Todd R. Townsend

Sailor, Writer, Wanderer

Posts Tagged Greatest Hits

Pancho’s Fish Fry

Sep 5

Posted by trt in Writing | Comments off

Washed-up On the Rocks by Annika Wetterlund (cc)

 

In 1995 or so, I lost the tip of my finger. I was rebuilding a thermoforming machine and the weight of a large gear assembly shifted. WHAM! It just clipped a tiny chunk of fingertip on a funky angle, but I came out of the Emergency Room with a bandage on my middle finger like a large pear.

 

It had happened very early in the day; a day that became a comedy of errors. The boss’ kid, who worked for me, helped wrap my hand in what few clean shop rags we could find.  Horrified, and white as a ghost, he drove me to the local hospital.  After sitting at the local ER a long while, the doctor carefully unwrapped my hand, took one look and said “Oh, we can’t do anything for you here. You’ve got to go to Kalamazoo.” . . . and he left the room.

 

We drove ourselves the 45 minutes to Kalamazoo. After sitting there for at least an hour, and finally getting my finger cleaned up and bandaged, they asked if I wanted my prescription filled there at the hospital or at my home pharmacy. Despite not having a regular pharmacist back home, I decided on the latter. As the kid drove us carefully through the little town of Vicksburg, the company truck suddenly died. I was sitting on a curb at a Shell Gas Station, halfway home, waiting for a ride, when the finger started throbbing. All the medicine from the hospital visit was wearing off. More pain medicine was at an unknown pharmacist back home. If we got there before they closed.

 

 

A few weeks later, I was back in familiar territory; sitting in a bar telling boat stories. Working in a factory that made running boards, I had met and was dating the woman who would become my second wife. My boss and his wife, had invited the girlfriend and me to a fish fry. We were in a tall, narrow storefront bar in the one sided, one block long, downtown of tiny Burr Oak, Mi.

 

It was a typical small town tavern with a few tables up front by a dusty plate glass window. Midway, back to the left, was the bar. There were smaller tables on the opposite wall. At the far end of the bar, was the window to the kitchen. Next to that, a hall toward the backdoor. The walls were covered with beer logo mirrors, pictures of local hunting heroes, and other swag. A grey cloud of cigarette smoke hung high enough in the ceiling, we hadn’t noticed it yet. Haphazardly taped to the front door were handbills for a tent revival and a turkey shoot that had already happened. We found an empty table near the bar.

 

I had just gotten the news that Pancho, an acquaintance from Florida, had drowned off a boat that technically, I still owned. It was interestingly ambiguous spot to be in. I had left Florida in a rush to take a job. The plan was to live with a Great Aunt, save some money and come back to buy a bigger boat and live aboard.

 

Though I tried to just give him my sailboat, a sailing buddy, Tom, had volunteered to help me sell it after I’d left. I had bought the boat from a salesman who sold me cardboard boxes. It was a big boat for its size; a 21 foot sloop with a small cabin capable of long weekends. That was the last I ever heard from Tom. I got the Legend of Pancho, some months later, from a former business partner still in the state.

 

The last Fourth of July weekend that I was in Florida, Tom and I had spent four days drinking beer, sailing around Sarasota Bay and watching the offshore powerboat races from the water. I don’t know how many times Tom “sailed” the boat while he was helping “sell” the boat, but I know he was going sailing at least once. The story was tragic from the very start. Pancho’s granddaughter had been killed in a car accident. He was, of course, taking it hard. Tom, and a third friend, decided they should take Pancho out for a sail to get his mind off everything for a while. A sail . . . on my boat.

 

They were already drinking as they gathered an aluminum jon boat, beer and munchies. My boat was swinging on an anchor in a cove off of downtown Sarasota; the same cove I had lived aboard another boat for a year and a half. They piled their supplies and themselves into their boat and rowed out to mine. I’m sure it was a sight to see them clamoring aboard. As they settled into the cockpit and readied the boat, someone decided they needed more beer. The fateful decision was made for Tom and the friend to leave Pancho on the boat, row to shore and get more beer.

 

It is hard to imagine what thoughts might fill your mind if you lost a young loved one. I don’t know any details, other than Pancho had been distraught for a few days already. Compound those feelings with being left alone in a cove full of strange boats; some palatial, some derelict. Whatever was on his mind, when the other two came back with more beer, Pancho was missing.

 

At the risk of repition, its hard to imagine what thoughts might fill your mind if you were missing a drinking buddy from a boat that wasn’t even yours in a cove off downtown Sarasota. Pancho was found the next day. He washed up on the rocks at the end of a kidney-shaped park near where the boat was anchored. Perhaps, this is when Tom vanished.

 

When I lost track of Tom, I lost track of the boat. He left the company he had worked for and left no other information. Someone told me he had gone up into North Florida cow country. I searched a couple times back in the very early days of the World Wide Web, but he had walked off into the ether; unfound. The boat had three and half feet of keel and no trailer. I had never considered being able to bring her to the Great Lakes. And I really didn’t know what was going on back in Florida at the time.

 

About a year later, I got a letter from the County Sheriff. Fortunately, not about Pancho, but about my boat. Apparently, the boat stayed for some time in the cove right where I had left her.  In a storm, she had drug her anchor and was drifting out to sea.  She was between Siesta and Lido Keys, headed out toward the Gulf of Mexico, when the Marine Patrol found her and towed her back to the City Dock. When no one claimed her, she was hauled to a city yard and unceremoniously stood up on a couple 55 gallon drums.

 

The letter, forwarded through a couple addresses, explained that I could pay various storage and hauling fees and keep my boat, or she would be auctioned at the upcoming Police Auction. Sadly, I let her go. I had started a new life in Michigan and met a woman whom I was planning to marry. My plans for a bigger boat and a life aboard were, more or less, voluntarily sunk; scuttled might be the appropriate nautical term.

 

When I got the letter, I had called my old business partner. We chuckled about the sad story of my boat. He had sailed with me occasionally as well. Then he asked, “Did you hear about Pancho?” and told me the legend. I had been sad about the boat but I was not prepared for Pancho’s story.

 

Pancho was one of those stoic, steady guys; a jack-of-all-trades. Near as I could tell, he was just a hard working guy scrabbling to do the best he could for his family. Some people always manage to drift away from the work and dally. Others are drawn back to their work; double checking its always done right. Pancho was one of the latter. He was the sage workaholic in a small lazy shop that made chalkboards for schools. He said he was Mexican American Indian. I can still picture the cracks and crags of his weathered face, his salt and pepper hair in a ponytail and, everyday, an indian headband.

 

Pancho worked for Tom, who was running a company for our landlord. Both our companies were young startups. One shop was always lending a hand to help the other; sharing a forklift, or unloading a big truck like a bucket brigade. Friday afternoons would get a little lazy and we’d all just hang around. Someone usually snuck out for a six pack. Four or five of us would end up standing around in the alley between our two buildings as the sky darkened. I don’t remember any specific conversation. There probably weren’t any specific conversations on those slow Friday afternoons.  Pancho stood out amongst the forgettable blue collar drifters around him.  He was the kind of character whose memory would bounce off of some mundane object and sneak to the surface. The thought of him, at some odd moment, never failed to make me smile.

