When?

I stare at the dirty, white, linoleum square.

It’s late in the evening, and I should be thinking about getting my luggage and getting out of here.

But my thoughts veer off, down, and back.

And in a moment, I see into that linoleum square.

I see the likelihood that famous men have walked over this same square is decent.

I see the chance that billionaires have tread upon it.

I catch a glimpse of people of renown from other countries who have walked across it.

I see back farther.

I see back to a time when this linoleum square wasn’t there.

I see a dusty, asphalt street that wingtip Fords and Chevy’s drag up and down in the humid evenings, boys with their best girls beside them, out on the town.

I see this street stricken with silence when the news that one of its own was gunned down in another city.

I look past the asphalt street to when it was a muddy, bumpy road that horses and buggies traveled down. 

And, I see that forlorn day when a nine car train pulls out of the station, bearing, in one of the cars, its silent passage of grief. 

This street is packed with those come to see their fated champion off for the last time.

I listen now, because the street isn’t there yet. 

The world is a quieter place than it is today. 

I hear the gentle slap, slap, of the water wheel and the low growl of the grist mill as it grounds away at the day’s assignment.

I see men in while leggings and tricorn hats come to pick up the next months menu from the mill.

But I hear something else.  I hear the roar of musket fire and the agonized screams and moans from the lingering death those wounds cause. 

I see men, hit with cannon fire in the most basic of butchery and brutality possible.

I look harder; the evening is getting late, but I want to see all of it before I leave.

It is quiet now, and there is no street, and there are no houses, or great stone buildings. 

As the seasons come and go, I see Indians pass over this area, soft footed and sure in their direction. 

Katydids buzz, blackbirds chirp to their always there cousins, and at night, I hear a coyote calling, in that lonesome way they do.

I shake my head and rub my eyes, coming back to the present. 

I am looking at the white, dirty, linoleum square again. 

I make my way to the baggage claim and retrieve my luggage. 

In a couple of days, I’ll be back in this city after attending the wedding of a friend.

I’ll drive by the Washington monument, the White House, and the Capital itself. 

And then I’ll ask myself. 

Which age mattered the most? 

And whose footprints did I step in?

And will it make a difference, sometime, somewhere, when someone steps into my footprints?

Traveling

She asked if I was going to take my computer along.

I said, “Maybe I won’t this time.  It’s heavy, and I doubt I’ll need it anyway.”

She said I most definitely needed to take it along, ‘just in case.’

I said, “It’s going to be a busy weekend.”

She said it didn’t matter, that I should have it along.

And so, when I was about done packing, and I saw her slip my computer into my backpack, I let it be.

It hasn’t been too heavy this time, and there have been several things I have observed that have left deep impressions on me.

But what she doesn’t know, is that she left quite an impression, all by herself, when she asked me to go with her to Garden, to, ‘buy a few things and get a coffee,’ the day before we left.

And, I went with her.

And, I could see, once we got on our way, that our little outing was more about time together than getting coffee, although the coffee did taste quite nice.

So, I thought on it, while we were together, and I was hassling her about where we were going to eat dinner, and she was adamantly assuring me she was NOT picking this time, even though in the next breath she told me to give her options and she would kick some out and leave a couple left for me to decide.

And, I chuckled quietly to myself, when, after I had given her some options for lunch, she ended up saying she knew those pupusa’s had been calling her name, but she really felt like sushi.  Because I knew then, where we would eat lunch together.

I thought of the trip I was about to take, the one I’m on now, to a wedding in Pennsylvania.  I thought of what weddings are like; sort of really nice, but sort of really sad, for the families involved.

And I thought of the new home that will be started tomorrow, and of the adjustments that will come, because they do.

And I wondered, if maybe those adjustments might be just a little more seamless when the bride to be and her crusty old dad are able to have a few of those father/daughter trips and it just so happens she chooses where to eat for dinner.

30 Odd Years Ago #2

I’m standing beside Jared in the old city office turned fire department meeting room.

It’s gloomy in here.  The fluorescent light blinks its blueish light into the dusty corners.

In one corner is an ancient green steel four drawer filing cabinet left behind when the city moved to their new office.

I see some leftover city paperwork deemed unimportant enough to make the move still sitting on top of it, and there is a pack of those thin, red, plastic give away children’s fire helmets on top of that.

I hear a commotion in the front and turn to see our fire chief enter with a large suitcase under his arm.

I’m suspicious our evening’s activities are housed in that box.

The chief unpacks the contents with lots of bluster and nervous guffaws.

Soon, we have little Anne on the floor and, as per requirements, our CPR class begins.

