BackwaterBlog

Before unveiling any news on employment, we have a new sweet linky to read, we do.

Possibly the most overall talent I have seen on one of these bl*g things, if you count graphics and verbiage-smithing and damn funny combined as talent indicators, and I know you do.  Spent most of Saturday reading the whole thing which is immeasurably rare for me.  Plus, she has this thing going with weasels and I just know Pam at Sixweasels would shoot me if I didn’t get her in on this.  So there ye have it, possibly the only place online with these two weas-writers extraordinaire stacked together.

http://sweasel.com/

Go ye.  I knows good when I sees it.

No, no real decision yet.  Trying to decide whether or not to revert back nearly 30 years and do the sort of thing that got me started down this silly old construction road in the first place?  It’s hard, I can tell you.

For one thing, I’m not 21 years old anymore.  Tossing sheets of plywood around all day isn’t the effortless thing it used to be, if it ever was.  Working indoors in summer heat makes arabian headgear a necessity.  In winter it’s thermals and layers.  The place has a reputation of being one of the best in the Southeast, and it’s well deserved, but that doesn’t mean paradise for the talent that shovels the wood all day long.

http://sippicancottage.blogspot.com/2009/01/killing-two-um-in-bush-with-umthe-birds.html Sippican has a story that illustrates a conundrum.  I remember well breaking into the industry in 1980, when the economy was even worse than it is now (hard to believe, isn’t it?).  Nobody buying houses because of prohibitive interest rates, super high unemployment in construction.  It was bad.  Yet I strolled into a lumberyard two days after getting married and landed a minimum wage job in a cabinet shop.  With the recommendation from a good friend who worked there.

Ally and I didn’t have two nickels to rub together.  I don’t remember either of us bringing home $100 a week for a very long time.  Rent was $250 a month, I had a $165 truck payment and the usual utilities, groceries.  We did nothing.  I mean nothing for entertainment or dinners out or weekend vacations. There was no cable tv, no internet, no VCR’s.  Man it was weak, and you just sweated and pushed and kept going because there was no other choice.

Looks very much like we’ve come full circle, doesn’t it.  There is no whining allowed because I accept it.  I don’t particularly like it, my freedom’s down the tubes and I value that as much as anything, but there it is.  Work to eat.  Hope for better days.

Guess I’ve got a call to make.

I’ve got a real gut burner of a decision to make.

Those of you from the old site, who followed the dallying of a business owner (that would be me) and the resulting hilarity as a way talented partner and I cut swaths across the wood strewn plains of carpenter land here in North Backwater (which is to say, the city) might better “get this” than the other 2 or 3 folks, but . . .

I got a maybe job offer.

This having exhausted every conceivable avenue in my talent field, across a lot of state lines and local as well, and leaving the last of all phone calls for the one I didn’t want to make.

The phone call to the legacy job.  I think we all have one.  The old time job that you giggle about in good times.  Saying, while holding a beer in one hand and a fifty dollar bill in the other, “Well shoot if it all goes to hell I can always go back to Smithers Widgets!” and getting a riotous cackle from the adoring masses at the pub who all know you, and have heard this story a dozen times.

“Hey, ‘member that dude at Smithers that used to eat cat food for lunch?  Then he got tossed in the pokey for pissing on the side of the building downtown one night?  Yeah!  Bwahahahaaaa . . . !”

“Oh yeah, I worked at Smithers.  Ain’t ever’body?  Bwahahahaaaa!”

And so on.

Truth be told, I worked at Smithers when it was only Smith.  You see.  Worked there for 11 years, started and finished in the office, saw that place built up from starving to way healthy.  Like to think I had a hand in that.  If I’d stayed there, chances are pretty good I’d be talking early retirement now instead of ‘Will work for food, yass’um’.

Honest, I was the shit.  They were crying when I left.  For greener pastures and all that.

In subsequent years, the Smithers boss was frequently heard to say “I don’t understand why you ever left.  God, I thought you were here for life!”

Point of fact, when I left in ‘94, I wondered aloud to my long sufferin’ wife if it was the right thing to do.  “Damn, hope I ain’t farkin’ up here . . .”, was the quote as I recall.

After a couple stints at other places (them thar greener pastures, you see) I started the gig of all gigs.  My own gig.  Which, after a few years, was running along like a Cuban cigar on a slow burn.  Hell, we even had Smithers as a major customer!  A good paying customer at that!  For a good 10 years and then . . .

