I Forgot To Eat
I was thinking about having breakfast down in the basement, eating my food right off the floor, but it may not be as spic and span as all that. I set the pile of burnable contents on fire last night. I am thinking about pressure washing the floor but will need to get a new sump pump before I do that. I am hungry but not feeling like cooking.
The diner is closed on Sunday. A few days ago I was eating in there, at the counter section to the left of the register, about which the waitress always says, oh I didn't see you, no one ever sits over here. I was thinking, I don't see why not, it is the best place to eavesdrop on this table of prominent old local men, among them an ancient doctor who eats in silence and a lawyer who tells stories about the goings on at the courthouse, with an educated but thickly accented tone, and there seems to be a garage owner and maybe a prominent tobacco grower or two. At the table there is a fair amount of guffawing which goes on and it is apparently an unwritten rule to not let there be too much silence in between stories. There is a polite rotation between the men and they rarely talk over each other. I can't really get the gist of the stories, partly because of the accents and partly because, even if I were sitting at the table as invited guest, there is here in North Carolina often the presupposition that the listener possesses intimate knowledge about things, places, and people, he really has no way of knowing anything about. I sometimes find myself falsely nodding, for example after being assured that I do know that road that forks off over by the shutdown two stall carwash, where Billy Jenkins flipped his Camaro?
...I never did eat anything this morning, instead I beat senseless an aluminum carport frame into smaller pieces and added it to a pile and put some more stuff on the burn pile and now I'm at the hot spot getting ready to post this and then get something to eat. The tech guy just called me on my cell and he's very apologetic saying their "engineers" pinged to my modem, etc, etc, and they probably think there is something wrong with my computer, they don't care that I'm checking email and posting this from a hotspot. They are sending somebody to the house with a laptop tomorrow to get to the bottom of these crazy accusations that their service is faulty. I will be there I told Matthew the tech guy.
...more recent posts
The Cheeky Bastard
Not really a very smooth beginning out here in Fence Post this time. I think I picked the wrong service provider for my Internet. I had a choice of two which considering the semi-remoteness of this locale is pretty good but I think choosing Embarq over Charter may have been a mistake. I have to drive 10 miles into Roxboro to check my email and make these posts in the parking lot of a small strip mall because my Internet is out and four tech support calls later I've finally gotten some decisive action but my Internet is still out. In the end I only had to just barely stretch the truth to convince them it is not a hardware or software issue on my end but something wrong with them. I've got "engineers" ready to pounce on the problem, maybe next week.
Let me unload a little more, oh the horror of my existence. Like I forgot to bring a pillow this time?, any pillow much less the 60 dollar pillow I prefer and I slept so poorly last night I could barely function this morning and working in the hell hole of a basement was out, couldn't do it, so thought I'd just lay about for a day and read, but I fell into a pretty good afternoon nap after one of my unsuccessful Embarq tech assistance calls, and woke up groggy as hell.
I got up and looked out the window and found out why the corn in my garden is coming along so well. He's watering it. I followed the line of hoses with my eyes and I'll be kiss my ass, that sonofabitch is watering the corn off of my fucking well. Oh I've been counting to ten most of the day after seeing that, got up to six thousand a couple of times but lost count and had to start over. I'm trying to chuckle about it in between plotting revenge. I turned the water off a minute ago, that's a minute after it had been running probably five hours.
And I skinned my shin too, tripping on the makeshift basement stairs the renter added by cutting a hole through the pine flooring in a closet.
I left my cat, Virginia, in Virginia. I don't even have a cat to play with. Oh cry for me, El Paso.
I'm trying to stay inside most of today. Whatever little bit of optimism I felt yesterday by the relative better look of this place between visits has been supplanted with a low grade dread for the amount of shit work still ahead, just to make the property look passable. Optimism too early in the game on a job like this is your worst enemy, got to keep the nose to grindstone and don't look up. But from this mattress on the floor I can only see the gently undulating leaves of a maple tree in the back yard. I know what unseemly manner of junk lies beneath it but I can't see it from here. Don't get off the boat and don't get out of bed.
6,241. That dickbob Claypool, plowing my earth, planting his seed in my dirt and watering it with my water with nary a word to me. That really does make him a motherfucker. I'm not cussing here, this is strictly definition.
1, 2, 3, 4...Oh hell, I don't have any real problems. I'm going to get back to reading Sublette's New Orleans history. A little historical perspective of what hard times really are, that's what I need. Not to say that the revenge plots have ceased...
The next day: this morning I got a little bit of my working groove back, getting up early, frying some eggs and microwaving yesterday's coffee and while the butter for the eggs slowly melted in the pan I hooked up the trailer and backed it up to the basement. I ate my eggs outside while a pregnant neighborhood cat snuck in the open door and I had to get up and shoo her out because it looks like she is going to drop any minute now and I am not a midwife. After breakfast I entered the basement.
With a flat shovel I scooped up piles and piles of bark mulch and soot which were coating the cement floor of the basement and loaded it into buckets and put the buckets onto the trailer along with leftover firewood and bed frames and lumber and aluminum ductwork elbows and boxes and old boots and coils of wire and empty jugs, nuts and bolts and rusty tools and chunks of cast iron from an old wood burning stove. An antique kitchen cabinet I have set aside but most everything else went into one of the metal piles or the burn pile. With a sledge hammer I broke apart the heavy wood couch and chair and the pieces sit on the pile now, awaiting the match. The cushions I will toss on one by one after the fire is blazing. The TVs and the VCRs and some other assorted junk has gone into a separate pile and are destined for a construction dumpster when I get around to getting one delivered. The bricks and cinder blocks are in the bricks and cinder blocks pile. I loaded up the trailer twice and another small load sits scattered outside the basement. I would leave it there for a few days to annoy Claypool but I saw him loading up the Winnebago this morning so I would guess he and family are off on one of their NASCAR junkets.
I don't know what happened to the guy that was going to get the rest of my car parts and metal but I'm not counting on him like I was. There is plenty to keep me busy for awhile without worrying about him. Pretty far down the list but obviously necessary is going to be the constructing of some sort of lock box to go over my well pump. The existing hollow plastic imitation granite boulder did not appear to be enough to keep that cheeky bastard Claypool away from it.
Not really a very smooth beginning out here in Fence Post this time. I think I picked the wrong service provider for my Internet. I had a choice of two which considering the semi-remoteness of this locale is pretty good but I think choosing Embarq over Charter may have been a mistake. I have to drive 10 miles into Roxboro to check my email and make these posts in the parking lot of a small strip mall because my Internet is out and four tech support calls later I've finally gotten some decisive action but my Internet is still out. In the end I only had to just barely stretch the truth to convince them it is not a hardware or software issue on my end but something wrong with them. I've got "engineers" ready to pounce on the problem, maybe next week.
Let me unload a little more, oh the horror of my existence. Like I forgot to bring a pillow this time?, any pillow much less the 60 dollar pillow I prefer and I slept so poorly last night I could barely function this morning and working in the hell hole of a basement was out, couldn't do it, so thought I'd just lay about for a day and read, but I fell into a pretty good afternoon nap after one of my unsuccessful Embarq tech assistance calls, and woke up groggy as hell.
I got up and looked out the window and found out why the corn in my garden is coming along so well. He's watering it. I followed the line of hoses with my eyes and I'll be kiss my ass, that sonofabitch is watering the corn off of my fucking well. Oh I've been counting to ten most of the day after seeing that, got up to six thousand a couple of times but lost count and had to start over. I'm trying to chuckle about it in between plotting revenge. I turned the water off a minute ago, that's a minute after it had been running probably five hours.
And I skinned my shin too, tripping on the makeshift basement stairs the renter added by cutting a hole through the pine flooring in a closet.
I left my cat, Virginia, in Virginia. I don't even have a cat to play with. Oh cry for me, El Paso.
I'm trying to stay inside most of today. Whatever little bit of optimism I felt yesterday by the relative better look of this place between visits has been supplanted with a low grade dread for the amount of shit work still ahead, just to make the property look passable. Optimism too early in the game on a job like this is your worst enemy, got to keep the nose to grindstone and don't look up. But from this mattress on the floor I can only see the gently undulating leaves of a maple tree in the back yard. I know what unseemly manner of junk lies beneath it but I can't see it from here. Don't get off the boat and don't get out of bed.
6,241. That dickbob Claypool, plowing my earth, planting his seed in my dirt and watering it with my water with nary a word to me. That really does make him a motherfucker. I'm not cussing here, this is strictly definition.
1, 2, 3, 4...Oh hell, I don't have any real problems. I'm going to get back to reading Sublette's New Orleans history. A little historical perspective of what hard times really are, that's what I need. Not to say that the revenge plots have ceased...