I do not want to do this.

I’m not squeamish about it. 

It’s a pride thing. 

I don’t want to get down on my knees and fumble around the face of this plastic mannequin. 

I’ve taken CPR classes already.  I don’t have pleasant memories of those classes and this chortling-at-everything-and-every-mistake chief makes it hard for me to summon the courage.

But, like in so many other things, my friend Jared is no shirker and gets right down to work, literally.

We both kneel by Anne and shout in her ear, asking if she is okay.

She most definitely is NOT okay. 

She keeps staring vacantly at the ceiling and there is no auditory response from her partly open lips. 

We tilt her head back and grasp her lower jaw to check her airway for anything that might be blocking it.  It’s hard to see in the minimal light, so we swipe to the back of her mouth with a finger just to make sure.  

Next, I put my ear close to her mouth and listen for breath sounds. 

I don’t hear anything; I catch a faint smell of alcohol that still lingers on her lips from when we cleansed her mouth with an alcohol swab prior to starting.

 Finally, we check for a carotid pulse in her stiff, cold, leathery neck.

There is nothing. 

We don’t know what accident Anne suffered yet; our chief hasn’t told us.  I don’t know if he is holding out on us to trick us (something I find he does every once in a while) but at any rate, we need to start life saving measures immediately.

Jared puts his mouth over Anne’s and gives two breaths; I watch her chest rise and fall with each one.  Our chief calls out the sequence, verbally, but doesn’t deign to show us how, something we will find often in our acquaintance with him. 

I find the ‘v’ at the base of Anne’s sternum, move up a couple of ribs, and begin chest compressions, counting out as I go along, one, and two, and three . . . up to fifteen.

Jared gives two more breaths, and I continue compressions, feeling the spring inside her chest creak and crinkle, then bounce back.

We do four sets of breaths and compressions before our chief calls a halt and we try to acquire some sign of life.  There is none, so we start again, breathing for and pumping Anne’s heart.

After what seems a longer than necessary time on our knees in front of our chief, he calls a halt and tells us Anne doesn’t look like she is going to make it, and loudly guffaws. 

The evening is flickering out and there is no heat in the old city building.  It’s cold out, and Anne chills down before us as we wrap up our first session.

Our chief breaks into a great fanfare, and brings us our pagers.

These innocuous looking gray plastic boxes, about two inches wide, and three inches tall, with a volume spinner wheel on the left and button on the right that is tuned in to Gray Count Sherriff’s Office when depressed, don’t seem to have the power to reef me awake from sound sleep and send me shivering and skittering in an adrenalin high down the roads to future assignments.

But I just don’t know any of that yet. 

For now, I have my status symbol, earned on my knees on a cold, dirty gray carpet. 

Conversation in My Head

“I think I should hook up the mower and mow ditches while it’s cool this morning.

I wonder if I’ll need to oil the pto to get it to slide on.

Nope, slid right on. 

Hey.  There’s the fourwheeler and that reminds me I was going to run back out to see if that new calf has bedded down.  Maybe I can catch it while its mom is away and get it tagged.

I really hope its mom is quite a ways away.  She seemed so possessive earlier.

Hey.  There’s the mom and the calf isn’t with her.  Okay, now to find it.

Looks like mom and the rest are at least 300 feet away from where I last saw that calf, but with this tall grass . . .

C’mon, c’mon, where are you, little guy?

Guess I’ll start driving a gridwork to find it.  Hopefully, I don’t run over it in the process.

Ah.  There you are.

Oops.  I see you are on to my game.  Stop looking at me that way.

Here.  I’ll leave the fourwheeler running.  Maybe that will distract you.

Okay.  Get the eartag and the applicator. 

Maybe if I walk around on to its back, I can sneak up on it. 

Nope.  You rascal, turn the other way. 

I’m going to have to make a flying dive/leap/run on this deal.

Ready, here goes.

Wham!  I got you, you little freak.

Oh no you don’t.  Don’t even think you’ll get away.

Quick.  Get on top of it. 

Crazy thing is stronger than on ox.  How’d it wriggle out from under me?

Hey!  It’s getting away!  Grab the hind legs.  There, that’s better.  Can’t pull my 200 pounds around so easily when I’m laying full out on the ground can you. 

Great.  There’s a sticker plant right here.  No matter.  Get moving.  I hear the mama’s making a ruckus. 

Better sneak a peek to see how close they are.  Can’t be too close yet.  They have that water to cross, and it’s deep, and then a good 300 feet.

Oh for the love of Mike!  They are barreling towards me!