 

 

Back at the Fish Fry, listening to Pancho’s Legend, my boss and his wife were mesmerized.  The girlfriend had heard it a couple times already. I talk with my hands and the boss’s wife had been watching me wave around this gigantic bandage on my middle finger.

 

Just as I finished the story, she asked “Now, what did you do to your finger again?”

 

Taking a pull on my neglected beer, I said, “Actually, I was shoving Pancho off the boat and he bit me.”

 

I hadn’t noticed but in the small bar, right over the boss’ shoulder, a guy was sitting alone at the bar. We were all close together in the narrow establishment. The lone waitress wiggled her way between tables and barstools carrying big platters of fish and pitchers of beer. When I said, “. . . and he bit me,” the guy at the bar spit his beer and laughed out loud. We suddenly realized he had been listening all along. Pancho’s Legend would be told again.

 

As the bluster of the bar story, and a good laugh, began to fade, like the darkening sky on a lazy Friday afternoon gone by, my heart dipped. Just then, in the noisy little bar, my ears got hollow and my gut went heavy. Damn it, I missed Pancho. I missed those lazy Friday afternoons. Pancho had never had much in this life. Now, he had a legend. Vaya con dios, mi amigo.

 

——-

Image used under the Creative Commons license.

“Washed-up On the Rocks” by Annika Wetterlund

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I’m Dreaming of a Warm Christmas . . .

Dec 14

Posted by trt in Rambling, Writing | Comments off

The lights around the highway exit loomed in the foggy darkness and faded out into the lunar landscape of the snow covered Nebraska plains. In the foreground, the grotesque beauty of post storm ice on everything. Every twig in the bare trees, every leaf on every bush, each stem and blade of the weeds, and even the occasional deer carcass, was covered with a silver veil in the glow. The roads were better here, the freezing rain had given way to blowing snow. I drove down the more or less visible highway with the wheel cocked ever so slightly into the wind.

Nerve endings crept out of my fingertips. They slithered around and down the steering column like tiny vines of Jack’s bean stalk. Somewhere under the dash, a connection was made. The truck and I were one. Just as a crosswind began to push against the truck, I was already pressing the steering a little further. Before the puff was over, the wheel was already back to where I started, just nudging the wind as we went. In cycles of push and ease, we read the wind like an old sailor and his schooner. Anyone watching would simply observe a semi truck maintaining its lane. Inside, the effortless, unified work continued.

With the creak of bone and sinew, my left leg grew down through the floor like Mr. Hyde or a Werewolf in mid change. My toes touched the chilly tarmac. Just as I steered, a moment before the road became slick, I was easing off the accelerator. In dry snow or on pavement, I was already speeding back up. I had taken the red pill, I was plugged in.

I had the FM radio off and the CB radio on. If a bad spot in the road or a wreck was up ahead, someone would cackle over the tinny speakers of the CB. We would all adjust to the new conditions. When the road got really bad, no one talked. For miles it seemed that I was driving the only truck left on the highway. The steering and the accelerator eased on and off as the road dictated. The only interruption when a bridge would drastically break the wind.

Easing in and out of steering into the wind worked just fine except when the wind suddenly vanished. When I drove under a bridge, the bridge and its embankment would block all the wind. With no wind to steer against, the truck lurched toward the bridge. This can be disconcerting in the daylight. At night, with so few visual frames of reference, the brief, disorienting, lurch toward the bridge felt exactly the same way the tractor did when going into a slide. Each time my heart jumped into my throat. I had to check my mirrors for the trailer. Each time, I could just make out a side light and the rear marker light on my side of the trailer. If those lights were roughly parallel, I was still going down the road; relatively straight.

I had driven more than eight hours before I actually made it up to 54 mph. With a clean road and real speed, I noticed the wipers were still scraping at the windshield. Clickety Clackety to the right, Clap, thud to the left, clickety clackety . . . over and over again. I had to run the wipers on the icy glass, with the defroster blasting from the inside all night just to keep a clear view of the road. Four or Five times, I had to pull over to scrape the windshield and crack the ice off the wipers. It took me quite a while to trust that I could turn the wipers off. When I finally did it was eerily quiet; like a tomb, only colder. I hadn’t needed much caffeine with all the stress but now, with a sudden relief, I was sleepy.

I had a hundred miles to go. In clear weather, I would have been there early. After all the winter conditions driving, I was getting my confidence back in the clear spots. I was hitting 60 mph occasionally. My trucker brain figured at sixty, I could almost make my appointment. My right leg, with its damnable will to live, kept pulling back, not yet trusting that we are past the weather. The brain got us back to sixty. After a few minutes, the leg had us back at fifty two. Brain pushes, leg eases. Same cycle as before, but call it a draw – I made it to the gate with about 7 minutes to spare. The gals at the Receiving Office had no idea what I’d just driven through.

“Back into Dock 214,” she said cheerily. She’s all smiles and big eyes; bright red sweatshirt and fingernails painted green. “Chock your wheels, dolly down, but don’t unhook.” Her voice chimes like holiday wishes. The perfect inflection as if she were saying “Donner and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Pancho, Chuy, Tavo.”  She exudes a whole new meaning to the phrase Holiday Fruitcake.

“Aw, “repression”…”recession”…it’s all da same thing, man.” -Cheech Marin

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Reading Signs On the Wrong Highway.

Nov 17

Posted by trt in Rambling | 1 Comment


I was on a road trip out East to see my brother and his family. The evening before, I had driven across the bluff over Lake Erie at Erie, PA. I love a blue horizon! Cutting the corner of Pennsylvania into New York and on past Buffalo, I spent the night in Williamsville, just off the thruway.

Next morning, out in the moist summer air, I tossed my bag and my guitar in the truck, and slammed the tailgate shut. In the cab, I set up to listen to some podcasts; even a couple from the nearby Rochester Zen Center. It was a bright, beautiful morning to drive the rest of the way across New York and into Massachusetts. I had breakfast at Bob Evan’s and hit the road. Good grub and coffee for my belly, and some new podcasts; nourishment for my brain.

My route would take four hours or so to Albany and then just into Massachusetts to Chester. Around Albany, I-90 heads into Massachusetts and the NY Thruway heads Southeast and becomes I-87. As long as I made the turn to stay on I-90, I didn’t have to think much to navigate.

On the south side of Batavia, NY5 comes alongside the toll road. My brain was simmering in the warm juices of an interesting podcast. My eyes are open, hands at “10 and 2,” but the auto pilot is engaged. Physically, I’m tooling down the highway at 70 miles an hour. Mentally, I’m sitting in the Rochester Zendo listening to the deliberate, even tone of John Pulleyn. Its warm and comfortable, a good dharma talk. Its quiet, feels safe and over there to the right is a RAMP TO I-90!! WHAT?!? Did I miss my turn already!?!? Where am I?