Well.

Ever have to make one of those phone calls that you have to steel yourself for?  The – “Shit don’t make me do this . . . God I can’t believe . . . Oh just push the buttons and swallow your ever-lovin’ pride “. . . calls?

I made that one today.

Talked to the guy whose only son was born a month after my Middlest One.  You could say that he and I are on the same plain, if not in the same income catagory.  If I’d never left there, I have no doubt he would be my closest friend.

The guy who hired my son, the last of the three children that Ally and I zapped out.  And he didn’t have to do that, and I told him so.  Today.  Told him that.  “I really never thanked you for that bro, but it was a damn fine thing you done, there.  And I wished he’d have worked out better for ye, and not screwed up the opportunity that you gave him, ’cause I was all up in his face about not doing exactly what he wound up doing, and . . .”

Yeah.

The only thing Smithers has got is a job I graduated from 30 years ago.

But he does have that.  And is half assed eager to pay me to do it.  I guess.

Aw shit.

Do I wanna eat or starve, here?

I was gonna do a sort of rebuttal post along Christmas time, call it “Christmas Letters from Hell” since we get them every year from various siblings.  We all do.  The sort of letters that beg for a wall of enshrinement, going on for however many paragraphs that the sender has accomplishments to be publicized and rammed collectively down the maw of your concious.  You do want to be reminded of fact that our doctoral presentation was a smashing success, don’t you?  Or that Juniors wife popped out another bairne in February, while getting promoted to VP of Ops, and doing a transmission change on the collectable ‘63 Mercedes in a snowstorm and how . . .

Never mind.  It dulls me, truly it does.  Happens every Christmas.

But since Christmas is past, I have no chance for that letter.  Let’s do a New Years review, instead.  And mail it off to brother with postage due, because that’s how we hang here in the backwater.   Nobody got promoted to VP of much of anything outside of a misery factor here, in any event.