The next day: this morning I got a little bit of my working groove back, getting up early, frying some eggs and microwaving yesterday's coffee and while the butter for the eggs slowly melted in the pan I hooked up the trailer and backed it up to the basement. I ate my eggs outside while a pregnant neighborhood cat snuck in the open door and I had to get up and shoo her out because it looks like she is going to drop any minute now and I am not a midwife. After breakfast I entered the basement.
With a flat shovel I scooped up piles and piles of bark mulch and soot which were coating the cement floor of the basement and loaded it into buckets and put the buckets onto the trailer along with leftover firewood and bed frames and lumber and aluminum ductwork elbows and boxes and old boots and coils of wire and empty jugs, nuts and bolts and rusty tools and chunks of cast iron from an old wood burning stove. An antique kitchen cabinet I have set aside but most everything else went into one of the metal piles or the burn pile. With a sledge hammer I broke apart the heavy wood couch and chair and the pieces sit on the pile now, awaiting the match. The cushions I will toss on one by one after the fire is blazing. The TVs and the VCRs and some other assorted junk has gone into a separate pile and are destined for a construction dumpster when I get around to getting one delivered. The bricks and cinder blocks are in the bricks and cinder blocks pile. I loaded up the trailer twice and another small load sits scattered outside the basement. I would leave it there for a few days to annoy Claypool but I saw him loading up the Winnebago this morning so I would guess he and family are off on one of their NASCAR junkets.
I don't know what happened to the guy that was going to get the rest of my car parts and metal but I'm not counting on him like I was. There is plenty to keep me busy for awhile without worrying about him. Pretty far down the list but obviously necessary is going to be the constructing of some sort of lock box to go over my well pump. The existing hollow plastic imitation granite boulder did not appear to be enough to keep that cheeky bastard Claypool away from it.
Fence Post
A local boy was pulling weeds on the property when I left Mt. Pleasant this morning. There is an art to pulling weeds and I don't know if the boy is an artist. In time, I think, when I return to Mt. Pleasant and am able to school the youngster and his absent partner on what it is I am after, this little money I pulled from my wallet and gave to him might be considered a signing bonus, or money withdrawn from an on the job training fund.
Here in Fence Post, North Carolina there is still much work to be done and I am the boy. Not really an artist of anything but grunt. Whatever I accomplished on the last visit was at least enough to make my afternoon arrival less depressing than the previous arrival. Randy the renter did not remove anymore of his yard junk while I was gone, although it appears he did salvage some of his usable paint buckets, while leaving a most unsatisfactory amount of them behind.
There was a box of books waiting on my steps when I arrived. Shiny new books delivered from one of the Internet Book Giants. Some slave narratives, the U.S. Grant memoirs, a bestseller, a recently released New Orleans history book (which my sampling of earlier has left me feeling very enthusiastic about) and a Nelson Algren (which I have previously read but have decided to read again.)
I studied the basement briefly, the focus of this trip being its cleaning up and perhaps the securing of the broken door leading into it from the outside.
Still too much work ahead to be engaging in what I am almost artistic at, daydreaming, but I stare out the windows anyway and think about things and move about the small house and occasionally step over the exact spot where in early 93 I received the phone call from my father telling me he would be dead soon. I remember the exact spot for the first Kennedy assassination, and the King assassination and the house I was working on in a New Orleans suburb on September 11th, 2001. And the dirt alleyway behind the house in South Oak Cliff where I first kissed a girl.
I look out at my plowed but unplanted 15,000 square foot garden and wonder about the uniformity of the weeds growing in it. But then I go back to reading and sipping on this Scotch with a green label. God bless among other things, Scotland.
Later, at dusk, I walk outside half naked and offer myself to the tiny flying bloodsuckers. When I had earlier been looking out the window I noticed the corn in Danny Claypool's little sad patch of red dirt didn't look very healthy. Clearly they haven't had much rain out here in the two weeks I've been gone. Why it is that 50 feet away from Claypool's red clay/dirt my soil is brown and, if properly tilled, almost sandy, I cannot say. It is not exactly alluvial, my soil, but compared to those cracked clumps of dried up play-do next door I am bottom land next to the Nile.
As I might have previously mentioned, the Claypool's have always had a hard on for this land. The father did and now Danny is every bit his father's son in regards to encroaching on this property. His propane tank he placed just across the line on my property. Back when me and M lived here we had a lawyer advise us on letting senior Claypool curve his gravel driveway just a tad over the line, and the other brother, the part-time preacher, Douglass, has his house built as close to the line as possible (and I'm curious what a re-surveying would show) and pretty much uses a section of my woods as his front yard. He's real nice Douglass is and Danny has always been on one level a respectful neighbor but I'm pretty sure my apparent mellow nature is being seen as an inroads for the Clayton's to have what they have long ago decided should be theirs. But they don't really see paying for it as an option.
Hey, that's newly planted corn in my 15,000 square foot nearly alluvial garden. And although smaller, it looks on it's way to being way healthier than Claypool's. Of course, it's Claypool's corn in my garden and while I don't really give a damn, I give a damn. He will offer to give me some and I could say, some, I'm taking all of it you beer-soaked cracker. I can't really eat but a few ears myself though and it looks good having a crop out there and I'm not going to grow anything but shouldn't a person ask before he plants corn in your dirt? Randy the renter says Claypool would get drunk and till up the garden, sometimes after Randy had planted his own vegetable crop. Randy also told me that Claypool tried to convince him to let him cut down all my 60--80 foot white oaks, and the few shag bark hickories and the maples and the poplars and dredge it out and build a damn and have a pond over here in my sweet bottom land. His father had shared that same dream with me many years back. Randy cut down for firewood a few of my big trees his ownself (said the bugs got 'em), but luckily his dislike for Claypool kept that pond from happening.
The thing is, you can't really disappear without much of a word for fourteen years and expect things to be just perfect when you get back.
A local boy was pulling weeds on the property when I left Mt. Pleasant this morning. There is an art to pulling weeds and I don't know if the boy is an artist. In time, I think, when I return to Mt. Pleasant and am able to school the youngster and his absent partner on what it is I am after, this little money I pulled from my wallet and gave to him might be considered a signing bonus, or money withdrawn from an on the job training fund.
Here in Fence Post, North Carolina there is still much work to be done and I am the boy. Not really an artist of anything but grunt. Whatever I accomplished on the last visit was at least enough to make my afternoon arrival less depressing than the previous arrival. Randy the renter did not remove anymore of his yard junk while I was gone, although it appears he did salvage some of his usable paint buckets, while leaving a most unsatisfactory amount of them behind.
There was a box of books waiting on my steps when I arrived. Shiny new books delivered from one of the Internet Book Giants. Some slave narratives, the U.S. Grant memoirs, a bestseller, a recently released New Orleans history book (which my sampling of earlier has left me feeling very enthusiastic about) and a Nelson Algren (which I have previously read but have decided to read again.)
I studied the basement briefly, the focus of this trip being its cleaning up and perhaps the securing of the broken door leading into it from the outside.
Still too much work ahead to be engaging in what I am almost artistic at, daydreaming, but I stare out the windows anyway and think about things and move about the small house and occasionally step over the exact spot where in early 93 I received the phone call from my father telling me he would be dead soon. I remember the exact spot for the first Kennedy assassination, and the King assassination and the house I was working on in a New Orleans suburb on September 11th, 2001. And the dirt alleyway behind the house in South Oak Cliff where I first kissed a girl.
I look out at my plowed but unplanted 15,000 square foot garden and wonder about the uniformity of the weeds growing in it. But then I go back to reading and sipping on this Scotch with a green label. God bless among other things, Scotland.
Later, at dusk, I walk outside half naked and offer myself to the tiny flying bloodsuckers. When I had earlier been looking out the window I noticed the corn in Danny Claypool's little sad patch of red dirt didn't look very healthy. Clearly they haven't had much rain out here in the two weeks I've been gone. Why it is that 50 feet away from Claypool's red clay/dirt my soil is brown and, if properly tilled, almost sandy, I cannot say. It is not exactly alluvial, my soil, but compared to those cracked clumps of dried up play-do next door I am bottom land next to the Nile.
As I might have previously mentioned, the Claypool's have always had a hard on for this land. The father did and now Danny is every bit his father's son in regards to encroaching on this property. His propane tank he placed just across the line on my property. Back when me and M lived here we had a lawyer advise us on letting senior Claypool curve his gravel driveway just a tad over the line, and the other brother, the part-time preacher, Douglass, has his house built as close to the line as possible (and I'm curious what a re-surveying would show) and pretty much uses a section of my woods as his front yard. He's real nice Douglass is and Danny has always been on one level a respectful neighbor but I'm pretty sure my apparent mellow nature is being seen as an inroads for the Clayton's to have what they have long ago decided should be theirs. But they don't really see paying for it as an option.