My brain grinds a few gears and roars into panic. My foot pulls back from the accelerator. I’m scanning the traffic beside and behind me, checking if I can still make the exit. On right shoulder is a solid guardrail. There is no opening; no gap for the exit. The ramp goes up and over a knoll and curves over to join my lane. It takes almost a mile for it to sink in that I was looking at a sign on the wrong highway. The sign wasn’t for me, it was for the people on NY5 who wanted to join me on the Thruway.

If you aren’t present in the present you are not really living your life. When we are consumed with what should have or could have happened, or perhaps, wishing something had not happened, we are stuck in the past. The paunchy former star athlete, or the aged former beauty queen, still trying to live their “glory days” are clichés of movie and song. We can’t make good decisions for our current life if we are not actually living it. When consumed by the past, we are living in a world we can’t change because it has already happened. We are reading signs on the wrong highway.

If you are consumed by the future, you have great plans, great hopes for some moment to come, some thing to happen. Consciously or not, we put things off today for those fabulous times to come. We can be consumed by some nebulous goal even while not making any actual progress toward it. Life is passing us by because we don’t see it. The kid in the back seat whining “Are we there yet?” is not enjoying the ride. He can’t see anything interesting along the way because he is not looking. When great moments, or great possibilities, come to us in the present, we cannot see because we are looking just past them at some unfocused potentiality. We are reading signs on the wrong highway.

When we obsess about how things should be or are going to be, we cannot see how things actually are – reality. In order to move forward, in a direction of our own choosing, we must know where we are going to start. We must accept reality; accept things just as they are. In this accepting, we don’t wish something else had happened. We don’t ignore things as they are because we “aren’t there yet.” When we are carefully aware of just where we are, good decisions can be made about where we want to go from here, and what we want to do next. We are on the right road and reading the right signs.

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Nothing . . . to be afraid of

Jan 12

Posted by trt in Rambling, Writing | Comments off

Sometimes what is not there is scarier than what is. The complete opposite of the devil you know. Long ago, I sold plastic parts in Florida. I was based in Tampa and went to the Southeast Coast about every three weeks.

It was faster, especially during the perennial road construction, to cut across the swamp. I would take FL70 through Arcadia. If I was headed to West Palm Beach, I would stay on 70 and go around the North Side of Lake Okeechobee. Heading to Miami or Fort Lauderdale, I would take US27 around to the south.

Out past Arcadia toward the lake is Florida’s cattle country. Cows and Steers, Cattle Egrets tall on their backs, lolly-gagged in verdant paddocks sweating and switching at flies. From Arcadia to US27, there was very little evidence of human occupation – few houses, the occasional farm truck or tractor.  A place outside Texas or Oklahoma where you can find a Cadillac with bullhorns on the hood.

One trip through this part of Florida, I got behind a guy in a pickup truck eatin’ chicken wings. Every 90 seconds or so, he would fling a bare bone or two out his window. The wings must have been plain. After the bones, with bits of sinew and skin hanging on each end, arced from his truck and bounced off my windshield, there wasn’t a trace of sauce.

On another trip, I drove past the Clock Restaurant on the east side of Arcadia. “Try Are Pies” on their sign. Down the block, a garage sale sign advertised a “Hudge Sale.” I was surprised they’re having the sale while Mom was still working at The Clock.

Yet another trip, I was driving across in the dark. The moon was full. Shadowy visions of pastures and clumps of Live Oak trees ghosted along beside me. For miles, it was just me and the barbed wire undulating over the outer banks of the ditches. I had to pee.

A smile turned up into my cheek. I hadn’t seen another car for a long time. I popped the four way flashers on and stopped right there in the middle of the road. Its a guy thing, alright, a little boy thing, but there I stood in the middle of a state highway, peeing on the yellow center line and chuckling.

No wind – just the moon and a clear cloudless night. It would have been a pleasant Florida evening, but there was no wind. And no other sound. No buzz of an insect, no clunk of a cowbell, no steer grunting in disapproval, no rustling of the Spanish Moss. Just the pitter patter of me peeing in the road which suddenly stopped.

Had I known, I would have left the car running. Something about the stone silence was unnerving. The quiet moon, the barbed wire, a Live Oak across the pasture but not a sound. In any scary B-movie, silence always precedes something really bad happening. Nothing. Scary. Spooky. Chilly. Nothing.

Flip! Zip! Slam!!! I was back in the car – scared out of my wits . . . at nothing. I don’t know why. I’m a fairly rational guy but gooseflesh, hairs on end and fingers fumbling the ignition – I was outta there!!

 

This week it happened again. Somewhat more civilized as I’m driving familiar roads and know where the rest areas are.

Just west of the Portage River, west of Port Clinton on OH2, there is a little rest stop. One side serves both directions of highway. Just behind it and over a field or two is Lake Erie. I like the trip through there; especially in summer. I was driving through an early winter storm with fog and torrential rain but a few miles before Port Clinton the rain had stopped.

I approached the Rest Area in the slick metallic wetness of a recent rain at night, past the Air National Guard Base and a turn to the left. A lonely car went by me on the right. Just passed the Rest Area is a low slung “No Tell Motel.” It was probably quite a place in the days before the Interstates. Now it does weekly rentals. I’ve lived by the week. I know what kind of crowd lives there. Check out Dave Alvins’ “30 Dollar Room” if your not sure.

I’m not paranoid, but on this job it pays to be alert and aware. As the air brakes sigh, I climbed down from the cab and scanned the lot; especially in the directions of the motel. 15 or 20 rooms, 5 or 6 vehicles, no obvious activity. Walking around the front of my cab, I glanced back down the road past the ANG base. Nothing. A car went by on the highway and I watched it roll by like a long pan in a Hitchcock movie.

The Rest Stop Lobby is all glass. Lit from the inside, as the Governor and his Lieutenant smiled down from the bulletin board, I can’t see outside at all. Stupid, but that icy finger was on my spine again.

I pushed the door open and looked around; motel one way, air base the other. Nothing. Not a sound either, like the storm had drug the sound away with it. I walked toward my truck with forced nonchalance. Herky Jerky as one leg wanted to lift too high too fast; left brain wants to run, right brain was faking cool. I looked again, left and right, as I crossed the curb from the Car Lot to the Truck Lot. The wind came back, I felt it more than I heard it. The icy finger tickled at my ear.

The spooked left brain reminds us that there could be someone hiding on the other side of the truck. I peaked under the trailer as I walked toward it. Rounding the truck, I casually got my keys out. SLAM! I was up and in the driver’s seat, locking the door. I can’t even remember climbing the steps or unlocking the door. My heart was racing . . . and for what! Stupid Human Tricks, I guess. I think I would have been better off if the lot was full of bikers and gangbanger Cadillacs.

I started the truck and checked my mirrors. There’s still no one around. I pulled out on the highway, heading east again; chuckling at myself.

