Category Archives: Drifting and dreaming

In the beginning

Jean-Marc wore a particularly noticeable ring that he had picked up in his travels. It was extremely detailed, in gold and silver, that of a tall ship, fully rigged and under full sail, on what appeared to be black onyx. I asked him about it, and he said he had found it during one of his market forays into Addis. The person he bought it from couldn’t tell him a thing about it. I had never seen anything like it, and told him so. Jean-Marc said that he had looked for more of them, but had only seen the one. When I asked him to take it off so that I could look at it more closely, he refused. Obviously, it had some meaning to him, and I understood, to some extent why, given the intricacy of the design.

Digging the hole

When we ended up back at the head office hangar we all liked to get out on the floor and mingle with the maintenance people responsible for the well-being of the helicopters with which we entrusted our lives and the lives of our passengers. If the right crowd was around, we’d end up hitting the hotel just down the road for an evening well-spent until closing time, or the wee hours of the morning when the owner would keep the place open for us.

One of the guys that usually came along for the beer was young Bill, a lowly apprentice, who wasn’t known as the brightest bulb in the hangar, so to speak. He was a slow-moving, slow-talking man with a drawl that managed to irritate you if you spent too much time listening to him. Bill was married to a girl who didn’t take kindly to his nights out with the boys, and, after a night of debauchery, he would drag his sorry ass back into the shop on a Tuesday or a Wednesday or a Friday morning with a hang-dog look on his face and a ready story about what his wife had done to him this time upon his late and drunken arrival home.

Eventually, we all got fed up with Bill’s constant whining, and after one particularly long and winding nighttime trail of destruction spent at the various strip joints in the area, some of us pulled Bill outside and gave him a pep-talk before sending him on his way to be chastised by his bride one more time for being tardy in getting home to her waiting arms and sharp tongue.

Bill hadn’t show up at work for two days, so Larry, the owner of the company – in his own right not to be outdone as a drinking machine – called Bill’s wife to ask if he was sick. After hanging up the phone, Larry came out to tell us that Bill was in jail. A quick call to the precinct confirmed this, and after one of us went down to bail out Bill, he was back on the shop floor once again, with a story to tell about how he had ended up in the crowbar hotel.

It seems that our pep-talk a few nights previous had really cheered Bill up and put him in the proper frame of mind to hurry home and confront his bride. On arriving, he found his belongings out on the front porch and the door locked. Bill, not being the smartest fly over the cesspool, pounded on the door for a couple of minutes, and, just as his wife was unlocking it, he managed to kick the door down and both door and Bill landed on top of his bride. She didn’t take too kindly to this turn of events and consequently, when the police arrived, Bill was hauled off to jail.

Now you know how young Bill’s mind works – or doesn’t – as the case may be. Be that as it may, we all were somewhat chastened by the results of our advice-giving.

Ohio

Ohio
lyrics by Neil Young

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We’re finally on our own.

Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Ghosts

I always stop in to visit with old friends when I pass through, although it was difficult when I first started doing so. This time it’s been at least half a lifetime since I saw them last. We had great times together. One even saved my life on a bright sunny day years ago, so I have much to thank him for. That was my best friend. Others I was not so close to, but they were very good friends too.

We partied hard and fast and furious when we were growing up, to the dismay of some in our crowd of friends, and to the chagrin of some of the hometown girls we dated. We never listened, mostly going our own way and finally getting out of town and away from the madness of it all. It was hard keeping track after that, scattered as we were.

They’re not hard to find now, since I know the exact spot to ride to to see each one of them one more time. All of them came finally to rest in a quiet, green, treed cemetery just west of town. It overlooks a pretty green valley and the small factory town where we all grew up – although I must admit I was the newcomer, not having been born there.

Bob, Stan, Vern, Dale. One by aircraft, one by car, one by motorcycle, one by ill health. All taken over a short time span, some within a couple of days of each other.

I remember them as though it were yesterday, and I trust that I am not the only one to visit with old friends and reminisce. I’ll be returning this way later in the summer, but I’ll only ride by and wave for I fear that too much remembering is not good for one’s soul.

Call of the road

February 2000

I can hear the open road calling my name. I can feel the wind in my face every day. Already I can see the people I’ll be meeting, taste the food I’ll be eating. And in my mind the road just keeps on calling, one long mile at a time.

It’s been a long haul up to now, but it’s finally over. It’s time to lighten the load, and move on. I own too many ‘things’. I’m fed up with a job that presents no real challenges. My thinking has become stale and I’ve become jaded. I’ve been in one place for the longest time ever in my life, and I’m not used to that.

Consequently, I’m selling most of what I own, and going on the road, permanently. First stop: anywhere but here. It won’t happen right away, of course. I must rid myself of the things that have been collected over these past years, as well as one of the containers that holds it all. Some will go into storage, to be sure. After all, treasures collected over a lifetime cannot be dismissed just for the dollar.

Once my affairs are in order, I’m gone! I have no plan, other than to get the rubber on the road and to live life as I have not done so these many years.

As I wind my way up and down the highways and byways of North America I know that I’ll be having many new adventures. There will be people to meet, places to see and women to love. There’ll be towns I want to stay in, and towns I want to leave. There’ll be good food, bad food, and waitresses to flirt with.

I can’t wait!

To all the women I have known in my present incarnation: thanks for the wonderful memories. I’ll not forget any of you.

To all my cyber acquaintances, this is so long. Good bye. It’s been great to know you.