Hey, that's newly planted corn in my 15,000 square foot nearly alluvial garden. And although smaller, it looks on it's way to being way healthier than Claypool's. Of course, it's Claypool's corn in my garden and while I don't really give a damn, I give a damn. He will offer to give me some and I could say, some, I'm taking all of it you beer-soaked cracker. I can't really eat but a few ears myself though and it looks good having a crop out there and I'm not going to grow anything but shouldn't a person ask before he plants corn in your dirt? Randy the renter says Claypool would get drunk and till up the garden, sometimes after Randy had planted his own vegetable crop. Randy also told me that Claypool tried to convince him to let him cut down all my 60--80 foot white oaks, and the few shag bark hickories and the maples and the poplars and dredge it out and build a damn and have a pond over here in my sweet bottom land. His father had shared that same dream with me many years back. Randy cut down for firewood a few of my big trees his ownself (said the bugs got 'em), but luckily his dislike for Claypool kept that pond from happening.
The thing is, you can't really disappear without much of a word for fourteen years and expect things to be just perfect when you get back.
Business One Seven
Bernadette, some time ago I dropped you at the airport and as per your request it's exit 9A out of the airport, towards Centerville, and then to 66W and at the hour you will be traveling a couple of weeks from now probably best will be the Gainesville route which is 29S on the far side of Manassas, but you have to remember a few miles in to veer right for Warrenton. You know, during the day I always continue on 66 to 17 towards Warrenton, which is exit # 28. I've warned you about all that daydreaming you are prone to but more than warn you of the dangers I cannot do. For example if you blink and miss exit 28 you will at exit 27 see a sign that says 17/Business and the exit and crossover will look to you, or perhaps even to me--for example were it me making this mistake--exactly like it does at exit 28. I don't want to be too harsh on you, there is nothing inherently wrong with daydreaming, so let's just say it was me making this mistake, and even realizing it right off I continued down the road unknown.
A woman is a couple of steps onto the road removing a giant snapping turtle who was on his way to his own adventure, which in this case turned out to be its death. I veer around her but looking in my rear view mirror see that the turtle has in its jaws her index finger so I pull over and offer assistance. This requires me clamping a big pair of vise grips onto the turtle's neck while the woman screams at me--don't hurt the turtle! It's really too late for that, this turtle is soup. Even near death it's not going to let go of her finger so with no encouragement from the woman I pry open the turtles jaw, with a strength tantamount to lifting a car off of her, which would in my mind have been a preferable feat seeing as how I was to her now just a cold-blooded heartless turtle-killing bastard. A farmer in his field has come over to the fence to watch and I offer to him the fat turtle in exchange for taking the woman and her severed finger to the nearest doctor, explaining to him that I am not from these parts.
I did not exactly spin gravel out of there but pretty close to it and as the road snaked under a lush green canopy and then opened up on hay fields back dropped by mountains, I forgot about the turtle incident and felt coaxed by the scenery into a firm determination for getting lost.
Past a cemetery with frankly a better view than dead people deserve the road narrowed quite a bit and it now seemed as if I were going up someone's driveway. That turned out to be just an illusion though and after a fair distance passing distinctly quaint dwellings I came to a stop sign in the town of Ada. From my brief survey looking left and right it appeared the townspeople of Ada had chosen this week for their annual vacation to the Old Dominion Power Plant Museum.
There was then a tapping on my window and I turned to face on the other side of the glass a freckled-faced red-headed boy who was motioning with some urgency for me to roll down my window. I pressed my face up to the glass and peered down to make sure the boy didn't have a headless snapping turtle with him and only when I was convinced that he did not have one did I roll down my window.
Hey mister, we're having a parade today but we don't got no grand marshal and we need one we can't have a parade without a grand marshal and so you're it we need you to be it. Well this was not something I expected to happen today. This was almost like a reward for daydreaming past the proper exit. I quickly ran through in my mind the catalog of responsibilities for the rest of the day and almost as if he were reading my mind the boy said, come on mister, you can't have anything better to do, you just can't. That pretty well settled it and the next thing I know I'm sticking up through the sun roof of a 2006 Lincoln Zephyr waving, but only from the wrist, and blowing kisses to all the young girls up on their daddies shoulders. The parade only lasted one block and when it was over I was awarded in a brief ceremony the key to the town and a peach cobbler. As I drove off the freckled boy ran along beside me and said make sure you come back next year, you can drive the fire truck. I assured him that I would, but only if I got to run the siren AND the lights.
As I drove on still buzzing from that brief taste of celebrity I saw a sign to place that I knew of and though unsure of where it lay in relation to where I was going, I headed there.
Bernadette, some time ago I dropped you at the airport and as per your request it's exit 9A out of the airport, towards Centerville, and then to 66W and at the hour you will be traveling a couple of weeks from now probably best will be the Gainesville route which is 29S on the far side of Manassas, but you have to remember a few miles in to veer right for Warrenton. You know, during the day I always continue on 66 to 17 towards Warrenton, which is exit # 28. I've warned you about all that daydreaming you are prone to but more than warn you of the dangers I cannot do. For example if you blink and miss exit 28 you will at exit 27 see a sign that says 17/Business and the exit and crossover will look to you, or perhaps even to me--for example were it me making this mistake--exactly like it does at exit 28. I don't want to be too harsh on you, there is nothing inherently wrong with daydreaming, so let's just say it was me making this mistake, and even realizing it right off I continued down the road unknown.
A woman is a couple of steps onto the road removing a giant snapping turtle who was on his way to his own adventure, which in this case turned out to be its death. I veer around her but looking in my rear view mirror see that the turtle has in its jaws her index finger so I pull over and offer assistance. This requires me clamping a big pair of vise grips onto the turtle's neck while the woman screams at me--don't hurt the turtle! It's really too late for that, this turtle is soup. Even near death it's not going to let go of her finger so with no encouragement from the woman I pry open the turtles jaw, with a strength tantamount to lifting a car off of her, which would in my mind have been a preferable feat seeing as how I was to her now just a cold-blooded heartless turtle-killing bastard. A farmer in his field has come over to the fence to watch and I offer to him the fat turtle in exchange for taking the woman and her severed finger to the nearest doctor, explaining to him that I am not from these parts.
I did not exactly spin gravel out of there but pretty close to it and as the road snaked under a lush green canopy and then opened up on hay fields back dropped by mountains, I forgot about the turtle incident and felt coaxed by the scenery into a firm determination for getting lost.
Past a cemetery with frankly a better view than dead people deserve the road narrowed quite a bit and it now seemed as if I were going up someone's driveway. That turned out to be just an illusion though and after a fair distance passing distinctly quaint dwellings I came to a stop sign in the town of Ada. From my brief survey looking left and right it appeared the townspeople of Ada had chosen this week for their annual vacation to the Old Dominion Power Plant Museum.
There was then a tapping on my window and I turned to face on the other side of the glass a freckled-faced red-headed boy who was motioning with some urgency for me to roll down my window. I pressed my face up to the glass and peered down to make sure the boy didn't have a headless snapping turtle with him and only when I was convinced that he did not have one did I roll down my window.
Hey mister, we're having a parade today but we don't got no grand marshal and we need one we can't have a parade without a grand marshal and so you're it we need you to be it. Well this was not something I expected to happen today. This was almost like a reward for daydreaming past the proper exit. I quickly ran through in my mind the catalog of responsibilities for the rest of the day and almost as if he were reading my mind the boy said, come on mister, you can't have anything better to do, you just can't. That pretty well settled it and the next thing I know I'm sticking up through the sun roof of a 2006 Lincoln Zephyr waving, but only from the wrist, and blowing kisses to all the young girls up on their daddies shoulders. The parade only lasted one block and when it was over I was awarded in a brief ceremony the key to the town and a peach cobbler. As I drove off the freckled boy ran along beside me and said make sure you come back next year, you can drive the fire truck. I assured him that I would, but only if I got to run the siren AND the lights.
As I drove on still buzzing from that brief taste of celebrity I saw a sign to place that I knew of and though unsure of where it lay in relation to where I was going, I headed there.
The Old Missle Silo
Yesterday I cut down that dead hemlock tree by my driveway. I wasn't really into it, I just did it because I was feeling antsy. It had two trunks growing off the main trunk and I felled the one to the east and the other to the west. Then I came in and read some from The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, a first time novel from David Wroblewski. It came in the mail the other day from Mr. BC. It's a good one. It's got plenty of dogs and a mute boy living the life in rural Wisconsin. Later in the day I sawed off the limbs and cut the trunks into manageable sections and sawed the main stump down pretty level to the ground, and left it all lying out there.
