made her brother in law promise to not say anything, but apparently he felt the burden to big also.

      The end came when after a night of my getting drunk and not being able to see her I was determined to find her, and I am sure I did. I stood outside the house she was house sitting at the time, and screamed at her to let me in, as I knew she had another guy there with her. Before the cops showed up, I thought I better get out of there, after making an ass out of myself , so I started down the road in another car I had recently bought,  as my VW had caught fire and burned completely to the ground shortly after returning from our trip to new York . I guess it was further penance and hardship for what we had done, anyhow I had bought this Olds Cutlass and it went 100mph like nothing. I was pissed when I left the house and I flew down the road punching down the accelerator and glancing for a second at the speedometer as it started to climb, as I did I dropped a tire off the side of the road and shit myself. Literally and not actually as I fought to keep the car from pulling further off the road , bringing it back on the road and crossing the centerline and finally stopping in the middle of the road on a pitch black night in the middle of nowhere. I sat in the car for a minute and looked around; I finally get out and thanked whoever was with me for allowing me to live. I felt like that guardian angel that had just allowed me to live at that time  gave up on me and climbed outside that car that night opting to walk instead, as it was a lot safer than riding with me. Lessons for me were coming hard to learn lately, but I learned that night, I did. I learned no woman is worth it. I thought I met a few since then, but still I don’t think any of them is worth me taking my life. As easily as I slipped off that road, I should have been dead, but like I say somehow I lived to write another day, and I tell you as is sit here now. I never have placed myself in that situation since, I never was that mad again, opting instead to walk away and let things work out whatever way they will.

     I gave up on Mona that night and no matter what she could try, I was never going to let myself go there again. We saw each other only to give her back some of her things and I think she wanted more, but I just couldn’t. There was way too much bad water under that bridge. I always wondered how her life went. I did all I could to support her when she needed me most hoping she would see what kind of a guy I was , it still didn’t matter, and don’t think it would. If we were together, we would always have to think about what we did together and never be able to forget. Maybe she has peace with her soul and it doesn’t bother her, but still I have moments and think what if?

its a zoo out there!

What Could I Say? 

      In the end it wasn’t my decision and several times I tried to talk her out of it , and especially after we had learned that she was further along than she originally thought, this required us to travel to New York city and make arrangements with the Bronx Midtown Hospital or something like that, as the name escapes me, to have the abortion she sought, but it wasn’t really so much of a hospital, as it was a butcher shop to some degree.

         Mona and I had to arrange alibis for each other to cover the fact we would be gone for three days. I had 74 VW, I had just bought and it was a cherry red without a spot of rust on it, and even back then I was getting 34 miles per gallon out of it and it ran flawlessly. I told Mona’ s parents we were headed to our fishing lots in southern Ohio, and I told mom that I was spending the weekend with Mona’s parents as they were headed out of town and we were going to stay at their place and watch the animals and work on cleaning her horse stalls out as she had horses. Plausible excuses to get away and no one except Mona’s mom seemed to notice that Mona was starting to show, and had gained weight.  She never confronted Mona but instead let her deal with it on her own. It had to be that weekend, or never she told me as at last we came to the conclusion we needed to get it done and over with.

      A hurricane, I think it was Camille, had moved up the east coast and we were headed into the heart of the rain and madness as we set out. It just seemed as if it was another one of those trials in your life to show how determined you could be. We were both nervous as Mona was only 22 and I the same, still youngsters, although old enough to make our own decisions. Mona and I had plenty of time to talk and discuss what we were doing even though we still in uncharted territory. We had some information about the hospital, the costs and where we could stay the night we arrived in New York City. Neither of us had been there before so this was all new to us, and would have been exciting if it wasn’t for the underlying theme to it all. Add pouring rain and darkness for six of the eight hours driving, and speeding idiots the closer to the city you get, and we were glad to just get there alive in the little red VW.

     We found our motel and it was just a few blocks from the hospital and we had a 2 o clock check in the next day at the hospital, so we just settled into our room and listened to the nightlife in the hallways just outside our room. Apparently a roomer had decided to overstay his welcome in the room beside us, and eventually this led to the police banging the guy’s head into the outside of our door, as they extricated him from the room with accompanying shouts of profanity and then finally some silence. When we could hear the commotion we thought of little, except making sure we were safe, now it was quiet we were left to our thoughts of what we were to do, and believe me I would have rather had the noise. Again I tried to persuade her to give us a try and she insisted she could do that better if we didn’t have this hanging over us. Feeble logic at best, but when you are young and don’t know how things are supposed to be, or are going to turn out, that young intuition is all you have to run on. Fact and flawed you still just have to run with it, and we did.