Creepy Tree image from Art Lewis

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Road Tale #3

Oct 22

Posted by trt in Rambling | 1 Comment


This is my third “sketch” from the road. I was inspired to write these three installments yesterday, October 21, 39 years since Jack Kerouac died. See Road Tale #1 here and Road Tale #2 here.

I’d been seeing this girl from 7-11. We never really dated, but ‘saw’ each other one summer. She worked the graveyard shift, from midnight to 8:00 AM, Sunday to Thursday. I covered the shift on the weekend, while attending Michigan State during the week. To keep her sleep cycle intact, she operated at night all week and began occasionally hanging out with me at the store.

Hanging out together led to long, grand walks in the mornings after I got off work. A quintessential summer romance. When you’ve been up all night and see the color come back to the world with the sun, everything and everyone is beautiful. We held hands, had greasy breakfasts at a nearby diner, and made out in the grass just over the crest of a great big hill in the park.

It was nice and it was weird. She had a peacock tattoed on her back from above her shoulder blade to her lowest rib. Her mother was a rape counselor at the college. Yet, I was never in charge. One night at the Super 8, her Ex, then living in a car, banged on our door, bragged about having a gun, and just wanted to talk to her for a minute. She talked to him, wearing my shirt, and keeping the door open just a crack.

Picture the scene from the parking lot, up on the second floor, leaning against the crappy metal railing of a cheap motel, a guy was talking to a girl in another man’s shirt. The girl, confident, but not at ease, was clinging to the doorknob, not willing to let go of her other evening.

I stood, naked as a jaybird, behind the dirty motel curtains; curtains as thick as the lead apron you get for an Xray. She told me she could get rid of him; didn’t want me involved. Helplessly, I knew, there was nothing I could do to help. She and the door were between me and him. I had gotten here by playing along. The only thing I could do was keep playing.

I can’t imagine what he was thinking walking the length of the building and down the clanging exterior stairs of the motel. Back to his car, without her. She came slinking back into the room. For those of you, who’ve had a big fight with your spouse and think making up was fun, you can’t beat Post-Potential-Hostage-Situation.

Our road story came a few weeks later. A little while before the end of my shift one night, she and her sidekick friend came into the store. She was tall and tight; her friend short and curvy. They followed me to the back room while I punched the time clock. They sidled up to me, cooing in each ear. Without committing to anything, they hinted about a surprise that would involve both of them. They wanted to know if I would do whatever they asked. What American Boy would not!? That’s when they showed me the handcuffs.

Out in the 7-11 parking lot, in broad daylight, while church people bought their coffee and donuts, they herded me to the friend’s car. Voluntarily, I put my arms behind my back, was handcuffed and stuffed into a hatchback.

I tried to count turns and guess where we were headed but my head was swimming with anticipation. Before long, we were on gravel and the car rolled to a stop.

“OK, come on out!” They helped me crawl out of the back of the car. My arms were useless. All kinds of images and possibilities had been running through my sweaty brain. I found myself standing behind a car in the middle of a country road.

“Here?” I sputtered.

Each with one hand on my shoulder and the other on an arm, they winked and said, “Here.”

I hadn’t noticed that the car was still running. The girls giggled, gave me a little shove, ran back to the car and tore off down the road. Disappearing in a cloud of dust, without me. My brain, shaking off its sweat, was spinning like an oak leaf in their dust cloud.

I was standing in the middle of the road, who knew what road, in handcuffs. On each side of the gravel lane, as far as I could see in each direction, a thin line of oak and scrub bordered fields of corn. There wasn’t a sound but the birds and the bugs. I tried to imagine how I would explain the handcuffs when Farmer Joe came upon me. Just thinking about it, a whole new personal dimension of lonesome and awkward.

When the girls came back, they claimed they only went around the block; a country mile on four sides, but they were gone a long time. I hadn’t started walking, neither direction made any more sense than the other. I heard the car first and turned, watching it get closer and the dust behind it get bigger. They laughed and carried on for the longest time.

The handcuffs came off and I got into the car, the actual passenger compartment. The three of us laughed now and we headed back to town. I missed the cuffs and their original possibilities. She made it up to me later; just her.

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My George Costanza Moment

Aug 13

Posted by trt in Rambling | Comments off

My truck’s starter was going out. Dispatch had me switch trucks to deliver my next load. This other truck was brand new! Less than 16,000 miles [the truck I was driving had 504,000 on it].

The interior was spotless. The transmission tight. Both completely out of my recent experience. I was having a trouble shifting; grinding the truck’s virginal gears. After a while, I figured out that the ‘H’ pattern of the gear shifter was on a slight angle; like the brand for the Lazy H Ranch. My old truck was a non-ergonomic straight ‘H,’ parallel with the rest of the truck.

This may seem trivial, but muscle memory and habit are so strong I could hardly shift. Not only was the ‘H’ ergonomically slanted but the transmission, being tight, had very little travel between gears. I was moving too far to the wrong place.

I heard somewhere, there are only 372 RPM’s between gears.  So as I move off a stop sign, as the engine revs to the next shift point, if I miss the next gear, chances are when I fumble to try it again, the engine slowed more than 372 some odd RPM’s. I can’t shift to that higher gear now. My brain has to process this and I should recover by putting it back in the original gear. With a particularly heavy load or on a steep hill, this processing time might take just long enough that I miss the RPM’s of the original gear and have to go one lower. Worst case scenario, hopefully not on the highway, grind, grind, grind, and I have to just stop and start from the bottom gear. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, I was doing all these things.

While having all this fun, I had to deliver on the North side of Cincinnati. The directions, of course, were confusing. I had to turn around once. Try that when you are 80 feet long. Meandering down a curvy, tree-lined back street, I finally arrived at the Customer’s facility.

This last bit of the trip reminded me of when I was moved to an offsite plant due to an acquisition. The original entrepreneur/founder had left a lot of trees as his business and building expanded. Every morning, I pulled into a park-like parking lot. The lot was surrounded by huge trees. In the middle was an island of grass and trees with a couple picnic tables. I always appreciated the trees, but I watched truckers spend hours trying to back around the island to get to the loading dock.

Dispatch had sent me in early because I was low on driving hours. I had to wait anyway. Three hours later, I was headed out. I couldn’t legally drive anywhere but I was going up the road a couple miles to find a peaceful parking spot.

Just as I wandered out the curvy lane, now in the dark, I could see headlights approaching the intersection from my left. As I slowed to turn, a big truck pulled up to a stop sign.

There are six gears between 0 and 10 MPH; only four more between 10 and 50 plus. Gliding into the intersection, going slow, evaluating whether I can get around this guy, gears are grinding. Switching gears at slow speeds is always dicey; let alone in a strange truck. I manage to jam it into a gear.

The other truck has paused long enough, I know he is respecting my right-of-way and is going to let me proceed. I release the clutch, but I’m in too high a gear and I stall. I’m in the intersection but not so far that I’ve blocked him. My face burns in the dark and he disappears over the hill.

