So let me say something about Facebook. I resisted it for a long time; stubborn I suppose but I finally succumbed and opened a page for the Thoroughbreds team. I was hoping it would help with recruiting and fundraising and it may yet but by doing so, I also acquired a personal page and an instant bunch of 'Friend Requests' to go with it. Strange that I hadn't even posted anything yet but there they were. Some were from family and some from people at work so I confirmed a few and skipped the rest. I guess that's what Facebook is supposed to be about so I figured I'd run with it and see what happened.
Well, as it turns out, I'm having kind of a hard time on the biggest-thing-that-ever-hit-the-planet-or-at-least-the-internet network.
See the problem is, there's just not that many people I know or am looking for. How do you socialize with nobody? The first thing I noticed once I got a page was an ad over on the right that offered to search for long-lost classmates. Chris found a bunch of people from her school when she got on and re-connected and that's great. I on the other hand, didn't really hang with a whole lot of kids back then so I'm not sure who I would search for. I wasn't on any sports teams, wasn't in the band or plays, never made academic honors, didn't get in trouble or party much and never moved on to college or the military. The long and short of it was; I hated high school and couldn't get out fast enough. Hence, my circle of friends had a very short diameter. There were a very few I ran around with I guess but when I got to be a senior, I went to work and they went to parties...we didn't have much in common to reminisce about. Besides, I haven't seen or heard from a single one of them in the 30 plus years since I graduated. I don't see why I would look for people I hardly spoke to in the hall. A couple of my good friends that I do miss are dead and even Facebook doesn't claim to be able to find them. I guess there are limits...
Browsing around a little more, I looked at the search box at the top of my page and kind of wondered whose name I could type in. There must be someone. I ran the old memory back a few years, looked at the box, looked at the keyboard, went back a ways further and looked at the box again. It stayed empty. The circle is apparently still pretty damn small.
Maybe I'll come up with some names eventually or I suppose someone might show up and surprise me (other than the total unknown that popped in this morning with a generic 'Hi there' message and a prominently well-endowed, clothing-less profile picture). I might be a noob but nothing screams "SCAM" to me quite like an unsolicited personal message from a big-breasted blonde who 'only wants to be my friend' but doesn't have a name. I thought Craigslist had the corner on the phishing spammers but at least Fb let me block this one with only two clicks. I'm trying to keep an open mind and give it a chance.
It isn't all bad news anyway. I've exchanged some posts with a few people, put up some pictures, sort of poked my way around the gadgets and that's been pretty cool...a strange way to interact with people but kinda cool. I'm not sure about it yet but it might just turn out to be a pretty quiet place on my laptop with an empty box at the top and a really small circle on the wall.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Thought For Today
A simple quote from my all-time favorite book...Fate Is The Hunter
"Tell me now...by what ends does a man ever partially control his fate? It is obvious from the special history of our kind that favorites are played, but if this is so, then how do you account for those who are ill-treated? The worship of pagan gods, which once answered all this, is no longer fashionable. Modern religions ignore the matter of fate. So we are left confused and without direction.
Let us admit, then, that the complete answer may only be revealed when it can no longer serve those most interested."
E.K. Gann
"Tell me now...by what ends does a man ever partially control his fate? It is obvious from the special history of our kind that favorites are played, but if this is so, then how do you account for those who are ill-treated? The worship of pagan gods, which once answered all this, is no longer fashionable. Modern religions ignore the matter of fate. So we are left confused and without direction.
Let us admit, then, that the complete answer may only be revealed when it can no longer serve those most interested."
E.K. Gann
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Moving Day Sneaking Up
I'm almost beginning to believe we're actually going to move. The countdown is running to the day when we'll pack out of 'Old Drafty' and take up operations in our new digs once and for all. I can't say it's going to be easy to leave this place. We've invested 20 years of our lives in the old barn, raised our kids here, made it our home, loved it and hated it. It's been a project that I'm just running our of ambition to work on anymore. But no matter what, it's the first and only house we've ever owned and so I'll miss it.
The reality of it all comes down to the fact that sooner than we think, Chris and I will be empty-nesters. The guys are sneaking through being teenagers on us and already looking out the door and down the road. They've grown like the proverbial weeds and emptied the refrigerator twice a week for the last year.
Even Connor is almost looking me straight in the eye these days. The desperately sick baby who only had about a 50/50 chance of ever walking or talking is now my jazz man and calls me 'Dirt' because to him, that's how old I am. I think of that awful day when we handed him to a surgeon and wondered if we'd ever see him again in this world. He became our 'Miracle Child' when the tumor came out and my son came home to live and grow up. He can call me anything he wants as long as he calls me Dad once in a while.
Seneca passed me in altitude long ago and is on his way to being a big man in more ways than one. He came home from the maternity floor to a screaming Nor'easter that buried our old house in more snow than I'd seen in a lot of years. The snow was over the top of my van and kept two brand-new parents pretty worried about being stranded in the creaky house with a newborn. I shoveled for days to dig out and wished for global warming. I still wonder every time his birthday rolls around if we'll get a repeat of 'Seneca's Blizzard'.
There's a million memories kicking around here but ours are only the latest. Who knows how many kids have passed through this place in a hundred years or how many more will follow before it's gone? We're hoping another young family will move in like we did and make pencil marks on the door to chart their kids on the way up. Someone to fill it with dogs and noise, fresh paint and piles of laundry. It's a big and quirky house and it needs a new brood to keep it loud and alive, full of comings and goings so it never has a chance to get too old. It needs a fresh blast of baby cribs and stuffed animals, a new batch of local musketeers to parade to the 'fridge and another late winter storm to go down in the record books. The change will be good for all of us.