     We didn’t get much sleep, and soon we found our way to the hospital the next day and I paid the fee and received our receipt and we sat in a waiting room as the nurse would take the young mothers to be, as they called them , up to their room , and us expectant fathers would wait till our mother to be, was settled in their rooms, and then  we could visit one last time that night before they were shooing us out the door , and locking it behind us as they tended to our women in private. Someone had asked if he  could stay with his girlfriend who was visibly upset over all that was going on, and even I could sense that in Mona, that she too was hesitant about all this, and this old haggy nurse said “Hell no , she says you are part of the reason this young girl is here now. Look around, there are fifty girls here tonight to do the same thing, you don’t think we have our hands full.” She said as she ushered him out the front door. Just come along tomorrow and be a good daddy and pick her up and take her home. And buy some boots before you go wading in this mess again. The message hit home.

      I didn’t know what to do after I left Mona in the room and headed out the front door, I walked the streets and came upon the Bronx zoo and walked through park observing little, besides empty cages , their inhabitants temporarily moved to other quarters for the winter with the exception of an old bear who looked awful uncomfortable as a snow had started to fall on the heels of an easterly heading north and pulling cold air from Canada on its heels into lower reaches of New York, and was just coating everything with a virgin layer of snow covering the dirt and trash of the city,  including this poor old bear who looks like he was left behind and that  no one cared. I stood and talked to him and found him the most amicable of all types of inhabitants in New York City at the time. I talked and he listened as I told him of my troubles and he would sigh as if he had heard it before, too many times. It really wasn’t so much like he had a choice as the iron bars were thick and if he was to get on the other side he still had to go a ways to go before he could actually say he was free. The snow was clinging and wet and soon I felt he was tired of my company as he made a move for his manufactured den , and soon was out of sight leaving me standing there mumbling to myself in a city of millions, alone in the crowd. I sloughed off the winter and made a hike for my motel and found a liquor store along the way to buy me a small bottle of whiskey to help me drown my sorrows in, as I headed back to the motel hoping that Mona was alright and soon we would be headed home.

     Another night at the motel , only it was me alone this time in the room,  but soon the whiskey numbed my brain as it and the coke and ice, slid down way too easily, leaving the noises in the night just outside my room. A small inconvenience at best if you had the TV up loud enough, and even better since the voices in my head that had been screaming, “This is crazy,” soon ebbed off into a gentle song lulling me into a false sense of comfort, but still remained just under the edge of my skin.

     A phone call from Mona the next morning,  assured me all was done and over with, and that I needed to get the fog out of my head as she really wanted out of there, so we could begin to heal ourselves from this ordeal if at all possible. I will continue this tomorrow as I still have plenty to say, and maybe by breaking it up into the exact amount of days it took me to do the deed, will give you some insight as to how big Hell must be. If it takes at least 3 days to cross it and start to recover, then it must be a big place, for me it was huge. The biggest I had ever seen, but then I was young and the trials of life were just beginning. Some say that Heaven and Hell exist here on earth, as it is the trials and tribulations we experience as we move along that defines us in perpetuity. At times I believe this, this was one of those times. If all things happen for a purpose and no one even you knows what that purpose is, then how will you ever learn to not make the same mistake again, or stop another from doing the same? We need to understand and by writing about this so many years later, I am finally starting to understand, though I will never know for sure why it was her and I  that had to go through this. What lessons can be learned when fate takes its dirty hands and walks all over your life, except to not do that again? Fate has made sure that it will never happen again as this severely had an impact on the both of us, and our paths have never crossed since.

misteakes i have had a few

Come on So Obvious!

       When I started writing the blog I just wrote kinda like Forest Gump did in the movie as Tom Hanks portrayed him. He talks about running and says I run, I run so fast and so far, in fact I just went on running. Or something like that, as I am not really quoting, but more remembering. He ran across the country with no particular purpose and lately in some respects my blogs have been doing the same as I work myself through my timeline as now I remember days of when I visited places like Malabar farms with my friend Woody. This brings back a lot of memories. We discussed some major issues back then and how they affected my life to date. The ramifications of some of those decisions still weigh heavily on my mind, and this is if I could have had it any other way. But back to the blog as I was beginning to write today I open up my word program as usual and just continue where I left off. I do this by just spacing on down the page and figuring my title or what direction I plan on going to this day. So many times I open this and for some reason I can pick out a mistake so obvious I say to myself , that no matter what tools I use I still need an editor or someone to run this thing by, just to see how they feel or to catch the obvious.