The Seinfeld Show was a cultural touchstone. People either loved it or hated it. It was just quirky enough to get my funny bone. In one show, the gang goes out to the Hamptons to visit some friends and see their baby. Jerry’s girlfriend Rachel joined them by train. George and his girlfriend Jane come up separately. Their friends’ place has a pool. It must have been cool outside.

It always gets complicated. George and Jane have not yet consummated their relationship. When George runs out to get some tomatoes for his mother, however, Jane hits the beach . . . topless. Later, George, coming in from the pool, tries to see Jerry’s girlfriend in a compromised state; only fair, right. It doesn’t work and George goes down the hall to change out of his swimsuit.

Jerry’s Rachel goes looking for the baby’s room and opens a door to reveal George who has just removed his trunks. She screams and says “Sorry, I thought this was the baby’s room.” Then her gaze lowers as George stands there in his glory. She smirks, and with a chuckle, says “I’m really sorry.”

The story of George’s life. Rachel said so much in those last three words; gelding him more swiftly than with a scalpel, more permanently than a rusty butter knife.

George yells after her, “I WAS IN THE POOL. I WAS IN THE POOL.”

Stalling your truck at a lonely intersection in front of another driver is almost perfectly equivalent to being caught in a diminished state with your damp swimming trunks around your ankles.

IT’S NOT MY TRUCK! IT’S NOT MY TRUCK!!!

I love Youtube! Here is the exact scene:

Here is the transcript of that episode:

http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheHamptons.htm

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Almost Heaven, whatever.

Apr 25

Posted by trt in Rambling | Comments off

I’m having this love affair with West Virginia. I just love driving through the state. In fact, the Appalachians, in general, make for a great drive. Just recently, I had a wonderful drive from North Carolina up through the western end of Virginia, through West Virginia, into Ohio and back.

At Ravenswood, WV, I left the Interstate, a rare treat, and headed to Columbus on US33. As I crossed a cool old steel bridge, a lazy tug nudged a half dozen coal barges downstream. I watched the tug, with its wake on a funky angle, work the barges around a curve. Southeast Ohio is more like West Virginia than Ohio. The drive through the Hocking River Valley is one of my new favorites. Along the way, I saw a sign for the Fur Peace Ranch. Fur Peace is a play on “a ‘fur’ piece down the road” and the “peace and love” of Haight/Ashbury. The ranch was started by Jorma Kaukonen and his wife as a “ranch that grows guitar players.” Jorma and his famous friends put on guitar camps throughout the summer. Jorma was a founding member of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna. He is a Piedmont finger-style acoustic blues guitar master. One day, I’m going to go to camp there.

I went up into Ohio for a delivery past Columbus. Near there, I picked up and headed right back down through the Virginias to North Carolina. This time I couldn’t avoid the Interstate. Crossing the river North of where I had before, it had gotten late and I needed to stop for the night.

I got off the highway at the romantically named Mineral Wells, WV. Sometimes, coming off a solitary black ribbon of highway onto an exit can be information overload. There was two hotels, a McDonald’s, two convenience stores, a four wheeler gas station, a Federal Express terminal, two truckstops, a strip bar, a BBQ joint, an adult bookstore, and a bar. Somehow, I drove past the poorly marked service road and missed both truckstops. Now, I ended up on a narrow WV State Highway. Ever the optimist, I just knew there would soon be a place to turn around.

Around the curve, I slowed to turn around near a large crane shovel, but the lot it sat in was lumpy, loose gravel. Not wanting to get stuck, I kept rolling.

I drove past a couple small businesses. I pondered swinging into the edge of their parking areas and to do a “U” turn. The Five O’Clock traffic had surrounded me and I didn’t want to tie them up. Truck drivers can get a ticket for tying up traffic.

A sign warned me the bridge ahead could only handle trucks and buses one at a time! Just across the bridge, a stop sign and another strip bar. At the stop sign, two WV highways split. One looks narrow and residential, so I took the other. There was a tight curve after the stop sign. Shifting gears, I watched my tailer come around and tried to decide if I could get behind the bar to turn around. Four wheelers buzz around me like gnats. I might have made it behind the bar, but I’d rolled too far before deciding. Crawling uphill, I decided to stop to assess my options. I was squeezed on to a narrow shoulder with rock outcroppings looming over my head as the cars danced around me into the other lane. Where did all this traffic come from? When a Harley Dude and his wife go into opposing traffic and around me, I knew I had to move.

I drove up the hill and around the curve to be greeted by a sign for a 30 mph “S” curve. The curve is barely wide enough for my truck and trailer, let alone two way traffic. Next, its downhill into a small town. Right at the village limit, the post office and an empty parking lot. As I slowed, two things occured to me. I’ve got several cars behind me on the curve and the turn into the drive was just too tight.

I crawled through Cedar Grove, WV looking for a big parking lot or somewhere I can turn around. I could go around a block, but these are small streets. I don’t want the local Barney Fife to catch me in a restricted zone. There’s a car wash, a 7-11, a grocery store, another bar. Walking down the street is a goth girl in a wife-beater t shirt and black jeans. Her low slung belt swishes one way and then the other. I got a good enough look to realize she probably just started going to the high school across the street. As I left town, another curve, another hill; this one around a dairy farm. I started to wonder if I’d hit Maryland before I get turned around.

Then a miracle happened. I came upon a Mechanic/Welding Shop that works on Farm Equipment, Heavy Equipment and Semis. Just past their building was a beautiful, big, open gravel yard. I pulled in and kicked up a rooster tail of dust winging in deep and turning around. And it was back through the village; dairy farm, grocery store, 7-11, post office, ‘S’ curve, Strip Bar, Band, Fed Ex, Motel, Gas Station, Service Road . . . whew!

As I ambled down the service road, I saw that the Liberty Truckstop at the dead end was not what I was thinking of. Somewhere in my travels I had seen a chain of Liberty, but this one was not it. The first truckstop had a bright, new looking, sign for Barbecue. At the end of the street is the Liberty and a strip joint. A decision had to be made.

I’m getting just old enough that, after a moment’s consideration, some good BBQ was a better idea than spending too much money watching a bunch of pretty girls prance around. You’ll never spend less than you planned in a strip bar. If I had money to burn, I’d go into a strip bar long before a casino, but not this week.

There weren’t too many trucks in the lot yet. I pulled around behind and up against the row that had started. The sun was shining bright, so I put up my privacy curtains and opened some vents. Bagging up the trash and grabbing my wallet, I ambled in toward the store and the BBQ. The lot was weirdly clean. As I walked past the freshly painted scales and pumps, and around the building, things start to go down hill.

On the south side of the building, six or eight trash barrels overflowed against the wall. On the ground in front of them was a pile of chair cushions. The kind of cushion you’d tie onto a plank seat wooden dining chair. The stairs are deteriorating concrete and the fresh paint has given way to a film of dust. A fine coat of reddish dust crept up the door from the sill.