This morning one of the twins showed up about 8 a.m. to start the mowing (one of them just drove his mower down the driveway. He's wearing a bright, multi- colored mini umbrella on his head. I won't tell you which twin it was because you couldn't tell them apart anyway.) But this morning I had to rouse myself from the loving arms of Bernadette and get those limbs off the yard. Baby, I gots to wrangle those limbs. Reading this she is thinking that's not exactly what you said. But she didn't hear me right anyway, we later ascertained that, so I'm sticking to my version. How's the nuclear missle silo? she asked me over coffee after I had finished up the tree removal. I'm sorry, what? I grunted. When you got out of bed this morning didn't you say the nuclear missle silo had fallen down? I said, I most certainly did not (and just left it at that.)
The one twin, who was up way too early on a Sunday because he's moved back home, drove up on the mower and we chatted while I sat in the utility vehicle piled high with limbs. He said, well, I left the old lady for good. You did? Yeah, I had to. Actually she kicked me out, but when she saw me start to pack up my shit she just stood there with her mouth open. Took me an hour and a half to get it all together but I was gone, back with the parents now. I said well I guess it wasn't going to good for you guys? He said naw, and, oh she called me yesterday saying don't you want to see your baby? but I just said not at all, not right now, this isn't a good time for me.
I kind of ran out of things to say after that, making the excuse that I had just woken up but really I was just feeling bad for everybody too early in the morning. The last time I talked to him they had just finished fighting and scratching and screaming in the front yard while the neighbors watched.
I had some homemade bread with my coffee. I didn't know what to put on the bread because there were only 14 jams and jellies to choose from. One day last week I said Bernadette, don't you think we may have to make room in this fridge for something other than locally made jams and jellies? She wasn't feeling that though and it's not so bad really, and besides, who wants to spread a lonely jam on their morning toast?
Bernadette said she was going to do some weeding up the hill there in what appears to be about a half acre of formal English garden. It has been very helpful having her out these last couple of weeks, weeding and dead heading roses (what? Oh, 250 rose bushes) because without her I would probably just look those ne'rdowells right in their weedy eyes and cry out--all you weeds and wilting rose blooms can kiss my ass.
I loaded up a bunch of stinky garbage and headed to the dump. I stopped and picked up cat food at the Quickie Mart on the way. I picked up a bag of Alley Cat brand but then changed my mind and went for the Meow Mix. I think they were shooting a campaign commercial in there but I'm not sure. A bunch of old farmer men are congregated over by the coffee machine talking seriously early in the morning, as coffee will sometimes make you do. One of them says, I'm not saying I have the answers but something is wrong in this country and its got to change. I didn't hear anyone say cut, and, print, so maybe there was more to it than that.
At the dump, Linda from the diner waved to me on her way out and spying her windshield I wanted to call out to her--you better get your new county tag, that old faded yellow one is going to get you in trouble.
Yesterday I cut down that dead hemlock tree by my driveway. I wasn't really into it, I just did it because I was feeling antsy. It had two trunks growing off the main trunk and I felled the one to the east and the other to the west. Then I came in and read some from The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, a first time novel from David Wroblewski. It came in the mail the other day from Mr. BC. It's a good one. It's got plenty of dogs and a mute boy living the life in rural Wisconsin. Later in the day I sawed off the limbs and cut the trunks into manageable sections and sawed the main stump down pretty level to the ground, and left it all lying out there.
This morning one of the twins showed up about 8 a.m. to start the mowing (one of them just drove his mower down the driveway. He's wearing a bright, multi- colored mini umbrella on his head. I won't tell you which twin it was because you couldn't tell them apart anyway.) But this morning I had to rouse myself from the loving arms of Bernadette and get those limbs off the yard. Baby, I gots to wrangle those limbs. Reading this she is thinking that's not exactly what you said. But she didn't hear me right anyway, we later ascertained that, so I'm sticking to my version. How's the nuclear missle silo? she asked me over coffee after I had finished up the tree removal. I'm sorry, what? I grunted. When you got out of bed this morning didn't you say the nuclear missle silo had fallen down? I said, I most certainly did not (and just left it at that.)
The one twin, who was up way too early on a Sunday because he's moved back home, drove up on the mower and we chatted while I sat in the utility vehicle piled high with limbs. He said, well, I left the old lady for good. You did? Yeah, I had to. Actually she kicked me out, but when she saw me start to pack up my shit she just stood there with her mouth open. Took me an hour and a half to get it all together but I was gone, back with the parents now. I said well I guess it wasn't going to good for you guys? He said naw, and, oh she called me yesterday saying don't you want to see your baby? but I just said not at all, not right now, this isn't a good time for me.
I kind of ran out of things to say after that, making the excuse that I had just woken up but really I was just feeling bad for everybody too early in the morning. The last time I talked to him they had just finished fighting and scratching and screaming in the front yard while the neighbors watched.
I had some homemade bread with my coffee. I didn't know what to put on the bread because there were only 14 jams and jellies to choose from. One day last week I said Bernadette, don't you think we may have to make room in this fridge for something other than locally made jams and jellies? She wasn't feeling that though and it's not so bad really, and besides, who wants to spread a lonely jam on their morning toast?
Bernadette said she was going to do some weeding up the hill there in what appears to be about a half acre of formal English garden. It has been very helpful having her out these last couple of weeks, weeding and dead heading roses (what? Oh, 250 rose bushes) because without her I would probably just look those ne'rdowells right in their weedy eyes and cry out--all you weeds and wilting rose blooms can kiss my ass.
I loaded up a bunch of stinky garbage and headed to the dump. I stopped and picked up cat food at the Quickie Mart on the way. I picked up a bag of Alley Cat brand but then changed my mind and went for the Meow Mix. I think they were shooting a campaign commercial in there but I'm not sure. A bunch of old farmer men are congregated over by the coffee machine talking seriously early in the morning, as coffee will sometimes make you do. One of them says, I'm not saying I have the answers but something is wrong in this country and its got to change. I didn't hear anyone say cut, and, print, so maybe there was more to it than that.
At the dump, Linda from the diner waved to me on her way out and spying her windshield I wanted to call out to her--you better get your new county tag, that old faded yellow one is going to get you in trouble.
Dead County Sticker Redux
I drove four blocks to the post office where I was the only customer and bought a stamped envelope into which I inserted a check to the general contractor and after licking the glue put it in the slot that says local mail. From there I drove two blocks to the Treasurer's office where I was the only customer and for twenty dollars got a new Rappahannock county sticker for my windshield. I walked next door to the courthouse and entered into a vestibule where finding the third door on the right I was the only customer and paid 86 dollars for the ticket I received last weekend for not having the current county sticker. From there I drove about a mile to the farm supply co-op and bought some cleaning supplies and a pack of single edged razor blades. There were three other customers. In the parking lot I started scraping off the sticker with one of the razor blades but convincing myself I was over-reacting to the urgency of a new windshield sticker I discontinued and drove home. About a hundred yards from the driveway a trooper is parked and I pass him going the posted speed limit and my left turn signal on. The trooper flashed his pretty lights and followed me into the driveway. I turned down the death metal on the radio and covered up the AK-47 with a blanket. The trooper pulled up to my left rear and I rolled down my windshield. He said can I see your license and I said is that really necessary? He reached in and got me in a choke hold and pulled me out through the open window and dragged me to the front of his car and threw me up on the hood. You are in a heap of trouble he said. I retorted--you bastard. He pulled a sap from his belt and hit me in the right temple. I cried out--you did it purposely. He put the cuffs on me. I said, I'm telling Mr. BC and he will have your badge. What really happened was he said can I see your license and I said sure while trying to hide the stitching on my wallet that says Bad Mother Fucker and he said hey didn't I ticket you the other day and I said you sure did and he laughs and I say I got the new sticker and he drives off. I don't own an AK-47 and I don't listen to death metal.