     I think all writers need to have an editor or proofreader, I mean I can pick apart grammatical errors and wording that in my opinion just plain sucks to no end, when it is someone else’s work. But mine seems to be held harmless, or is that I have worked hard to get it this well, why look anymore. I don’t know but time after time I see mistakes so obvious, I think I need an editor who works as cheap as I do. Anyone out there want to help out a struggling author trying to take his work to the next step.  Get ahold of me at kdavis3051@yahoo.com and I will be glad to consider your opinions and try and work with you and will mention you as editor. All this can be done on the web with me sending you a file and you sending it back with comments and I will make changes before posting in my blog. The payment is you are first to see, if that is a payment, and also recognition as I will mention you in my blog.  

     As I am writing this time line I had a personal side to my life at the same time I worked for the various companies. A woman I met in college and will call her Mona to protect her identity. And although not this Mona, I knew a Mona in school and had her in a lot of classes, great looking woman and I graduated with her , this is not her. The only thing Mona of then and this Mona had in common was the letter M, and both were great looking as you are when you are young. The Mona I knew was from the Akron area and lived in a small rural town just outside the Akron- Barberton city limits. She was a horse woman, or she was in the equine management class at ATI, the college we both attended in Wooster Ohio. I had met her at a party and then ran into her at the post office in the trailer park where we both happened to live. She had a beautiful smile and sexy voice and we became more than friends, and at some point in our relationship I became too possessive of her and this turned her away , but not before she told me she was pregnant.

     People may hate me and sometime I can beat myself up for it but I am going to tell you about this part of my life I am not particularly proud of. And that was what to do now that she is pregnant. I was proud and hoped that this might mean that we could take the next step in our relationship at the time, as I was in love with her and wanted her for myself. It was my first real relationship with a woman and she was all I could think of. That was my first impression and then she told me that she didn’t really want a baby or go through a pregnancy as she had things she wanted to do with her life and that having a baby really didn’t fit into the plan. I was kind of stunned at what she was saying and how it affected me.

     Not knowing what to say and starting to realize the idea of what she was implying was that Mona had wanted an abortion. We were both still in college, I had some savings and cows I could sell to pay for the procedure, I started trying to figure out what an abortion was all about, and so I visited my friend Woody , and Woody basically advised me to do whatever the woman wants.  That is what I had to, as it was her right to control what happens to her body. And if Mona wanted an abortion to do whatever it takes to make it happen. After all, even though we were in college at the time, neither of us was prepared to make a home and that we had so much life to live and that we didn’t need to be tied down.

      He told me of his love for his son and how much he meant to him and that Woody, who was then divorced and was making his support payments, and was going to college also and working when he could. He said if he had it to do all over again, he doesn’t know if he would have brought his own son into the world, if he had known he would never be married and have to be put through the hassle of being a dad, and not being there for his son when he needed him most. He told me if she has doubts about you and she obviously did, or else why would she want an abortion instead of wanting to be with me, then I should carefully consider doing what she wants. At that time I had no rights till the child was born and I could be proven by blood type that it was my child. If they would even allow me to, I think the courts back then hardly even viewed parental rights of a father to even be valid as a means of starting a court action.

      Today with DNA testing, it is possible to prove if they wanted to, prior to birth, the heredity of the unborn child and comparing DNA’s of the father with the child by tissue samples, or blood. With that information I could have forced my hand in court to make her give birth to the child. I think considering the circumstances and the fact that here I am 58 going on 59 and still have no children of my own that I have to leave my fate up to karma. It is biting me in the ass and eliminating my DNA from the earth, and I accept it. It is my penance for making a decision to do nothing but support someone I cared about.

      When I say I have no particular place to go with these timeline stories, but I do. I am reliving some of the most haunting moments of my psyche. Those things I try to push back hoping early onset of Alzheimer’s will forever ease my mind with the burdens of remembering things better left forgotten. Maybe by some miracle that what I am telling you, my readers, that it will resonate in your mind and help you understand possibly what your son or a young friend is going through. I will relate to you this experience of what I am not at the least proud to tell you of, and what effects it has had on my life. Tomorrow. 

wouldn't try any of this today.

Days of Old

      Think I will spend some time writing about my life in Wooster area and some of the characters I met there. One friend of mine lacy  Crisco as that was his name, he was one of the finer people I know from that area , a short man and usually the really short guys don’t like hanging around guys like me, and really as far as friends , I mean really good friends go. He was the type you could wake up in the middle of the night, and say “Hey guy I have this body and need to get rid of it, any ideas?” Lacy would know what to do, and where to go so it would never be found. He was that kind of guy, and then goes to his death before rather than utter a word. I never had to test him but I just knew he was my go to guy.