And if you are here for happy reading, you might want to pop down one post, since I did two today.  When you write a bunch of nothing for months at a time you oughta pop it all out at once.  So I’ve been told.

~~~~~

Dear Brother,

Received your fine letter of the 22nd and decided, for once, to reply forthwith, since so many notables have been tossed on the coffee table this year.  Let’s just review the year of our Lord 2008, eh?

January thru March:  We remained ensconsed at the little house in the woods, dear brother.  Have been since ‘06 in fact.  It’s winter, my work schedule is spotty but a little better than last year.  Which means I’m making subsistence money to go along with Allys subsistence money.  So, we subsisted.  When you’re right on top of aproaching your 50’s sometimes that’s good enough.

Oh, and our dog of some 15 years passed on.  That was a bad day.  Particularly when I was the one to have to lend a hand to it, so to speak.

April:  Remember that fella that I talked into moving down here next door to us, dear brother?  Yeah, the one with the bum hip, who was so excited to have a place out in the woods with a little land?  Well, he fell victim to his own sense of thrift, I suppose.  Flew over to India to get that hip replaced ’cause it would save him a bunch of fiat dollars and such.  Had a helluva time by all accounts, spoke lovingly of all those Indian nurses and all.  Trouble was, you’re suppose to keep off the hip and get bedrest and plenty of it, and old Walt was never one to listen to a whole lot of bullshit from anybody, doctor or no.  Might be a lesson there, dear brother, with a doctorate of your own, even though it’s in theology and not something useful like turning wrenches on hips or something.  But anyway.

So old Walt tossed the hip a couple of times, once in the shower for eight hours running and I had to haul him outta there nekkid and all, wound up in a hospital with more infections and assorted ailments than if he’d ate some of that good roadkill down here without boiling it first.  Seriously fucked up, he was.  And he managed to piss off just about everybody in his life in the meantime because his mind was going as just about the same rate as his body.  We all know how that goes.

So come the 15th of April, he died.  And if you knew Walt, the irony of that was just too perfect for words.  He was 8 years older tha me but it could have been thirty, to look at him.

Oh but we picked up another dog in April, we did.  So it can’t be said that the month was a total loss.  We really like Sam.

May:  Hey we picked up yet another dog!  Not a Lab like Sam, as a matter of fact we don’t know quite what it is to this day.  But we now had a crew of 4, if you count me and Ally.

Work was picking up too.  Went down to the big summer project with a new fella the company hired, a project manager.  Took him out there on his first day, in his Italian shoes.  Shoulda warned him, it was right muddy out on that school jobsite, but whatever.  Boy was he eager to learn.  Told me so, he did.  “I’m glad to have someone with your wealth of experience to help me”, sez he.  Hmmm.

Plus, May is the finest month in the backwater.  Warm to hot, fish jumping in the boat kind of weather.

June:  Sigh.

You know what, brother?  Our house burned down in June.  I know, maybe I shoulda called and let you know about this, but what exactly . . . or what would you . . . you know what I mean?

Yeah we lived, and the dogs lived.  Everybody lived.  And thank Jesus (you’re glad I’m thanking Jesus, I know) we had that big metal shop off the back.  Made a terrific storage shed all summer, for all that burnt up crap we haued out there.

Oh and that new fella, the project manager?  Called me up a couple of hours after the big burn, you know when it was still kinda simmering?  Wanted to know when I’d be back to work.  Now he never did come right out and ask, you see.  Just let it kinda hang there.  The old pregnant pause thing.

Shit, I was back in 36 hours, bro.  Dads work ethic and all.  I even had new boots and some clothes.  It was about all I had, but by golly I was proud to have ‘em.  Yep.  That was June.

July thru September:  You might be curious to know how my summer went, brother.  Well we lived in a ghetto house.  Not the sort of house you’d want to spend more time in than necessary in daylight.  We had a bed, two chairs and a TV.  One of the chairs I liberated from the backyard of that place and let me tell ye, it was a royal bitch on my back.  While I was surfin’ the net on this here laptop, looking for insurance replacement costs for everything we owned.

Work was going along pretty well though.  Between the big school project and a dental clinic I had all I wanted.  Plus, the ghetto house was so much closer to the Watering Hole than before, so their profit margins went up dramatically.  That’s a good thing, I suppose.

And hey, the new house got delivered really quick!  I mean we put in the order right around the first of July and the sumbith was on site mid-August!  Just in time for me to wrap up that school and start some serious supervision of the rebuild.

Matter of fact, come first of September that new project manager said he didn’t have much for me to do the rest of the month.  Why, it was perfect!  I sez to him “Shucks that’s okay!  I’ll just take an unpaid sabbatical ’til October and ride herd on this house, right?  Works out good for both of us.”  And I got to tell you, it was a relief, ’cause Ally was all kinds of ready to be in that house by October, the ghetto being what it is.