On the door was a hand written sign proclaiming “Ice Cream Items are now available.” Pulling open the door, I walked into a garage sale. Things were haphazardly strewn about like a trailer park yard sale; junk food items, an ice cream cooler, and a couple stand alone soft drink cases. There were no standard shelves or displays. Around to my left, behind the counter, sat a bosomy woman in her fifties. She had hair like Dolly Parton and dressed like a teenager. No cleavage, just a vertical seam like two tiles and no grout. She smiled and said “hello” in reedy voice that was more tired than Southern.

A sign hung from the ceiling pointing off to the right and at the restaurant. The sign seemed to emphasize pizza rather than BBQ. Up even with the sign, two chairs blocked the way. Taped on one was another handwritten sign. This one said “Restaurant Closed. We Don’t Know Why.”

I shrugged and looked for the Mens Room. Across the store at a lone video poker terminal was a lean lanky redneck playing fiercely. He was all gristle and sinew with a peach fuzz beard and a hat he got free from a carton of cigarettes. With his sleeveless white t-shirt, he was wearing warm up pants, those silky pants with a stripe down the side worn typically by athletes. This guy’s lanky frame had not come from exercise, but from years of scrabbling for food. If he’s got six pack abs, he had found the dented dirty cans along the highway. A cigarette dangled from his mouth as he jammed another dollar into the machine. I wondered how long it had been since he paid his child support.

In the john, at least, there was fresh paint. Someone jobbed this part out because the sign that said “Wet Paint or Caulk” was actually printed on a computer. After my pit stop, I put away the privacy curtains and fired up the truck. The main reason I picked BBQ was so I could get out of the truck a while and do some writing in a comfortable chair. I moved down the service road to the Liberty and to another decision. I could go in and write at their restaurant or hit the strip bar. I still didn’t want to spend the money, so I went in to eat.

This place was an old school truckstop with a small convenience store area and another room full of chrome accessories. More video poker, less rednecks. And a crane game. I climbed up the stairs to the restaurant with my notebook and a USA Today. Entering the joint, I could see, at one time, it must have been quite a place. The dining room was on two levels, there is a lot of wood paneling. Off to my right behind the counter was a bar with a fountain machine, an ice maker, and a couple coffee pots. Behind the pots was the window to the kitchen. The place seemed to be run by three sweaty big-boned girls. They looked like sisters; family for sure. I was looking forward to a big salad and some writing.

The menu was hand typed. Typed, no word process here. Breakfast on one side of the page, all the rest on the other, stuffed into a yellowed page protector. No salads. Vegetables are potatoes, three ways, or the lettuce and tomato on a “Deluxe” hamburger. As I sat down at the skinny Formica table, I knew there was not going to be any writing tonight.

If Richard Simmons is to be believed, there is a skinny Todd inside me trying to get out. Nevertheless, Louie Anderson and Ralphie May have convinced me that there’s an even fatter Todd trying to squirm to the surface too. I got into the spirit of the place and ordered Catfish, fries and slaw.

The catfish was good. Probably prepackaged but not the cheap stuff. I splashed the fish with Hot Sauce and Tarter. The waitress spilled some fries grabbing my plate from the window. So she brought me some extra. They were crinkle cut, just like I liked. I smothered them in ketchup. Pretty good fish, nice fries and coleslaw on the better side of average. I cracked open my newspaper. Life was good.

As much as I was into my greasy supper, I could tell the air conditioner was not keeping up with the building. It was quite warm actually, maybe the kichen was not vented so well. It snuck up on me, but suddenly I could really smell the hot oil of the fryer. Not the good oil smell, but the smell like I had rubbed my face in that yellowy residue on the vent hood; that yellowy gunk that’s been there way too long.

Have you ever had not so great fried food where you get that film in your mouth? At a certain point, you taste the oil more than the food. My whole body and my clothes began feel like that mouth. I was coated. The food was OK, but the restaurant had become unbearable. Rather than smell more like a overused fondue pot, I paid my bill and went back downstairs. After using their john, I decided I didn’t need a shower that badly either.

Out in the parking lot, the air was cool. It smelled sweet compared to the fryer vats; even with the soot of 50 idling big rigs. Down at the end of the parking lot, the strip bar was all lit up in the darkness. I could have gotten all hot and bothered with some platinum blondes and their g-strings. Instead, I was all hot and bothered from hanging out with the burger sisters. And I smelled like a Pork Tenderloin.

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West Virginia Early Morning Springtime

Apr 15

Posted by trt in Rambling | 2 Comments

Driving through North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio today spring was deafening. The wildflowers were singing everywhere. The buds on the trees were chiming in. The Dogwoods on the edges of the valleys were shouting to be heard. The backbeat was a glazed brick silo, some ramshackle plank sided outbuildings and old barns. Grey, weatherworn wood falling off frames topped with old metal roofs. Every roof was the wine dark burgundy of decades long rust. Cows and goats walked on grass so proud to be back from the long winter that it just shouted green; glowing as if lit from below.

Last weekend, I was driving through Kentucky and Tennesee. All I could hear was the sproing-oing sound of spring springing. The mountains were sprinkled with bursts of color, like a fireworks display. Trees were popping their buds. There were neon green trees and burnt yellow. Trying to read the bark, they were both maples, I think. And a golden brown I think was oak. Near the Kentucky Tennessee border, a bright purplish pink was everywhere. It covered shrubby little saplings and gnarled trunks alike, sumac maybe.

During the week last week, Dad rode with me to Bay City to uncover the boat. We talked about the grey green drab of pre-spring that we passed. Michigan is just behind these lower states, but it’s coming! “In A Mist” seemed to weather the winter fine. It was good to walk around her dragging my fingers along the curve of her hull.

Dad helped as I restrung a tarp over her aft half. I had two tarps from stem to stern, covering her decks for the winter. The forward tarp came off for ventilation. Keeping the air moving is important to keep the mildew down. I left the huge tarp over the Main Cabin hatch and the cockpit. These two areas are where I’m getting some water leaking in.

I organized a little down below and pumped the bilge. There was water passed the knuckle on my index finger; maybe 2″. That was not as bad as it could have been. It was clean clear water so I don’t think I have any rot going on; just a leak, or leaks, somewhere. I’m sure the cockpit coamings are leaking. They need rebed. Then there is all manner of deck hardware from stanchion bases and blocks, to pad eyes and winches that could be leaking.

I have been visualizing the cabin as I drive around. It was good to take a moment in the cabin and reacquaint myself with her proportions. The pilot berth is higher and nearer the center of the main cabin than I thought. This will become a pantry of sorts, I think.

I can’t decide if I think there is less work than I thought; probably not. The cockpit floor will be replaced, the holding tank replumbed, and some wiring done. I am looking forward to spending a some quality time in Bay City this summer.