      As  friends like we were, we would talk about our home life , fishing , getting drunk, which I did a lot of back then, and generally just cutting up at work or about anything our hearts desired and never once would we have a bad opinion but more a sarcastic camaraderie between us . We both worked at Halliburton, as well, we both worked at Scumburger but never on the same crew, the bosses seemed to know better. It seems we had too much fun together always laughing, never being serious, and the oilfield wanted you miserable like them so you were not allowed to have a good time, but we did anyhow.

      Another fact I forgot to share was that we both had the same birthday date, and weird as it gets lacy had blue eyes as fiery as mine sometimes, and a twinkle in them let me know we were about to be up to no good, like the day we took the new pickup painted Scumburger blue, with only 5 miles on it to pick up some auto parts for the trucks, which by the end of the day we had totally forgot. We started forgetting when we picked up a 12 pack and headed to the Shreve Swamp which was under water from a swollen summer rain over flowing the creek, the road coming into the swamp and the low lands was under about a foot of water as we drove the new ford truck out into the water, on what we hoped was the road . I drove the brand spanking new truck till the water was floating the beer bottles around on the floorboard of the truck, and by now we were deep in the swamp at least a quarter mile from dry land.  I stopped the truck and shut off the engine and we decided to hop in the back of the truck bed. We opened the doors and a few bottles escaped but as we stood on the floorboard leaning out of the truck and transferred ourselves into the bed of the truck by swinging around and avoiding stepping down and getting wet. We proceeded to set up the lawn chairs we brought and party down.

        We sat and drank and smoked a couple of bowls of some really rope dope and at times we would talk and laugh, and at other times we would just sit and listen to the water lapping at the tailgate and washing through the floorboards until the absurdity of what we were doing would wash over us like all the lost water around us and we would laugh for no reason. We thought if only the Scumburger engineers could see us now. Their brand new truck in the middle of this now lake and us sitting in the back drinking and smoking.  Surely there would be questions as to what happened to us, but we will just laugh it off, because our jobs sucked working for Scumburger and they needed us, besides who would train all the newbie engineers from Houston with the blue Ford LTD’s. We finished that 12 pack way to easy and decided to head back into town and grab another. The water was rising where we were sitting, as suddenly we could see the beer cans floating around in the back of the truck where they had not done that before, as we leaned back in our lawn chairs our feet on the side of the truck bed to keep our feet dry,  and thought that maybe we had better just get out while the getting was good.  So I backed up real slow in the same direction trying to not cause too many waves to drown the engine. The brand new blue ford Scumburger truck never missed a beat or slipped and soon I was backing up out of the water, when we were in the dry, we opened the pickup doors up and out rolled the water and beer cans we had in the cab. We grabbed those back up and tossed them in the bed of the truck and decided we had as much fun in the truck as we could possibly have, and had initiated the new blue Ford into Scumburger fold . I remember at one point while still in the water I smashed a beer bottle against the bed and christened it the SS. Scumburger, out on its maiden voyage.

         By this time lacy and I were rolling on the ground laughing so hard at watching the water roll out of that new pickup, and we thanked Henry Ford for being cheap as it didn’t have carpet in there. Besides being wet in appearance you would have never knew where we were that day. Our sides hurt so bad from laughing that we decided we had better quit while we were ahead. Nothing hurt, so we went back to the shop and threw the beer cans in the dumpster, and parked the truck in the garage and punched out on the time clock , oh yes we were getting paid to drink and smoke . Why should we go on our own dime?

         We headed home and partied some more but we both had to be into work early the next day , and when I came in first I noticed old Claude Denton the friend of mine who was later killed that I had talked of before, but he did such a particular thing as I watched him as he climbs out of his car and heads over to the edge of parking lot to a drop off and stares out over the expanse and doesn’t say anything, I said to him ‘How you doing Claude’, he snaps back to attention as if in a daze, and says ‘Oh I am fine’,  and we start talking about the day before and what happened to us as we never came back till everyone had left. I said we stopped and had dinner and avoided the shop for a while. As I am saying this I am walking past the pickup in the shop and I notice now a brown water line that wasn’t evident when we parked it last night, had dried and became apparent as it looked to be even up past the floorboards and above the floor of the pickup bed. I never said anymore but instead grabbed the keys to the cab over truck, we regularly use in the oilfields,  and proceeded to pull it out, and wash it with a steam jenny knocking the mud off of it from the job a couple of days ago, and was supposed to be done the day before till we were sidetracked. I did a quick spray of it and then pulled the new pickup out and hit the bottom of it taking the bathtub ring off the bottom of it when Lacy pulls in to work. We hastily get our stories straight and laugh about the bath tub ring and I mentioned to Lacy about how I had seen Claude get out of his car and do this ritual of looking down over the hill.