I drove four blocks to the post office where I was the only customer and bought a stamped envelope into which I inserted a check to the general contractor and after licking the glue put it in the slot that says local mail. From there I drove two blocks to the Treasurer's office where I was the only customer and for twenty dollars got a new Rappahannock county sticker for my windshield. I walked next door to the courthouse and entered into a vestibule where finding the third door on the right I was the only customer and paid 86 dollars for the ticket I received last weekend for not having the current county sticker. From there I drove about a mile to the farm supply co-op and bought some cleaning supplies and a pack of single edged razor blades. There were three other customers. In the parking lot I started scraping off the sticker with one of the razor blades but convincing myself I was over-reacting to the urgency of a new windshield sticker I discontinued and drove home. About a hundred yards from the driveway a trooper is parked and I pass him going the posted speed limit and my left turn signal on. The trooper flashed his pretty lights and followed me into the driveway. I turned down the death metal on the radio and covered up the AK-47 with a blanket. The trooper pulled up to my left rear and I rolled down my windshield. He said can I see your license and I said is that really necessary? He reached in and got me in a choke hold and pulled me out through the open window and dragged me to the front of his car and threw me up on the hood. You are in a heap of trouble he said. I retorted--you bastard. He pulled a sap from his belt and hit me in the right temple. I cried out--you did it purposely. He put the cuffs on me. I said, I'm telling Mr. BC and he will have your badge. What really happened was he said can I see your license and I said sure while trying to hide the stitching on my wallet that says Bad Mother Fucker and he said hey didn't I ticket you the other day and I said you sure did and he laughs and I say I got the new sticker and he drives off. I don't own an AK-47 and I don't listen to death metal.
Jimbob's Driver's Ed
So are you driving yet?
Almost.
How old are you?
Getting ready to turn 16.
You want to try and drive this thing around the property?
OK.
Alright. Get in the driver's seat. It's only got one gear you need to worry about so you don't have to change anything. You can start it in gear but you have to have the brake on. Just turn the key and it's ready to go, but it goes very fast and you want to take it kind of slow out here.
OK. (turns key)
That's it, now just drive. Alright, a little slower. Now turn the wheel so you don't drive over the bushes, ok, ok, wait, stop. Now we need to put it in reverse, like this. Push the gas. Ok, not so fast, stop. See how the knobby tires eat up the grass when you go fast? So we need to go very slow on the grass around the house. Ok, let's go on. Don't forget to turn the wheel. Slowly, slowly, that's good, whoah, wait, stop. Let's not worry about it, those plants will probably grow back. Is this the first time you've ever driven anything?
Yes.
Oh well I think you're doing fine then. Let's take it out in the open field but remember to go very slow because there are ruts out here that will like to throw you out if you hit them too hard. OK, here comes one, slower, slower, whoah. So when you want to go slower just let your foot off the gas pedal and it will slow down immediately. And then when you want to go forward again you only need to barely push the pedal. OK, ready, go...a little slower, don't push the pedal too hard, wait, wait, stop. I tell you what, I want to get my camera so let's trade places and I'll drive it down to my house.
So you can take pictures of the plants I ran over?
Oh no, we got plenty of plants out here, we're not going to miss those few, I just want to take pictures of you and your sisters. There's no hurry to learn this driving thing, you can pick that up anytime.
So are you driving yet?
Almost.
How old are you?
Getting ready to turn 16.
You want to try and drive this thing around the property?
OK.
Alright. Get in the driver's seat. It's only got one gear you need to worry about so you don't have to change anything. You can start it in gear but you have to have the brake on. Just turn the key and it's ready to go, but it goes very fast and you want to take it kind of slow out here.
OK. (turns key)
That's it, now just drive. Alright, a little slower. Now turn the wheel so you don't drive over the bushes, ok, ok, wait, stop. Now we need to put it in reverse, like this. Push the gas. Ok, not so fast, stop. See how the knobby tires eat up the grass when you go fast? So we need to go very slow on the grass around the house. Ok, let's go on. Don't forget to turn the wheel. Slowly, slowly, that's good, whoah, wait, stop. Let's not worry about it, those plants will probably grow back. Is this the first time you've ever driven anything?
Yes.
Oh well I think you're doing fine then. Let's take it out in the open field but remember to go very slow because there are ruts out here that will like to throw you out if you hit them too hard. OK, here comes one, slower, slower, whoah. So when you want to go slower just let your foot off the gas pedal and it will slow down immediately. And then when you want to go forward again you only need to barely push the pedal. OK, ready, go...a little slower, don't push the pedal too hard, wait, wait, stop. I tell you what, I want to get my camera so let's trade places and I'll drive it down to my house.
So you can take pictures of the plants I ran over?
Oh no, we got plenty of plants out here, we're not going to miss those few, I just want to take pictures of you and your sisters. There's no hurry to learn this driving thing, you can pick that up anytime.
A Dead County Sticker
Cruising through "downtown" Woodville going 40 in a 35 and a Rappahannock trooper does a U-turn right after I pass him. He's doing the Woodville stakeout. I can't tell you how many times I've been warned about sticking to the speed limit through Woodville. Looks like he got me I tell Bernadette beside me. I don't have to tell her to hide the crack pipe. We're not junkies. We are good solid citizens even though 30 minutes in the future I won't sign that guy's petition at the Culpeper Farmers Market. I'm not harboring any ill feelings towards Ralph Nader but I don't want him on the ballot. I do not have that burning passion which is required to fix our election system. We came to Culpeper to buy vegetable matter. That is my focus. And I already signed a piece of paper in Woodville. Not an admission of guilt the trooper assured me. But sir I am guilty I wanted to tell him. He didn't get me for speeding, he got me for the expired Rappahannock County tag. He was nice. He didn't ruin my day or even give me anything particularly noteworthy to write about (Sir, do you think you could throw me up against the Jeep and verbally abuse me, I'm having a dry spell with my blog writing.) No, the cop stop was not really that unpleasant. Not like the cat pooping in Bernadette's lap coming back from N. Carolina last week. Could you pull over, she said, the cat pooped in my lap. We'd already pulled over once for a cat pooping incident but what was I going to say? I'm sorry lover, only one cat poop stop per trip allowed. Bernadette puts up with a fair amount of crap from me. I owe her, at the very least, this second cat poop pullover. Luckily we had already bought some paper towels and Windex during the previous poop pit stop. Well, I guess this will be on the blog Bernadette said after I gently extracted the two chocolate nuggets from where her white blouse curved over her lap. I would like to think I have better taste than to write about Bernadette's misfortune but if you can't even get noteworthy material from a state trooper, well, a man blogger has to do what a man blogger has to do.
I have some garbage that has been super-heating in the garage so I took it to the dump after we got back from Culpeper. I thought maybe the attendant would verbally abuse me at the dump, because the county tag has no real purpose beyond allowing locals to dump their garbage. We are a quaint village without garbage pickup. I tossed the smelly garbage into the giant pit and then drove across the lot and unloaded some bottles for recycle. Not that many really. Three different colors, a little wine, a little beer, a few liquor bottles. Not enough to kill you. Uh oh, the attendant is walking over. I haven't had previous experience with this guy. And it's been almost two years since I was last hassled at the dump for some improper dumping protocol, either by that other attendant or a do-gooder citizen who would really be best advised to just mind their own damn business, the citizens I mean, not the attendant. Minding the business of dumping protocol is exactly his business.
I look this man in the eyes, imploring him, please sir, can you help me with my blog? He says, you got a dead county sticker. I nod, smile knowingly, and consider hugging the man. I don't mind hugging men, on occasion, but I felt it would be out of place under these circumstances. Yeah, I know, I just got a ticket earlier, in Woodville, I told the attendant. He shook his head, with a hint of commiseration, and said, that'll cost you about 50 or a hundred bucks. Damn, I said, not, well, a man who lets his county tag expire two months ago deserves whatever punishment comes his way. He went across the lot to tell the owners of a high end SUV about their dead county sticker. He was polite, even saying, I don't mean to be mean to you...and they were polite and now back at the house it's raining a gulley-washer. Earlier, on the way back from Culpeper we stopped and bought some locally grown hamburger. There were some piglets wallowing in mud puddles. The owner of the farm came over to say hi to Bernadette because he's been missing her. We stood around. The farmer called out to one of the piglets, hey, you're pissing in your own mud puddle. We watched the piglet pissing in the puddle it had just finished wallowing in. It's kind of amazing how these creatures come off as cute but they do, they pull it off.
Cruising through "downtown" Woodville going 40 in a 35 and a Rappahannock trooper does a U-turn right after I pass him. He's doing the Woodville stakeout. I can't tell you how many times I've been warned about sticking to the speed limit through Woodville. Looks like he got me I tell Bernadette beside me. I don't have to tell her to hide the crack pipe. We're not junkies. We are good solid citizens even though 30 minutes in the future I won't sign that guy's petition at the Culpeper Farmers Market. I'm not harboring any ill feelings towards Ralph Nader but I don't want him on the ballot. I do not have that burning passion which is required to fix our election system. We came to Culpeper to buy vegetable matter. That is my focus. And I already signed a piece of paper in Woodville. Not an admission of guilt the trooper assured me. But sir I am guilty I wanted to tell him. He didn't get me for speeding, he got me for the expired Rappahannock County tag. He was nice. He didn't ruin my day or even give me anything particularly noteworthy to write about (Sir, do you think you could throw me up against the Jeep and verbally abuse me, I'm having a dry spell with my blog writing.) No, the cop stop was not really that unpleasant. Not like the cat pooping in Bernadette's lap coming back from N. Carolina last week. Could you pull over, she said, the cat pooped in my lap. We'd already pulled over once for a cat pooping incident but what was I going to say? I'm sorry lover, only one cat poop stop per trip allowed. Bernadette puts up with a fair amount of crap from me. I owe her, at the very least, this second cat poop pullover. Luckily we had already bought some paper towels and Windex during the previous poop pit stop. Well, I guess this will be on the blog Bernadette said after I gently extracted the two chocolate nuggets from where her white blouse curved over her lap. I would like to think I have better taste than to write about Bernadette's misfortune but if you can't even get noteworthy material from a state trooper, well, a man blogger has to do what a man blogger has to do.