Cripes!  Get that eartag in and get out of here. 

Hey.  Where’s the eartag? 

There it is, under that sticker plant.  Now where’s the applicator? WHERE’S THE APPLICATOR? 

This calf is leaving again.  Get your knee on its side.  There, that’s better.  That’ll hold it.

WHERE’S THE APPLICATOR?

Hooboy, there it is.  Quick, is this calf a bull or heifer?

Lift its tail and see. 

I can’t see, and the mom is right behind me now!

Just call it a bull and run!

Okay, tag in the right ear for bull. 

Get off and away, man, and run for it.

Woah.  That was close.

Okay, for the record, I don’t know if 2110 is a bull or heifer; it’s tagged bull for those who need to know.”

To, or Not To

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. 

30 Odd

I’m standing in the side hallway of our church after the evening service when my friend Jared walks up to me and asks, without any preamble, if I’d be interested in joining the fire department with him.

I’m barely 18 years old, and it is almost 30 odd years ago now.

His request catches me by surprise; I have never considered such a thought up to this point in my life.

After a quick non thinking pause, I say, “Sure, what do we do next?”

He tells me we need to meet with the fire chief.  He knows we will be accepted because there aren’t enough personnel in the department as it is.

We meet the chief a few evenings later to go over things.

He’s an interesting type of guy; seems a little insecure.  Always clearing his throat and every little bit breaks into an overly done guffaw.

We sign a few forms that are rather meaningless and then we are escorted with great fanfare out to the equipment bay and shown around. 

The chief hops into the country truck and starts it up, kicking on the lights and revving it to a scream in a matter of seconds.  I wonder what such revs are doing to a cold start like that.  He shuts it down and shows us to the back where an antiquated 20 hp Kohler pump motor is mounted to the left side atop a large stand on platform.  On either side of the platform are hoses that can be manned by the person riding there.

He starts the pump motor, or, tries to.  It doesn’t start for some time, which is a habit we soon learn can be very frustrating.  With an embarrassed guffaw, the chief tinkers around with it and eventually gets it running.  I wonder, to myself, how the ramifications of this time lapse are to be explained to someone in a desperate situation.  I don’t think I can master the guffaw that seems to be the catch all by now, neither do I think it proper communication for such situations, although I am to see it used precisely as such very often.

Next, we are shown to the front platform where another hose, strung along the left side of the truck and draped across the top of the cab finally terminates on the platform.  There is railing across the front of the platform, but not on either side to facilitate a quick entry or exit, or, in some cases of very bumpy rides, an extreme hazard.

We are told the country truck carries around 300 gallons of water, and, we are told that water disappears alarmingly fast when all three hoses are being manned by hyperventilating, overly stoked firefighters. We are given sober and stern instructions about water conservation. 

It’s just five steps out from the truck into the dark night and a turn to the right.  He shows us the water tower, and, I see for the first time a round red iron plate affixed to a track where it can slide up and down.  The chief tells us this is the float indicator and explains how when the tank is completely full, the red plate will be at the bottom of the track, completely empty, at the top.  Again, we are given dutiful instruction of the possibility of sucking the tower dry, should a big event happen and both country and city truck are pumping at full capacity.

The tanker is next to the country truck.  The chief jumps up to start it.  All the equipment needs to be warmed up, he says.  But it doesn’t start.  The battery is dead.  We smile politely at the guffaw relegated in the tanker’s direction, and retire back to the old city office, now turned fire department meeting room, to discuss what comes next.

Got Your Back

I got a bill in the mail today that I’ve been looking for.

It’s an expensive one, but that’s okay.

In fact, I’m quite glad I got it.

Family owned and operated businesses have unique challenges.

Ours isn’t large enough to have a lot of specific dos and don’ts, still, there a few things that I personally have learned over the years.

One is, don’t look at what has happened with any right or wrong judgement until it is a day old. 

I partially failed in this, not so long ago, and what I learned once my head cleared is something I’m still humbled by.

*****

It was sort of a normal day for me.  I was making an inventory run to town, had an appointment or two to make while I was in town, and needed to keep the boys running as efficiently as possible at the jobs they were on.

But I was carrying extra stress.  I knew we were running short on time for the job that we were on, and there were a couple of calls that were waiting until we were done on this job.  Since it was taking longer than I thought, I needed to call those customers and reschedule, something I’m not overly fond of doing.

The pressure intensified as we neared Dodge; my phone was ringing or pinging every half mile, the way it seemed, and from what I gathered, the boys weren’t running at top speed. 

In fact, it seemed to me they were at one of their slower paces. 