You remember Maggie, right?  Our Middlest child, who being great with child lived with us for a spell?  Long story, I know.  But hey!  She moved back down from the great frozen North this month with grandson and boyfriend in tow, and there was the backwater equivilent of slaughtering the fatted calf!

It meant the very world.  We’re selfish like that.  And they’re doing mostly fine, truly they are.

That little project manager and I had been fueding.  Mainly because he was an inexperienced little asshole with passive/aggressive written in 2,000 watt neon on his forehead.  Blinking neon, even.  The Old Man at the firm was trying to ease out and retire, see, and needed a replacement body.  I don’t know what he was thinking, fact is he even told me that PM boy “Already went through 2 bankrupt firms, wonder why, sure hope he doesn’t do it here . . . hehheh”.

Heh, indeed.  So maybe you can see what was coming next month.

October:  Got back into the house just in time for Allys birthday, go us.  Spent all manner of money getting new everything, of course, because who doesn’t need a new china cabinet and a leather recliner and flat screens (strictly under 42″ flat screens though, to mount over the fireplace).  And sofas and stereo receivers and flatware and software and bedsheets and shampoo.  You see?  Lotsa stuff.  Thank you Mr. Insurance Man, sincerely.  Why, you didn’t even blink when I sent you a bill for dirt!  Dirt from the torn up front yard!  Why, I suspect you’d have paid me for the two days it took to push the dirt around on my tractor, if I’d asked.

Matter of fact we were having so much fun spending that sweet insurance dime that we spent darn near all of it.  Didn’t get us back to square one, ‘xactly.  Close enough.  Besides which, it was time to get back to work, right?  Earn something.

Uh . . . no.

Fact is little Pass/Agg PM boy with the neon thing called me up just about the day we moved.  Cunning, I know.  He sez, “Hey, we’re going to all subcontractors to install what little work we have.  You want in, you need to start your own gig up”.

Now, I know you follow world events and politics and such, dear brother.  I do too, I did more reading in that ghetto house about world events than ever before.  Got a feel for how the construction industry is doing?

Well I’ll tell ye.  It sucks, and has been sucking for a whole year.

So I went in and talked to the Old Man and was encouraged, you know?  Spent a fair amount of time with him and his son.  Talked a lot about little PM boy and how we could improve the company, work on limited margins and so on.  Walked out feeling pretty good about it, heard very distinctly the whole “We’ll call you, sure.  Coupla weeks, tops”.

It’s been a hella long coupla weeks, bro.  I ain’t heard back from ‘em since.

But I imagine little PM boy got what he wanted.  Saved a boatload of money by not having me around I’m sure.  Why, he never even had to hire any subcontractors.  Just promoted a couple of kids from his past job to do what I did.  Got rid of Tommy, my old helper, too.

Yep, that worked out pretty swell.

November thru Right Now:  I sit in the house and fill out online job applications.  Got a heck of a resume, stands to reason I would after 30 some years in the same field.  Funny thing about online resumes though.  You can send in a hundred of ‘em, and I just may have by now, but there’s always somebody cheaper or younger or more networked than you.  If you can even get a response, which most times ye don’t.

The Watering Hole network and Knock On Doors method is more encouraging if only because of the immediate feedback and folks holding out hope for you, but I’m not scoring any touchdowns yet.  And if you recall anything my brother, it’s that I don’t function well when not earning.  It’s been four months and the kitty is running on fumes.

Oh, I’ve done some side work. Some.   But it’s funny.  We’re about down the toilet economically in this country.  You have to be either really rich or really desparate to want the services of a carpenter right now.  We’re about as popular as a new car salesman from what I can see.

Beth the Eldest is working, thank God.  Maggie too, but the boyfriend just got chopped a couple weeks ago.  Ben the Youngest?  Hanging on, by a fingernail.

I think back on this year of 2008, dear brother, and you know what?  I want this year in my rearview mirror so fast, and with so many flingings of the middle finger(s) on its demise that it would blow your Presyterian vestments clean off.

There hasn’t been much mention of Ally in this missive, has there?  Maybe it’s for the want of sparing her as much of this as possible.  She had a nice Christmas with the kids and family and friends and it was . . . like normal.  Like life ought to be, and what she surely deserves.  Not this gnawing, and waiting, and looking at the suck of the news every waking minute.

It ain’t pretty, is what I’m saying.  I look at the dogs all day.  After Ally leaves for the subsistence job, it’s me and “the boys”.  I stuck a picture of them down at the end of this New Years Letter for ye.

Oh, and sorry to be so negative in this letter.  Don’t mean to be.  I reckon that after a year of death and dismemberment I’ve just gotten more cranky than usual.  And I really ought to have cheered up quite a bit from your Christmas Letter from Hell, but frankly, when you got to writing about having to put your purchase of a vacation home in the fucking Poconos on hold “Due to the temporary economy problems”, and that after 14 successful births you hadn’t seen any new grandchildren this year, and that everybody was getting raises and new advanced degrees or considering hearty retirement I had to resist giving you one of those rare phone calls.