I have some garbage that has been super-heating in the garage so I took it to the dump after we got back from Culpeper. I thought maybe the attendant would verbally abuse me at the dump, because the county tag has no real purpose beyond allowing locals to dump their garbage. We are a quaint village without garbage pickup. I tossed the smelly garbage into the giant pit and then drove across the lot and unloaded some bottles for recycle. Not that many really. Three different colors, a little wine, a little beer, a few liquor bottles. Not enough to kill you. Uh oh, the attendant is walking over. I haven't had previous experience with this guy. And it's been almost two years since I was last hassled at the dump for some improper dumping protocol, either by that other attendant or a do-gooder citizen who would really be best advised to just mind their own damn business, the citizens I mean, not the attendant. Minding the business of dumping protocol is exactly his business.
I look this man in the eyes, imploring him, please sir, can you help me with my blog? He says, you got a dead county sticker. I nod, smile knowingly, and consider hugging the man. I don't mind hugging men, on occasion, but I felt it would be out of place under these circumstances. Yeah, I know, I just got a ticket earlier, in Woodville, I told the attendant. He shook his head, with a hint of commiseration, and said, that'll cost you about 50 or a hundred bucks. Damn, I said, not, well, a man who lets his county tag expire two months ago deserves whatever punishment comes his way. He went across the lot to tell the owners of a high end SUV about their dead county sticker. He was polite, even saying, I don't mean to be mean to you...and they were polite and now back at the house it's raining a gulley-washer. Earlier, on the way back from Culpeper we stopped and bought some locally grown hamburger. There were some piglets wallowing in mud puddles. The owner of the farm came over to say hi to Bernadette because he's been missing her. We stood around. The farmer called out to one of the piglets, hey, you're pissing in your own mud puddle. We watched the piglet pissing in the puddle it had just finished wallowing in. It's kind of amazing how these creatures come off as cute but they do, they pull it off.
Trees Fall Down
Meanwhile, back in Virginia, there was rumor of a severe storm while I was gone, but I think it was exaggerated somewhat. I can't find evidence of anything beyond the usual out here. This on the side of the barn.
And this big limb behind the barn
This limb over by the picnic table above the tennis court.
And this one from that tree behind my house that I have been expecting to fall on my bedroom but a big piece of it fell the other way. I guess this was my last warning. I should cut the tree down.
Meanwhile, back in Virginia, there was rumor of a severe storm while I was gone, but I think it was exaggerated somewhat. I can't find evidence of anything beyond the usual out here. This on the side of the barn.
And this big limb behind the barn
This limb over by the picnic table above the tennis court.
And this one from that tree behind my house that I have been expecting to fall on my bedroom but a big piece of it fell the other way. I guess this was my last warning. I should cut the tree down.
Global Bed Warming
People these days are all about the taking. Take, take, take. But I'm about the giving. And this morning I did my part by contributing to global warming. On a day that promises to reach nearly 100 degrees, I thought I would kick it off by building a fire, get rid of some of this wood out here and a box spring too.
It got going pretty good and then a little too good when an unforeseen wind starting blowing it horizontal (I didn't take a picture of that because I was panicking some.) I have a large pile of pretty clean wood that I think I will give to my neighbor, who heats his remodeled house with a nifty wood burning furnace system, located outside, that heats his house and his water. Also, I think I will wait for a good rain or two before I build another fire.
I was spraying the garden hose around the perimeter so the dry grass didn't catch and then run to the dry leaves in the woods. But I was a little worried for awhile about a spark settling in the leaves nearby and being that guy that burned down the woods out here in 08. Oh I'm sorry, did you want that box spring?
People these days are all about the taking. Take, take, take. But I'm about the giving. And this morning I did my part by contributing to global warming. On a day that promises to reach nearly 100 degrees, I thought I would kick it off by building a fire, get rid of some of this wood out here and a box spring too.
It got going pretty good and then a little too good when an unforeseen wind starting blowing it horizontal (I didn't take a picture of that because I was panicking some.) I have a large pile of pretty clean wood that I think I will give to my neighbor, who heats his remodeled house with a nifty wood burning furnace system, located outside, that heats his house and his water. Also, I think I will wait for a good rain or two before I build another fire.
I was spraying the garden hose around the perimeter so the dry grass didn't catch and then run to the dry leaves in the woods. But I was a little worried for awhile about a spark settling in the leaves nearby and being that guy that burned down the woods out here in 08. Oh I'm sorry, did you want that box spring?
Homestead Projects
I'm not sure just how to go about arranging this day. It's going to be a hot one and the next three days don't look much better.
It is definitely too hot to build another fire so that's out.
I could do some more painting on the inside before it heats up.
Or I could do some snake wrangling.
Or I could drag this stuff from the woods out closer to where my future trash haulers can reach it.
The basement is a very cool place to work, temperature-wise.
This was the day I thought about going to the beach, but as you can see I really have some work to do, so I'll just stick to it.
I'm not sure just how to go about arranging this day. It's going to be a hot one and the next three days don't look much better.
It is definitely too hot to build another fire so that's out.
I could do some more painting on the inside before it heats up.
Or I could do some snake wrangling.
Or I could drag this stuff from the woods out closer to where my future trash haulers can reach it.
The basement is a very cool place to work, temperature-wise.
This was the day I thought about going to the beach, but as you can see I really have some work to do, so I'll just stick to it.
Goodbye My Sweet 302
It had a high idle. Without pressing the gas pedal, left to reach its top speed on a straight away it would top out at just over 40 mph. I drove it to high school my senior year in Dallas. We didn't have an open campus but during my 35 minute lunch period I would sneak off campus in the Maverick and hit the buffet at Pizza Inn. I had a soft schedule my senior year, arrived late, after the parking restrictions expired on the street and therefore was able to park out front instead of in the guarded lot. The vice-principal, who's office faced the street and who I visited infrequently for minor infractions, asked me one day, Louis, are you leaving campus for lunch? Yessir I am. That is against school policy, he told me. I did not know that, I said, while looking through his drawer of confiscated weapons, before the days of guns in schools. We got along pretty well me and the vice-principal. He didn't see me as a serious threat and I didn't see him as one.
Several years later my father sold me the Maverick. He said, make me an offer. I said 600. He said 400. He was hoping, I think, that if I had a car I would stop hitchhiking. The car did slow down my hitchhiking some.
In 87 a friend in Austin wanted me to take him and his suitcase to California. We drove the Maverick from Austin to San Jose and there I left him. I scooted over to the coast freeway and took it up to the middle of Oregon and then back west to the Interstate and up north to Seattle and somewhere west of Seattle is where I decided I probably wouldn't spend the rest of my days in Texas. I called my employer at some point and told him this. During this leg of the trip I stopped in San Francisco but my friend was not home so I continued on and in Eureka I considered staying because there seemed to be a groove going on but I couldn't stop. I picked up some cool rocks on the beach at a place called Humboldt Lagoon.
I forgot, in Portland I had an adventure with a street person and sometime during this adventure the brakes went out. I couldn't stop then either (no pun) so I continued on with just the handbrake and would use that for braking all the way across country to New York and then down to DC.
I picked up a few pebbles at Custer's Battlefield to go with my beach rocks and then over to Minneapolis to visit the grandmother of my ex-girlfriend and then I had a brainstorm to go visit my friend in St. Louis. Had a good time there and then in Indiana I saw two girls hitchhiking, a French Canadian and a Parisian, so I picked them up and took them to Chicago. They didn't really want to have anything to do with me though so I spent my one night in Chicago at Kingston Mines, a blues club. And then to NY where I picked up Edgar and Helen and Bill and down to Great Falls, VA where Mr. BC was being a bachelor. We had a 4th of July party. My friend from St. Louis flew out, he almost had a romance with Mr. BC's ex-girlfriend.
And some other stuff, some adventures, some of them illicit but I'm not bragging.
Anyway, these are the things I thought about, seeing it dragged from the shed and then winched onto the trailer of the guy my neighbor hooked up.