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Yeah, Me and the LDS

Mar 5

Posted by trt in Rambling | 1 Comment

I think it is the Church of the Latter Day Saints that runs a TV commercial I’m thinking of. A young woman helps an older lady to cross the street. The camera pans to a guy in a work truck noticing significantly. Cut To: The guy from the truck helping a woman who has dropped her groceries. The camera pans to a man noticing significantly. Cut To: The second man helping someone who . . . You get the idea. And you’ve probably seen the commercial. I think it is the Mormons. Regardless, it is some church suggesting that we ought to be nice to each other; help each other; care about each other.

Many people think that Buddhism is simply “living in the moment.” Almost, but its really just doing the right thing at this very moment. Knowing yourself well enough, dropping your trivial likes and dislikes, getting to the heart of you, then making good choices. However, since we are all in this together, doing the right thing for you at this very moment is, actually, doing the right thing for the universe at this very moment. This is where I find myself agreeing with the LDS or whoever airs the ad.

It wouldn’t be that hard to be a little nicer to people. Maybe its the election cycle, but I think we’ve lost our way. People are just being nasty. We’ve lost our sense of community and our honor. We need to care about, and take care of, each other.

Most often, I am driving down the highway with the CB off. I turn it on when I need it; in a traffic jam, in bad weather or at a big warehouse facility. On a daily basis, people are just stupid and ugly on the CB. There are plenty of exceptions but MAN! Take it easy, people!

Ohio seems to be a bad place for racist crap on the CB. Today, the discussion was how long Obama would last in office, because someone was just going to shoot him. There were volunteers. It made me sick. Finally, before turning it off, I grabbed the mic and told them I hoped Barack would choose Jesse Jackson for his Vice President. “None of you stupid MFers could shoot him then, could ya?!??.” I felt better. Actually, I felt better when it was off again. Damn traffic jam got me all worked up. When a couple guys suggested they needed some practice, and might start by hunting me down, it was time to go.

After stopping for the night, I got in line at the fuel desk to get a shower, the girl behind the counter was Generation “Why Me.” She had the thingy in her nose and a tattoo on the inside of her wrist and she was having trouble. She bristled with attitude. Come to find out, they had updated the computer system and some of the items weren’t entered yet. One driver gave up when a case of bottled water just wouldn’t ring up. He actually put it back on the shelf. The managers were gone and the girl was alone in the store.  This wasn’t all generational, she wasn’t getting the support she needed. My buddy Jim and I were always pushing for training and support during system changes where I used to work. We often wrote had to write instructions and do training. I knew the heartache of half implemented changes.  I felt for her.

The showers were being remodeled as well, so I had to go out to a trailer in the parking lot to clean up. It was on the way back in, when I had a great idea.

It really is more work to be a complainer. And, it comes back on you eventually when you don’t help others. Its much simpler to be cheerful and helpful. And isn’t that much extra work. Like Willie Nelson sang “It’s the little things that mean a lot.”

Let me tell you about an Ol’ Trucker Trick I know, to show you how easy it is.

Back in the store, the poor girl was snarling with frustration. She might have had an attitude, but tonight, she deserved to. I’m sure she doesn’t get paid nearly enough to deal with a bunch of cantankerous truckers who have to shower out in the parking lot, and can’t even buy water. A couple guys walk by with duffel bags, shaking their heads not believing that the showers are outside.

Back at the fuel desk, my girl was huffing again because some older trucker had brought his wife in who also needs a shower.  The day shift had been using both sides of the trailer for Men, now she had to figure out how to get the wife a shower.

“Man, I need some chocolate. What do you recommend?” I asked up at the counter.

She paused, struggling to shift her understanding, but recovered to suggest a Take Five bar.

“What are they like?” I asked, faking I’d never had one.

“Oh, it’s peanuts and caramel and a pretzel or something crunchy like that.” She was just glad to be able to empty her mind of the store issues; she’s getting into it now. “I like ‘em,” she adds at the end.

Bingo, I had her right where I wanted her.

“Back in the middle aisle,” she shouted as I wander toward the junk food.

I brought back two King Size Take Five bars. There were five people, counting the old couple, hanging around waiting for a shower. The unease hung around the place, like a foggy road. I dropped the bars on the counter and start shuffling through my wallet.

“Two Ninety Eight.”

I handed her three dollars and pushed one of the bars across the counter. “This one’s for you. Maybe your night will get better.”

“Oh, WOW! Thanks!” She smiled wide and chuckled. It’s like a whole different person showed up. Now that’s magic, and I didn’t have to saw anyone in half.

As I walked out the door, I heard my two pennies drop in the “Share a Penny” dish. The trucker’s wife smiled as I passed.  Just as I pushed the door open, I could hear the rustle of the other Take Five wrapper.

Try it you’ll like it. The candy bar’s not bad either.

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Creature from the Swamp.

Feb 14

Posted by trt in Rambling | 1 Comment

By the Fates, the two of us ended up working in the same little shop in St. Petersburg. Don was the enigmatic guy formerly in charge of a competitor’s shop. I was the greenhorn salesman recruited to Tampa from Detroit to sell plastic across the state of Florida. Both of us, because of the politics where we had been and, in part, because of who we were, had been put out on the street by our former employers. I don’t recall how Don found the company. I had an impending marriage and actually paid a fee based employment agency for the privilege of working for idiots.

The idiots were three. First, was the nasty lady with a huge stipend. Her family had money but apparently shipped her to Florida to get her out of their hair and out of their sight. She lied to her new husband that she would front the business and let him run it.

Next, the husband was a Hoosier doofus. A former Middle Management Pencil Pushing Useless Shred of Human Debris at General Motors, who had been sleeping on his nephew’s couch and bumming cigarettes. When he met the nasty woman at a Baptist Church Singles Night, they married and suddenly he was Donald Trump. He told his nephew that the wife was going to front the business and the nephew could manage it.

Lastly, the nephew was an Indiana hilljack living in a trailer in Florida. He told his Uncle that he knew the plastics business; piece of cake. He didn’t know much about vacuum forming, the machine his brand new aunt had bought, but he had done some work in acrylic fabrication. The real acrylic talent had turned out to be his wife who was home raising the brood.

This shop was one of two places I could have committed a grisly murder. I suppose, occasionally, suicide wasn’t that far off either. One morning, the news broke that Stevie Ray Vaughn had died in a Wisconsin Helicopter crash.  We were moping around the break room before work started, staring in our coffee. The nasty woman walked in, felt the somber mood, looked from face to face to face . . .

“What’s the matter with you guys?” she growled like Jackie Mason with a head cold . . . in drag.

“Well, a terrific, promising, young musician died last night. We can’t believe it,” I volunteered.

“Who,” she asked. Or perhaps she just belched, I wasn’t sure.

“Stevie Ray Vaughn, a blues guitar player,” I said.

Her morning ritual was a Diet Coke and a package of pink Hostess Snow Balls that she kept in the freezer. Turning to open the fridge, she grunted “Well, at least it wasn’t Neil Diamond.”

As she reached for the Snow Balls, I lunged. I knocked her into the shelves of the fridge; brown bag lunches and half drank sodas exploded around the room. I struggled to roll her over amongst the debris. Deep, deep fear welled up in her bulgy eyes. She tried to smack me with the Coke bottle. I knocked it away. Digging past the wattle and the folds of her generous neck, I gripped her throat closed and . . . in my head.