You know, the commiserating ones.  I’m about running out of commisery, bro.  Matter of fact?  Fuck you and your vacation home problems.

I’m well and truly on the road to losing the only one we’ve got.

Your loving and distant brother,

Jim

PS:  Next time, I’ll write something more pleasant.  Asshole.  Have a pithy 2009, okay?

It truly is getting to the point . . . where I’m no fun anymore.

I had the DeWalt chopper set up in the back hallway of some random cubicle farm, zapping up chunks of backsplash and other useful sticks of what passes for building material in this day and age.  It was a pleasant jobsite.  There was a low hum of activity, 20 trade mechanics moving in an efficient way to bring a new office to life.  It’s always struck me as a strange thing, that low hum.  You’d think more noise on a construction site would equal more stuff getting done.  No, the good ones are quiet, because they are filled with goodly experienced lads who don’t need to ask or inquire, and go about their business with no wasted motion, and expect much the same from you.  It’s a delicate dance we do, out here.

The plumber was around the corner and in the Men’s while I sprayed sawdust from the back of the rapid firing saw.  Bandy little guy with goggles and clutching a propane torch.  He emerged a trifle agitated, calling  ”Lighter?  Anybody got a lighter?” to the otherwise empty hall.

I fished the Zippo out of the shirt pocket and waved, clinking it open with my left while never releasing the saw trigger in my right, and he pounced at it.  The steady yellow flame fed his wavering blue one, until he dialed in the  dosage and a thin blue heat hissed like a laser between us.  He jammed a cigarette to his lips, waved the torch past it in a smooth arc (oh the little skills we pick up out here) and gave me a nod and a wink, off to the shitter to melt some copper into compliance with local codes.

“Hey Plumber, got your sinks here?  I got countertops, they need holes, you got sinks?”  It’s a standard thing with me, I ask this on every job. 

Carpenters install lots of cabinets, cabinets that frequently house sinks.  You’d think that the Plumber would be responsible for cutting his own sink hole through the top, but no.  One day long ago, stone aged Plumber forgot his jigsaw one day, and the superintendent was impatient to get the kitchen finished on his tenant build-out and was berating the Plumber for being so careless as to forget his saw.  So the Plumber, being a crafty and shifty sort, said “Look, there’s a Carpenter over there.  I just know he has a jig, get his ass to do it!”  And the super pondered for a minute and remarked “Gee, there’s a thought!”  So he went to the Carp, pulled out a twenty, had a quiet word and in minutes, the job was done.

Problem is, long ago Carpenter did such a nice job of it, with his sleek jigsaw with sharp blades that Plumbers began to spread the word.  Leave the saw at home they whispered in their dark plumber filled watering holes.  Leave it at home and get the Carpenter to do it.  Why, he does such a better job of it than we can.  Besides, why should we have to take a chance butchering somebody else’s product?  The Plumbers got drunk and indignant, and changed the industry forever in their twisted and evil way.

You don’t think so?  It’s all true, my friends.  Every word.

Turns out there were 2 plumbers on the job, and they were there to install sinks.  Just sinks.  They had nothing else left.  I was ahead of them by a little bit, but 2 plumbers with little to do gained ground on me in a hurry, the lone installer of things wood.  By the time they caught me, I was on the last two bathrooms and they were positively dawdling.  Noticably.

“Sheesh.  Looks like a dime’s holding up a dollar, eh?” as I glanced behind me while simultaneously firing three screws into a base cabinet.  They chuckled, admiring a brass fitting and wiping rags over the next sink with a polish.  “You just keep gettin’ up there, Woodpecker.  We got all afternoon.”

I pulled the next cabinet into alignment, whisked a clamp from the toolbelt, nudged the toebase with a prybar and slipped a shim in, checked the level and fisted the clamp tight.  Three screws, next, repeat.

“Right efficient there, ain’t he Bob?  Moves like he mighta done this oncet or twicet.  Where’s your help today, Carp?”

I grinned.  “Who needs help when I got you two climbin’ right up my ass?  Y’all got me motivated.”

Cabinets screwed to wall.  Top screwed to cabinets.  Four rapid moves and the sink lines were drawn.  Tip the jigsaw, plunge cut the first line (“Hey Smitty, he didn’t even drill a hole!  Didja see that?”).  Round the fourth corner with the saw, switched to left hand for the last 3 inches so the right hand could snake under the top to catch the chunk of top about to drop onto their shiny water lines and drain fitting.  Saw stops, chunk of top whirls through the air like a frisbee and lands atop 6 others just like it.  Done, and done.

“There y’are, lads.  You’re up to bat”, and saws and drills and toolbelts begin to nest themselves onto the big rolling cart I use.  The plumbers were impressed.

“Fine work there, Mr. Carpenter.  Just glad it weren’t me that had to do it.  Hate those sink cuts, I do.”

I paused, for the sheer drama of it all, pulling sunglasses over eyes and strolling for the door.  “Shucks, I kinda like ‘em, really.”