I started complaining to Mama Jan.

Poor her. 

She so often has to take the middle position between the boys and their dad. 

I gave all the facts out, assuring her of how I knew about how much work was going to get done, and how short we were going to fall at the end of the day, both time-wise and money-wise.

As the day progressed, I got a phone call from one of the guys, saying, rather apologetically, how he really hadn’t gotten much done in the morning, he had people calling him that he couldn’t disregard.

Which made me mad.

They are supposed to call me, so I can keep the pressure off the guys, so they can keep working.

And I figured the reason they were calling him was because they didn’t like their calls going to voicemail on my phone while I was in at my appointments.

Noon came and went, and I should have had at least four hours of nonjudgmental time already racked up where I had let things remain neutral in my mind as per the aforementioned guideline.

But instead, I had four hours of stress racked up and it was building even as I drove the inventory out to where the guys were working.

When I got there, I met three guys who seemed clueless about what needed to happen next.

So, I piously, patiently, and somewhat self righteously explained what needed to be done.

And those three immediately took issue with it.

Because it violated code.

Okay.  I knew that. 

But. 

Code can sometimes be reached only partially, due to existing structure or, a compromise between a customer who maybe can’t afford code but needs their emergency fixed, nonetheless.

I could feel myself losing it.

The customer was waiting.  We needed wire in the walls, not voices in the air.

And, it was three against one, and I knew it. 

I knew they were more than likely right, just as I knew, due to experience, I was more than likely right.

So, I finally told them, not so quietly, that they could have at it, do it their way, and I left.

*****

I got home and blew my top to Mama Jan.

I went on and on about my frustrations of our different views on code and customer satisfaction.

And then, Mama Jan started crying.

So, I asked her why.

And she told me.

*****

The day before, we had been trenching in a main service and hit a water line. 

Which happens occasionally.  It just means we must stop and fix it before we go on. 

But this was a big water line, and it flowed massively. 

The customer didn’t know it was there, and told us, that barring any other reason, we should cap it and go on.  Which we did.

But, a day after we hit it, which was the current day I am talking about, Mama Jan told me the city guys showed up on the front doorstep of the house we were wiring. 

And they were upset.

Because the water line we capped fed a large gas booster station.

They admitted they didn’t know where it was and more than likely we would have hit it regardless.

They asked if I had done a onecall to mark all the underground lines.  Upon which, the son they were ranting at called his mother to see if I had.  She asked me, and I said no. 

Well, maybe I almost screamed no. 

Because it was out in the middle of a field, and one service had already trenched right through where we were going to trench, had marked their line, and there were no other lines marked. 

So, I saw no need to do the onecall.

Still, we were clearly at fault for not calling it in.

So, it turns out that while I was going on and on in the morning about my frustrations, my boys were taking the heat for me, and arranging a repair to be made (the bill I got today) on the city water main.

And, to top it off, I spoke rather unkindly to them in the afternoon of the same day they took all the heat for me in the morning, and they never once mentioned what had happened to me. 

I suppose another guideline of a family-owned business is that each has the other’s back. 

Thanks boys. 

You were better men than I was that day.

Thankful

We worked together, easily, as a team that day. 

He was 16, maybe 17.  I was 21 years older.

The conduit was trenched in, and the wire was laid out on the ground, ready to be pulled in.

Two runs of 2/0 copper, 120 feet long.

One run of 1/0 copper, 120 feet long.

One run of #1 copper, 120 feet long.

We set the shop vac by the pole, used a temporary plug spliced into the main for power, and vacuumed a length of twine through the conduit.

Next, we attached our pull rope to the twine and pulled it through.

Finally, we set the tugger up at the pole, taped the four runs of wire together, slid the grip over them and fastened it to the rope.

He had the hard job, dragging the runs of wire along the ground and feeding them into the conduit.

I had the easy part, winding the rope around the capstan, making sure it didn’t double on itself and keeping a close eye on the progress at the other end, watching for any tangle or hiccup, upon which I would immediately loosen the rope to stop the inward pull.

All went well, and in a few minutes, the grip appeared at my end, and I pulled several feet of wire through, enough to hook up to the service main.

I asked him which side he wanted to hook up, house or pole, and he chose pole.

He grabbed the ratchet and put an allen wrench attachment on.

With a final word of caution to make sure the power was off before he started hooking up, I went to the house to start my side of the hook up. 

Somewhere, one of us cut the power before I cautioned him to cut power, and neither of us remembered it.

When he went to hook up his side to the pole, he threw the lever the opposite way, thinking it was on and he was switching it off.