Don and I started escaping the shop at lunch. It was no fun to work there. Some of the other stories are just bizarre. Bitching over lunch at an All-You-Can-Eat-Chinese-Buffet turned into plotting and planning. We met after work and wrote a business plan and started shopping a prospectus around.

After several weeks, we got a bite. A friend of a friend from Don’s church wanted to talk. The alarms should have already gone off. The man owned a marina on an island on Florida’s coast. We arranged to drive down and see him. It was an evening meeting as we were still working and he was running his empire.

That day was to become one of my longest ever. The shop we worked in with the three idiots was more like the Craft Room at Bellevue than a real business. It was a good hike to the island. Don and I drove separately to a rendezvous point. From there, I rode with him in his pickup.

It’s always a nice drive when you’re near the coast in Florida. We ambled down the coast and then waited behind a couple cars in line for the last private bridge in the state. Three bucks gets you across but it lets the locals think they are keeping the riff raff out. There was a long causeway across the tarpon flats and then we were on the island proper. All the requisite components were there: Condo Resorts, Hotels, Golf Resorts, Fishing Resorts and plenty of Seafood Joints. We found the marina and the man’s house across the street.

Our meeting seemed to go well. We had a good rapport and seemed to have similar goals. Then it happened. We scratched an agreement out on a piece of three ring notebook paper and he wrote us our first check. That hand written agreement would later save Don and I $560,000 but that’s a story for another day.

The bridge toll is for both ways, so we were down the causeway and off the island in no time. Our meeting had gone long. Those were the days before cellphones, so we were looking for a convenience store pay phone to call our wives. It was a beautiful clear Florida night. We were cutting through some rural miles just North of the Everglades. As we came around a curve well between streetlights in the swampy darkness, the lights came on. The dark was replaced by the surreal red and blue and pink and purple of the sheriff’s lights bouncing into the swampy woods on either side of the lonely road. We pulled over. The sheriff sauntered up to Don’s window.

“You boys just sit tight a minute,” he barked. He put his hand on the window sill of the pick up and just stood there, looking down the road.

Another squad car pulled up.

They put Don in the first squad car, to divide and conquer.  The second sheriff walked me about 75 feet down the road.

And a third squad car showed up.

Imagine the scrawny, red-headed kid from school who never said “boo” to anyone. Now imagine that he became a sheriff in Florida. This modern day Barney Fife was guarding me. I was getting eaten alive by hummingbird sized mosquitoes from the swamp. Barney had one of those microphone speakers on his walkie talkie, clipped, right by his ear, on the epaulet of his crisp, if somewhat baggy, uniform. The palm of his gun hand rested on the butt of his Glock 40, fingers splayed – ready for anything. “Anything” must be scary in his little head because every time the radio squawked, Barney jumped. It’s a big county; lots of squawks.

A fourth squad car, this one with a drug sniffing canine unit, showed up.

Standing on the shoulder of the dark lonely road in the swamp, I tried to swat mosquitoes quietly. No sense in making Barney even more jumpy. I was watching one of the deputies go page by page through my briefcase. The dome light in the cab shined on the inside of the windshield making it like the overhead mirror at a mall cooking demonstration. I could see everything going on in the cab.

I don’t have anything against the police, in general. Can you imagine a society without them? But these guys were goons. One was sucking on a drink from Burger King. When it went dry, he gave it one last giant suck.  Enough to make a Hoover jealous as his cheeks drew in around his molars. Afterward, he shook the cup to check the dry clink of the remaining cubes, and pitched the cup into the swamp.

You begin to have doubts about a guy you’ve only known for six months when he’s in the back of a squad car and you’re standing in the road in the swamp. One the only things I knew for sure was what he had for breakfast every day. Don’s wife bought him cheap powdered sugar donuts in the bag. Every morning, Don grabbed 3 or 4 donuts and a cup of coffee; normal ceramic mug, no travel mug. His shirts and the bench seat of his truck usually showed the effects of his struggle to eat, drink, and shift on the way to work. What was causing us trouble this evening was the powdery white residue the sheriff was looking at on the floor, in the cracks of the steering wheel and in the upholstery seams of Don’s truck.

The Goon Squad Sheriffs were scooping up the powdery white residue in little test vials. They would cap a vial, shake it, hold it up in the air like Dr. Stangelove and shine at it with their great big 6 cell Mag Lite. Then with a cuss, they threw vial after vial into the swamp. Apparently, they were expecting that cocaine would change the vial’s chemicals a certain color. After five or six vials, a frown, a grunt and a pitch into the swamp, they put the dog in the truck.

Up to that point in my life, I had had no previous experience with narcotics trained canine units. Really. But I had had lots of experience with dogs. I’m a proud card-carrying dog person. This cute Golden Retriever got shoved up into the pickup cab. She spun around a couple times, walked the length of the bench seat and back. Remember the cooking demo mirror. Finally, she just stood looking out the window at her handler, wagging her tail. I took a small slice of comfort.

The main deputy, a sergeant I think, walked down the road in his best John Wayne swagger. I was still swatting mosquitoes; Barney was still jumping out of his belt.

“The dog hit four times in that truck and your partner has already come clean, so you might as well too,” he stated with flat authority. In the wind whispering through the swampy air, I could almost hear the echo of “You pilgrim.”

I wasn’t about to confess to trafficking in powdered sugar. Unbeknown to me, they were telling Don that I sang and he might as well come clean. Neither of us did.

Later, the sergeant came back down the road and Don was let out of the squad car. I finally knew we were O.K.

“I can’t get you this time,” the sergeant threatened and thrust a finger at me, “but I will . . . next time.”

The dog crawled back in her carriage and the canine unit left. The sergeant barked a few orders and he left. Barney settled down a bit and he left.  As they disappeared, one by one, around the curve, the glow of a street light struggled to shine against the pines from around the curve.

“By the way,” the first sheriff chimed, “the original reason I pulled you over, you’ve got a headlight out.”

He smiled and walked back to his car which promptly . . . wouldn’t start. So after at least three hours on the side of the road for an unreasonable search and seizure, [ok, there was no seizure except perhaps our wives' reaction], we had to pull around in front of the goon’s car and give him a jump!

A little further around the curve and down the road, we found a pay phone and called our wives. In time, we were forgiven. Although, indirectly, the company we had just started later had a hand in a divorce for each of us.

In the ensuing six months or so, we began to realize our financial partner had earned most of his money in the low-flying-plane-import-business. This was the actual reason we got pulled over that night. It took us a while to connect the dots, but his house was being watched. We had spent several hours there one evening and got caught in the net on the way home.

Next time: our heroes steal the equipment and molds from themselves and start over across town. The evil empire sues and the magic of a piece of notebook paper is revealed. Tune in next time to catch all the action!

Hey, Spork, I’m happiest when I’m spinning yarns!

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