The Plumber raised eyebrows.  “Ye do?  How’s that?”

“Simple.  Means I’m done, and you ain’t.  Ta, boys.”

Woodpeckers.  Faster to the watering hole, and make better lovers, and all that.  Couldn’t imagine it any other way.

I’m in Pittsburgh.  It’s Sunday.  Me and son Ben are doin’ the NFL football thing today, along with 4 of the more agressive proponents of Steeler Mania you’ve ever perchanched to meet.  They are attempting to be kind to me, as I support their opponent in todays contest.

Not to be a crystal ball guru, but I think I can already predict the score.

Beer 240, Me 0.

Hi Pam!  Sorry you’re stuck in Bawl’more!

Now, see?

 The entire country of France can take off for a vacation.  Take off the entire month of August and nobody much gives a hoot.

So I figgered to one-up them and take off August, and a bit of September.

But it’s getting out of hand now, and there is much to tell.  My little muse man who lives so far away is tapping and prodding me.  It’s impossible to tell if he knows that he stirs the words, pokes the mind of a Grandpa six hours to the south, or why.  Ally traveled up there a couple of weeks ago and brought back images and sounds.

There.  A little man behind bars.

How he moves me sometimes.  To talk and write and think.  He does do his best to move me, without knowing the why or how about it.  Funny old/new man that he is.  It is a sadness mixed with a hope and endless red wagons and runny noses, that.

In the middle of January, when I’m reclining at home with nothing much to do because all regional construction work has gone on hiatus, I’d be well served to remember the August days.  I been ‘whee busy, dear friends.

Today is a road day.  Haven’t been on a road trip in a while.  Back when I had the business a road trip to coastal Carolina was so routine that I had an overnight bag with rotating T-shirts and the Hampton Inn on speed dial.  Now, it’s a break in the tedium.  Same work, different town.

But I never had a wireless laptop back then.  If I had, it’s likely that the hotel clerk would have given me a blank look when I asked about their wireless network.  Now I get a dismissive sniff that sez, “Silly old man.  Just fire it up.  Everybody has a laptop.  Think you’re special?”

Remember now, I’m a child when it comes to such things.  AM radio I can handle.  And in a way, a wireless laptop in a strange hotel room isn’t much more than a small transistor radio with a breakable antenna, to me.  You’ve might have to perch the thing near the window for any kind of reception.  You might note the AC unit directly below, blowing freezing drafts up your shorts while you tune in various networks (which occasionally bonk on you).  You might stuff hotel pillows over the AC and under your arms, being as how it’s 4 in the morning and the tiny pillows are useless for sleeping on, anyway. 

I suppose I could go out on the balcony and the signal might improve.  Then I could sit in fetid Carolina heat, with a laptop, on a narrow balcony in the dead of night and try my best to come up with a knowing and mature countenance when the hotel clerk happens by.

Eh.  The work starts in a couple of hours.  There is ice to fetch for the cooler, an overnight bag to pack.  Maybe an egg sammich at the Waffle Hut next door.  An eight hour session of focused carpenter mayhem.  And a four hour drive at the end of it all, on a truckers route up the coast and back to the swamp and the little house and the woman who lives there.

Especially, and particularly, the woman who lives there.

In 1979, you could still find gas for under a dollar a gallon.  Wasn’t easy, and occasionally when you’d find yourself pumping $20 worth, you’d hand over 20 whole dollars and your hands would shake and it was easy to imagine the world coming to an end.

  Then you’d hop into something looking like this, rumbling and growling, feeling a vibration through the three-speed black knobbed gear shift.  Shove in a very heavy clutch and let a pair of G60’s chirp just a hair as you glided onto the hardtop.

Mine was black with that same white stripe and a white interior, no hood scoop and wider tires.  Bucket seats.  A 340 four-barrel that was perfectly matched for the chassis weight.  Positively evil looking.

I think everybody ought to have a car like this at least once in their lives.  Having one at 19 or 20 years old is perfect.  It’s a head turner, the kind of thing that you hear before you see.  If you’re smart (and darned lucky), you’ll manage to not get a ticket before the time comes to graduate to a minivan and spend your weekends putting up a trellis in the side yard.

I met Ally when I had that car and she still talks about it.

I once ran my good buddy back to college, from Norfolk to Richmond on a Sunday morning, so that he could take me to a basketball game and be up for classes come Monday.  We made it in 70 minutes.  It’s a 90 minute trip at best, so I have to believe we hit some sort of time warp there.  I’ve made that same run countless times since and still have to wonder.  But I can still hear that unrelenting roar from an engine released to do what it does best.

I still get a grin these days, when some kid in a tricked out Honda pulls up alongside my big rig and peals out in a 4 cylinder, glas-packed frenzy.  “Oh my young punkster, if only I had the Dodge back for an hour.  One hour.”

Then I mash the gas, and try to coax the truck up to sixty in less than a minute, and try not to think about the $3 a gallon burning through a stifled but heavy duty engine in front of me.

Sucks to be old, sometimes.