Somebody lost the crank handle for their tarp along twelve road.

Right after you come out of the swale where the drain water from town runs. Right after you hit the bad section of road.

It must have happened shortly before I came through; I could still see the divot where it hit the road and the slide mark where it lost momentum. 

Evidently someone else must have seen it also and must have been there just a bit before me, because I could see where they backed up, picked the handle up, and propped it against the power line pole that is situated on the corner of our ground.

Neither of us were there soon enough to see whose truck it fell off from, or I’m sure we would have picked it up and chased the truck down to return it to its rightful owner.

It’s one of those old-style cranks. Remember them?  They have a sort of u-joint fastened to a piece of square tubing that you slide into your tarp tube to crank it back.  And, you always have to watch for the tarp straps (I guess their name has changed to bungee cords today) that are permanently attached to the tarp as you started rolling it back, because they often hook on anything possible and stop the whole process. 

Then, once you have it rolled all the way back, which often seems to involve climbing up either the front or the back of the truck bed to finish rolling it by hand, you disengage the tarp crank handle and stow it in some hooks on the side of the bed.   I’m guessing whoever lost it must not have mounted it quite right into the hooks and it bounced out when they hit that section of road. 

The other day, I was out mowing the fence rows and, as I came up to that corner, noticed it wasn’t there anymore. 

Surely, I thought, someone must have seen it and claimed it.  But then I saw it was still there, lying in the ditch.  Evidently the county had knocked it over when they had been by a few days earlier, mowing the ditches. 

I wonder what I should do with it. 

It’s leaned against the pole, out there, for over twenty-five years now.

It’s stood its ground in hurricane force winds, mini twisters, and horrific ice storms.

I noticed, after one of those terrible blows, the pole it was leaning against had snapped. 

That was a few years ago now.  When the power company came out to repair damages, they leaned it back up against the new pole they had set.

But now, it got knocked over.

And, I’m suspicious that the owner of the truck it belonged to may not pick it up.

Mainly, because I don’t think the truck is still in the community, and the owner died a number of years ago.

I could lean it back up against the pole and leave it there.

It isn’t doing any harm, apparently, leaning there like it has.

And, I would guess if I leaned it back up against the pole, it may make it another 25 years in the same location.

I wonder, if my life isn’t a little like that tarp handle.  I’m thinking it has some relics that have kept their place, leaning where they have for last the last 25 years, that really serve no purpose whatsoever. 

And, I’m thinking the reason they are still there is the same reason that crank handle is still there. 

Simply put, no one has cared enough to take care of what needs taking care of.