But it was off, and he switched it on.

For some reason, he didn’t verify power that day.  Today, I see him do it every time, sometimes even twice.

I finished my side and came out to see him finishing his side.

He told me, “This ratchet wrench keeps getting so hot, I can’t figure out what’s going on.”

Horrified, I saw the lever in the ‘on’ position.

Tonight, when I read Ephesians 1:8, I thought back to that day, and believed what I read.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Admittedly, I fall into the category of Monkey See, Monkey Do.

Undoubtedly, there is another category called Monkey Do, so other Monkeys can See.

Certainly, my friends Taylor and Emery fall into the latter category, because what I am about to write next wouldn’t be possible if they hadn’t shown me how to do.

And, I suppose what I am about to write about could also be skewered into the minimalist category, by those not of that category.

Put it where you want.  I don’t care.  I know what I’m doing makes me happy.  That’s enough.

*****

I started yesterday morning. 

I scraped all the dried mud off the floor of the garage and swept it out.

Next, I got my faithful, basic green weber grill that I bought at Home Depot several years ago.

(Even though I have a nice, fairly state of the art Treager pellet grill sitting right beside it)

I cleaned all the ash out, and, following Taylor’s instructions from a while back, I started laying in the charcoal briquettes, one at a time, in a single row around the edge until I got back to the start.  I left a six-inch gap between the start and end.

A second line of briquettes followed, right up against the first line.

And then, a third line, against the second.

On top of the three across snake, I started a fourth row, spanning the first two briquettes.

Lastly, a fifth row on top, against the previous fourth row. 

I sprinkled apple wood chips over the entire snake. 

*****

This morning, I sprayed lighter fluid on the first 8 briquettes and lit them.

I got the pie pan I always use cleaned up and nestled just inside the ring. 

I heated water to boiling while I started trimming the Boston butts.

My fingers found the seam that Emery told me about one day.  I never knew it was there. 

I sliced down with the seam and pulled at all the ‘garnuckle’ as Emery calls it, while using my knife to pare it away from the meat it clung to. 

Next, I flipped the butt over, and sliced almost all of the backfat off, because, as he says, most of that stuff is still there when you are completely done with your meat anyway.

I liberally covered both butts with seasonings, patting it into all the surface areas, including down into the seam that I cut the garnuckle out of.

I filled the pie pan with boiling water, and placed the butts above it on the meat rack.

*****

I got the meat on at 10 this morning.  A little later than normal, but a certain cinnamon roll needed special time and attention, amidst other things.

I will make repeated and many trips out to my grill today, insuring that the ambient temperature inside the grill doesn’t exceed 240, rather hoping to hold it around the 225 mark.

In six or seven hours, when the internal meat temperature reaches 160 (an Emery suggestion), I’ll pull the meat off and wrap it tightly in tin foil. 

I’ll put it in the oven and set that temperature at 225, carefully monitoring the internal temperature until it reaches 205 degrees.

If I hear any crackling or boiling sounds from the tin foil, I’ll reduce my temperature immediately.

Once it hits 205, I’ll pull it out and let it sit for an hour or two, before opening the packets.

If it’s like other times, it will be so tender I won’t be able to lift it out of the foil in one piece.  It will fall apart while I transfer it.

Since I cut out all the garnuckle this morning, there will be very little waste this evening, and most of the fat that is left will have vaporized into the meat, allowing me to squeeze it with my fingers to break it apart. 

I’ll weigh it, and put it into vacuum seal bags in 1-pound amounts.  These bags will go into the freezer and later, they can be thawed and put into a pan of water in an oven that is heated to 245 and then served.

My personal favorite is toasting the buns and making up some Carolina sauce.  This pairs very well, (in my opinion) with Swiss cheese and the meat.

If you are interested in trying this, I highly recommend splurging a bit of your hard earned (or easy, depending on which type of monkey you are) money on a temperature device that has several probes and remote access.

Writer’s Block

There’s no writer’s block.  What’s going on is going on deep below the surface of your consciousness. 

You’re trying to make a seed break through the crust of the soil and have a leaf. 

But it’s not ready; it’s doing whatever the seed is doing way down there, getting ready to do it, and that’s what’s going on.

Writer’s block is essentially the critic in your head saying, ‘That’s no good,’ before it even gets anywhere. 

This voice that’s so critical, that you believe, cause it’s your voice, gets in the way of problem solving on a real level.

That voice doesn’t have any more insight than some people who have the opposite who have a voice who tells them they’re a genius.

~Paul Simons—American singer/songwriter