It was a four door, not the sporty 2-door Grabber, but it had lines (and people think I'm kidding), that seen from just the right angle, were almost elegant.
It had a high idle. Without pressing the gas pedal, left to reach its top speed on a straight away it would top out at just over 40 mph. I drove it to high school my senior year in Dallas. We didn't have an open campus but during my 35 minute lunch period I would sneak off campus in the Maverick and hit the buffet at Pizza Inn. I had a soft schedule my senior year, arrived late, after the parking restrictions expired on the street and therefore was able to park out front instead of in the guarded lot. The vice-principal, who's office faced the street and who I visited infrequently for minor infractions, asked me one day, Louis, are you leaving campus for lunch? Yessir I am. That is against school policy, he told me. I did not know that, I said, while looking through his drawer of confiscated weapons, before the days of guns in schools. We got along pretty well me and the vice-principal. He didn't see me as a serious threat and I didn't see him as one.
Several years later my father sold me the Maverick. He said, make me an offer. I said 600. He said 400. He was hoping, I think, that if I had a car I would stop hitchhiking. The car did slow down my hitchhiking some.
In 87 a friend in Austin wanted me to take him and his suitcase to California. We drove the Maverick from Austin to San Jose and there I left him. I scooted over to the coast freeway and took it up to the middle of Oregon and then back west to the Interstate and up north to Seattle and somewhere west of Seattle is where I decided I probably wouldn't spend the rest of my days in Texas. I called my employer at some point and told him this. During this leg of the trip I stopped in San Francisco but my friend was not home so I continued on and in Eureka I considered staying because there seemed to be a groove going on but I couldn't stop. I picked up some cool rocks on the beach at a place called Humboldt Lagoon.
I forgot, in Portland I had an adventure with a street person and sometime during this adventure the brakes went out. I couldn't stop then either (no pun) so I continued on with just the handbrake and would use that for braking all the way across country to New York and then down to DC.
I picked up a few pebbles at Custer's Battlefield to go with my beach rocks and then over to Minneapolis to visit the grandmother of my ex-girlfriend and then I had a brainstorm to go visit my friend in St. Louis. Had a good time there and then in Indiana I saw two girls hitchhiking, a French Canadian and a Parisian, so I picked them up and took them to Chicago. They didn't really want to have anything to do with me though so I spent my one night in Chicago at Kingston Mines, a blues club. And then to NY where I picked up Edgar and Helen and Bill and down to Great Falls, VA where Mr. BC was being a bachelor. We had a 4th of July party. My friend from St. Louis flew out, he almost had a romance with Mr. BC's ex-girlfriend.
And some other stuff, some adventures, some of them illicit but I'm not bragging.
Anyway, these are the things I thought about, seeing it dragged from the shed and then winched onto the trailer of the guy my neighbor hooked up.
It was a four door, not the sporty 2-door Grabber, but it had lines (and people think I'm kidding), that seen from just the right angle, were almost elegant.
Chili Dogs For Breakfast
My knees are open wide to about 75 degrees and are pressed up against the wood paneled counter-front at the diner in Roxboro.
I took the storm windows off the other day so I have no screens but the windows are open and flies are landing on me. You MUST close the windows by 5p.m. or you will have mosquitoes to pay for it. No, it doesn't matter if you just painted three rooms with oil-based Kilz, close the windows.
At the diner I am an early customer at 7 a.m. because I woke up at 4 a.m. because I went to bed at 9 a.m. because I was doped on Kilz. I'm done with that now unless I'm mistaken about being done with it.
I watch an order come out and I crane my neck to see into the other room because I am curious who is ordering three chili dogs with onions at 7 a.m.
I head on over to the home improvement super store. I've been gone 14 years and Roxboro (which is ten miles away from the house) finally got a national chain home improvement store. It's been open six months. The locals are resisting it. I don't mind being one of five customers in a great big store.
The flies are wily and fresh, just born I guess and quick and full of life and hard to kill. I have a fly-swatter near me and I make an occasional effort but who am I kidding, not these flies. Wait, just got one, right on my shin. That kind of hurt. Got another one. I'm killing them now, boy.
My new phone keeps ringing but I ignore it. I put my name on the solicitor no call list yesterday but I don't think it takes effect right away so I'm playing it safe.
I think that fly I just swatted was already dead. I'm not taking credit for that one, not twice anyway.
I stop at another great big everything under one roof store and pick up a 2gb flash disc because I took some videos of the travesty out here and they are taking up too much room on my computer. I have one more video I want to take of the hidden cache of junk stashed out in the woods, some years ago I guess because small trees have grown up around it. I was out there day before yesterday with a chainsaw and a hand saw and a pruner, cutting a path big enough for a vehicle. I threw the green stuff on the burn pile.
After getting back from town I climbed up on the roof and smeared some patching cement on a bad spot where a shingle came off and around the chimney flashing, as a stop gap until I can replace the roof. It rained inside the house last week.
Phone's ringing again. I had to get up anyway and kill a bee that was buzzing by the front door so I checked the ID on the phone. Those people at V*k*ngMag*z*ne are relentless.
I got off the roof and snipped the bailing wire from the wood pallets leaned up against the hog wire attached to the two by fours nailed to my trees which were all part of Jethro's dog pen. I drag a few of the pallets, the heavy ones, and carry a couple more, the light ones, one in each hand, over to the burn pile. I am using my last dead cedar tree kindling which makes starting a fire a simple flick of the bic. I will have to construct the piles more carefully now because paint thinner is almost 10 bucks a gallon out here and gasoline's flash point I am not fond of. I have lots more to burn.
I have a pot to piss in, literally. I am afraid of the bathroom, but use it when I have to.
The cat just came inside. She is trying to catch flies. She seems to love it out here.
My knees are open wide to about 75 degrees and are pressed up against the wood paneled counter-front at the diner in Roxboro.
I took the storm windows off the other day so I have no screens but the windows are open and flies are landing on me. You MUST close the windows by 5p.m. or you will have mosquitoes to pay for it. No, it doesn't matter if you just painted three rooms with oil-based Kilz, close the windows.
At the diner I am an early customer at 7 a.m. because I woke up at 4 a.m. because I went to bed at 9 a.m. because I was doped on Kilz. I'm done with that now unless I'm mistaken about being done with it.
I watch an order come out and I crane my neck to see into the other room because I am curious who is ordering three chili dogs with onions at 7 a.m.
I head on over to the home improvement super store. I've been gone 14 years and Roxboro (which is ten miles away from the house) finally got a national chain home improvement store. It's been open six months. The locals are resisting it. I don't mind being one of five customers in a great big store.
The flies are wily and fresh, just born I guess and quick and full of life and hard to kill. I have a fly-swatter near me and I make an occasional effort but who am I kidding, not these flies. Wait, just got one, right on my shin. That kind of hurt. Got another one. I'm killing them now, boy.
My new phone keeps ringing but I ignore it. I put my name on the solicitor no call list yesterday but I don't think it takes effect right away so I'm playing it safe.
I think that fly I just swatted was already dead. I'm not taking credit for that one, not twice anyway.
I stop at another great big everything under one roof store and pick up a 2gb flash disc because I took some videos of the travesty out here and they are taking up too much room on my computer. I have one more video I want to take of the hidden cache of junk stashed out in the woods, some years ago I guess because small trees have grown up around it. I was out there day before yesterday with a chainsaw and a hand saw and a pruner, cutting a path big enough for a vehicle. I threw the green stuff on the burn pile.
After getting back from town I climbed up on the roof and smeared some patching cement on a bad spot where a shingle came off and around the chimney flashing, as a stop gap until I can replace the roof. It rained inside the house last week.
Phone's ringing again. I had to get up anyway and kill a bee that was buzzing by the front door so I checked the ID on the phone. Those people at V*k*ngMag*z*ne are relentless.
I got off the roof and snipped the bailing wire from the wood pallets leaned up against the hog wire attached to the two by fours nailed to my trees which were all part of Jethro's dog pen. I drag a few of the pallets, the heavy ones, and carry a couple more, the light ones, one in each hand, over to the burn pile. I am using my last dead cedar tree kindling which makes starting a fire a simple flick of the bic. I will have to construct the piles more carefully now because paint thinner is almost 10 bucks a gallon out here and gasoline's flash point I am not fond of. I have lots more to burn.
I have a pot to piss in, literally. I am afraid of the bathroom, but use it when I have to.
The cat just came inside. She is trying to catch flies. She seems to love it out here.