      Lacy proceeds to tell me that Claude had told him there was a pot plant growing over the bank apparently when we cleaned out our ashtrays and dumped them over the edge of the bank we had seed in there and a plant was growing and it was 6 feet tall but someone had just recently topped it.  He said Claude told him in confidence and didn’t want me to know because I would steal it. He was right.

     Claude even went as far as to call the sheriff, and they came out and assured them it was pot but they were not going to take it, instead they told them that Scumburger had better burn it, before some kid got ahold of it and left. They didn’t even bother taking it. I thought at first it may be a trap and so I didn’t do anything at all for a couple of days. Lacy and I never did hear anymore about the pickup or even being gone that afternoon but someone did complain that it seemed strange the new pickup lost that new car smell pretty quick and in fact smelled a little musty. We laughed it off to the fact that maybe the person who said that smelled himself, as we knew he needed a few more showers than he was getting. Kinda like the pot calling the kettle black.

      Anyhow this pot growing at our shop, really had my attention and I would check it out without getting to close to it, as everyday now I would see Claude pull in and get out and inspect his pot plant. I was always early just to watch him from the shop when he wasn’t looking. Finally I made plans with a friend of mine, to take it one night after I came in from a late job. I called from the truck as I was heading into town on our mobile phone and then met him in the parking lot and we had a tree saw we absconded from another friend and within a minute and a half, even with a car driving by, and us ducking out of site, that soon we had it in the trunk. We took it home and hung it to dry and partied down, but not long as I needed to hit the hay and be up early in the morn to watch old Claude when he came into work. Claude shows up and gets out of his car and as he is walking I notice him kinda fall back in disbelief and shock like old man Sanford having the big one in Sanford and Son as he leaned up against the front of his car.

      I come out of the shop and head to my car to get anything at that point and say to him

      “What’s the matter Claude?” He looks at me in this awful expression of disbelief and says to me.

      “Someone stole my pot plant,” real loud. I tried not to laugh at the hysterical nature of it. Yes I was bad to steal the guy’s pot plant but heck he was never going to smoke it and he was just leaving it there to get stolen, so he could have the reaction he was having now. A bit dramatic but he was from West Virginia and sometimes those guys exaggerate their feelings a bit. Claude was no virgin at this.

       I kept my composure and said, “You mean you were holding out on me shame on you Claude. I thought you were my friend. “

       He says “It wasn’t for me , I swear,” as he goes on , “I just noticed it growing one day and I have been watching it for over four months, day after day, it is the first thing I would see or look at when I climbed out of the car.”

        I said, “Wow Claude that’s too bad.”

        Then he goes on and asks, “You didn’t see it there?”

         I said, ”No Claude,” telling a little white lie, and then going on myself,” I wasn’t really looking or expecting one to be growing there , it is kinda out in the open Claude. If you are going to grow it I suggest you move it a little closer to the trees.” He assures me it wasn’t him that grew it and at that he told the story of calling the sheriff and what they did. I suggested that maybe it was them that stole it, I mean after all everyone is smoking now a days.

        Clade says,”Well I never.” I asked him if he wanted a joint to ease his pain as I really felt kinda sorry for him. At this Claude laughed and we walked down and looked around at the stump that was about 3 inches wide. I picked up a couple of leaves that fell off the night before and gave them to Claude and said here Claude you may need this. He laughed and threw the pot leaves down and headed into the garage. Lacy had come in and was drinking coffee in the break room, he had seen us out there and knew what had happened before Claude even opened his mouth.

      He was about to crack up when Claude says to him” You will never guess what happened lacy, someone stole my pot plant.”  And soon everyone in the shop was laughing and joking about the pot plant growing at Scumburger. Not everything at Scumburger was blue we did have splashes of green here and there if only for a short time. I know I shouldn’t have taken that pot plant as it wasn’t mine to take, and so therefore by telling the story now I absolve myself, and I am making amends,  and I am truly sorry that Claude never had a chance to experience the pot for himself, because not more than 2 weeks later he was killed working when a piece of manifold pipe steel exploded and knocked him off the derrick killing him. I will never forget the vision of him standing there looking down over that hill searching for his pot, Bless him,  I am sorry Claude you are not hear to read this now.