Take My Metal, Please
Just yesterday I told Danny Claypool in so many words, I have no loyalty to anyone on this issue, whoever comes and gets this stuff first, gets it. And he agreed with me because we were in fact talking about screwing Randy, who formerly rented this property from me and whom Danny did not care for and vice versa. Randy had said a guy was coming on Tuesday but when Friday came and the five cars and parts thereof were still scattered about the grounds, I mentioned to Danny next door that I was looking for someone to pick up all this crap and he said he would handle it and then about an hour later came over and said he had a guy who would take all the cars, all the assorted metal laying about and not to worry about the non-metal crap, his guy would get rid of all of it. I thanked Danny profusely and promised to him my 72 Ford Maverick, the only junker which is mine, and which has been parked under a shed for 14 years, not entirely out of the weather. The transmission was on its way out when I parked it but the engine was ok--the much revered 302 V-8.
Well, about an hour ago I'm just sitting here on this funky mattress (left behind by Randy when he moved out) on the floor of my living room and I'm coming down off the oil-based paint fumes, but not entirely down because the room I painted is just across the hall. I have the high speed hooked up as of Wednesday and so I'm streaming in HD the last half of a season 3 Lost episode. I fell asleep midway through it last night but it was like my third episode of the night so I am not in any way wanting to imply the episode was a sleeper. I am very happy with Season 3 of Lost and it is for me out here a much appreciated night time distraction from swatting mosquitos.
I see a tow truck drive up and I assume it is Danny's guy so I pause the show and go out to meet him. As it turns out it was Randy with a tow truck driver from Roxboro and he's coming through now trying to help me clean up all this shit he left out here. I'm sure he's making a dollar or two on the deal and that is no conflict for me. It is my greatest wish that everyone make their two dollars.
But there is this awkward moment now where I'm confronted with the unpleasant task of telling this tow truck driver, who is spending almost 5 bucks a gallon for diesel fuel to get out here, that I sort of promised the neighbor Danny that his guys could have all this junk. I would like to state now, or reiterate, I'm not sure if I've said this before, that scrap metal in these times is hugely profitable. And I don't want a dime of it. I only want to see the trees and the dirt through the vast amounts of shit that litter this property. Cursed with a lack of profit driven motivation describes me.
I tell the driver and Randy about this confusion but I'm thinking on my feet now and remember how Danny was so eager to screw Randy yesterday and how I said I have no loyalties on this issue. I think it may have sounded to Danny like a strange comment, or at the very least, irrelevant. But I said it because I wanted Danny to know this is not about us being friends (I know he's only nice to me because he wants my land so he can make a pond out of the low lying area. His father before him, now deceased, had made his pitch for this land many times.) So I tell the driver and Randy that since they are here they should take what they can but I'm still going to save the Maverick for Danny.
The driver backs up to the edge of the garden and begins winching a 25 year old Ford Ranger (minus transmission) from about 50 feet towards the bed of his tilting truck bed. While he's doing this I'm talking to Randy about old times, we used to be house painters together, and across the way comes Danny. Let me go deal with this I tell Randy and he is clearly grateful to be left out of it.
I apologized to Danny about the confusion, tell him the 302 V-8 is still his, and remind him about my feelings, that I don't give a damn who takes all this metal, first come, first served. The driver is slowing the winch so I look at him and he is looking at us and I nod to him and say, this and the T-Bird for now.
After the Ford was loaded (Danny had helped him out a bit by turning the wheels for him as the truck slid through the freshly tilled and rained on garden), the driver came around to the side of the property, unloaded the Ford, and dragged by the bumper a 30 year old T-Bird without wheels or rims onto the flat bed. Let me tell you, that is some bumper. He then attached to the back of his truck the Ford Ranger, which had three good tires, and him and Randy drove off, after we stood around for awhile and talked about the air show which the driver had attended earlier today in Danville. I told him the tank museum there in Danville was worth an hour or two. The driver showed us some short videos of the air show on his cell phone.
Danny is all cool about this or that is what he said anyway and the driver now understands the situation and is still eager to be back up if needed for the rest of it and he will also bring a dump truck and two guys to get rid of the non metal stuff in exchange for the bounty of metal out here.
I cannot say I anticipated this type of eagerness for my junk but I am happy about it.
Randy and his wife were a little challenged as renters but I still feel kindly towards him and enjoy his company when I see him and don't like that Danny was so eager to screw him yesterday. Before he left I said--so not a bad day, we got people doing our work for us, and you got to screw Danny a little bit.
He chuckled and agreed that it was not a bad day.
Just yesterday I told Danny Claypool in so many words, I have no loyalty to anyone on this issue, whoever comes and gets this stuff first, gets it. And he agreed with me because we were in fact talking about screwing Randy, who formerly rented this property from me and whom Danny did not care for and vice versa. Randy had said a guy was coming on Tuesday but when Friday came and the five cars and parts thereof were still scattered about the grounds, I mentioned to Danny next door that I was looking for someone to pick up all this crap and he said he would handle it and then about an hour later came over and said he had a guy who would take all the cars, all the assorted metal laying about and not to worry about the non-metal crap, his guy would get rid of all of it. I thanked Danny profusely and promised to him my 72 Ford Maverick, the only junker which is mine, and which has been parked under a shed for 14 years, not entirely out of the weather. The transmission was on its way out when I parked it but the engine was ok--the much revered 302 V-8.
Well, about an hour ago I'm just sitting here on this funky mattress (left behind by Randy when he moved out) on the floor of my living room and I'm coming down off the oil-based paint fumes, but not entirely down because the room I painted is just across the hall. I have the high speed hooked up as of Wednesday and so I'm streaming in HD the last half of a season 3 Lost episode. I fell asleep midway through it last night but it was like my third episode of the night so I am not in any way wanting to imply the episode was a sleeper. I am very happy with Season 3 of Lost and it is for me out here a much appreciated night time distraction from swatting mosquitos.
I see a tow truck drive up and I assume it is Danny's guy so I pause the show and go out to meet him. As it turns out it was Randy with a tow truck driver from Roxboro and he's coming through now trying to help me clean up all this shit he left out here. I'm sure he's making a dollar or two on the deal and that is no conflict for me. It is my greatest wish that everyone make their two dollars.
But there is this awkward moment now where I'm confronted with the unpleasant task of telling this tow truck driver, who is spending almost 5 bucks a gallon for diesel fuel to get out here, that I sort of promised the neighbor Danny that his guys could have all this junk. I would like to state now, or reiterate, I'm not sure if I've said this before, that scrap metal in these times is hugely profitable. And I don't want a dime of it. I only want to see the trees and the dirt through the vast amounts of shit that litter this property. Cursed with a lack of profit driven motivation describes me.
I tell the driver and Randy about this confusion but I'm thinking on my feet now and remember how Danny was so eager to screw Randy yesterday and how I said I have no loyalties on this issue. I think it may have sounded to Danny like a strange comment, or at the very least, irrelevant. But I said it because I wanted Danny to know this is not about us being friends (I know he's only nice to me because he wants my land so he can make a pond out of the low lying area. His father before him, now deceased, had made his pitch for this land many times.) So I tell the driver and Randy that since they are here they should take what they can but I'm still going to save the Maverick for Danny.
The driver backs up to the edge of the garden and begins winching a 25 year old Ford Ranger (minus transmission) from about 50 feet towards the bed of his tilting truck bed. While he's doing this I'm talking to Randy about old times, we used to be house painters together, and across the way comes Danny. Let me go deal with this I tell Randy and he is clearly grateful to be left out of it.
I apologized to Danny about the confusion, tell him the 302 V-8 is still his, and remind him about my feelings, that I don't give a damn who takes all this metal, first come, first served. The driver is slowing the winch so I look at him and he is looking at us and I nod to him and say, this and the T-Bird for now.
After the Ford was loaded (Danny had helped him out a bit by turning the wheels for him as the truck slid through the freshly tilled and rained on garden), the driver came around to the side of the property, unloaded the Ford, and dragged by the bumper a 30 year old T-Bird without wheels or rims onto the flat bed. Let me tell you, that is some bumper. He then attached to the back of his truck the Ford Ranger, which had three good tires, and him and Randy drove off, after we stood around for awhile and talked about the air show which the driver had attended earlier today in Danville. I told him the tank museum there in Danville was worth an hour or two. The driver showed us some short videos of the air show on his cell phone.
Danny is all cool about this or that is what he said anyway and the driver now understands the situation and is still eager to be back up if needed for the rest of it and he will also bring a dump truck and two guys to get rid of the non metal stuff in exchange for the bounty of metal out here.
I cannot say I anticipated this type of eagerness for my junk but I am happy about it.
Randy and his wife were a little challenged as renters but I still feel kindly towards him and enjoy his company when I see him and don't like that Danny was so eager to screw him yesterday. Before he left I said--so not a bad day, we got people doing our work for us, and you got to screw Danny a little bit.
He chuckled and agreed that it was not a bad day.