The reality of it all comes down to the fact that sooner than we think, Chris and I will be empty-nesters. The guys are sneaking through being teenagers on us and already looking out the door and down the road. They've grown like the proverbial weeds and emptied the refrigerator twice a week for the last year.
Even Connor is almost looking me straight in the eye these days. The desperately sick baby who only had about a 50/50 chance of ever walking or talking is now my jazz man and calls me 'Dirt' because to him, that's how old I am. I think of that awful day when we handed him to a surgeon and wondered if we'd ever see him again in this world. He became our 'Miracle Child' when the tumor came out and my son came home to live and grow up. He can call me anything he wants as long as he calls me Dad once in a while.
Seneca passed me in altitude long ago and is on his way to being a big man in more ways than one. He came home from the maternity floor to a screaming Nor'easter that buried our old house in more snow than I'd seen in a lot of years. The snow was over the top of my van and kept two brand-new parents pretty worried about being stranded in the creaky house with a newborn. I shoveled for days to dig out and wished for global warming. I still wonder every time his birthday rolls around if we'll get a repeat of 'Seneca's Blizzard'.
There's a million memories kicking around here but ours are only the latest. Who knows how many kids have passed through this place in a hundred years or how many more will follow before it's gone? We're hoping another young family will move in like we did and make pencil marks on the door to chart their kids on the way up. Someone to fill it with dogs and noise, fresh paint and piles of laundry. It's a big and quirky house and it needs a new brood to keep it loud and alive, full of comings and goings so it never has a chance to get too old. It needs a fresh blast of baby cribs and stuffed animals, a new batch of local musketeers to parade to the 'fridge and another late winter storm to go down in the record books. The change will be good for all of us.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Cold...With Fog
With the weather closing in and fall most definitely upon us, I decided to make one more effort at a long ride before the snow flies. I was due in Bingo at 10 in the morning to meet Jess, our Tour de Cure coordinator for a little presentation. She had a framed plaque for our Thoroughbred team to recognize that we came in third last year in fundraising. Pretty cool for the first time out and a pretty good excuse to ride in the cold. Not that I usually need an excuse...
Unexpectedly, my announced intention to leave the house at about 6 AM in order to have lots of time to make the 42 mile push to our office was met with unprecedented resistance from the management. I knew it would still be dark and likely be extremely chilly but I had lights hooked up on the 2.1 and had multiple layers of clothes all picked out to get me through until sunup. Nothing like thinking ahead. The weather forecast was for sunny and low 50's by midday so the return trip promised to be a breeze. A pre-dawn departure was my plan and all I lacked was fresh batteries for the headlight. Chris was watching all this preparation without much comment until she realized I'd be riding about 2 hours out of the gate in full dark. For the first time in our married life, I actually saw her stamp her foot on the rug, cross her arms and flat out say no. She's pretty much accustomed to my more common antics but I guess this one crossed the line in the sand. I think the foot-stomp was the killer indication that there would be a few alterations to my itinerary. I promised I wouldn't ride in the dark.
Instead, I hooked the rack on the van and loaded up the bike in the morning and took off on a slightly different angle. I'd drop the van at the shop (which happens to be in the direction I was going anyway) for an oil change, get geared up and ride the 20 or so remaining miles to the yard. By then, it would be daylight (sort of) so I could get around the prohibition on darkness and yet still get in some miles. So far...so good.
The guy at the counter looked at me like he was seeing an idiot for the first time when I told him I had to unload my bike before he could have the van. His customer-service face cracked a little but he handled it without calling me a moron to my face. I happened to glance at the thermometer on the overhead in the van as I was gathering up my stuff...27 degrees. That's pretty cool, even for me. Less than ideal but not unheard of in my biking escapades so a quick change into riding gear and I was on the road east in gray morning light. Gray being the key word because I soon realized that it was not only 27 degrees out there, but hanging around the valley was a pretty thick coating of fog.
Fog is a way of describing water floating around in the air and when the air is somewhat below freezing, said water tends to solidify on whatever thing it touches, things like me. My gloves, sweatshirt and glasses were soon decorated with a heavy layer of frost and the feeling went out of my hands. In changing my plan of attack, I guess I neglected the extra gloves I had layed out thinking it would be warmer with daylight. I missed them very much. I stopped every couple of miles to defrost and take a look to see if I still had fingers or if they'd snapped off in my gloves. Eventually though, the sun popped up and started the mercury in the positive direction. Luckily too, the mist burned off quickly and though it stayed cold, I could at least see where I was going. It was another hour before I could shift without actually looking at my fingers to see if they were doing what I wanted. Note to Shimano: You guys could make those shifter paddles a little bigger and it would be alright with me. They work a little hard when you have to use your whole frozen hand instead of the customary one finger.
Daylight brought out the commuters and so began the dodging of vehicles. I'm pretty used to that anymore so unless someone does something openly hostile, hustling around in traffic doesn't worry me much, I just jump right in and go. I try to get out of the way as much as I can but sometimes lack of maneuvering space means they either have to go around or hit me. Nobody's clipped me yet; close but no cigar so it I must be doing something right. Potholes and broken glass are as much a problem as anything but all obstacles were avoided and there was no horn-blowing or finger-waving this day. There's been other jaunts that included urban adventures but I'd never ridden in the city of Binghamton before. Turns out to be like all it's concrete cousins, it's just a matter of rolling with it and getting where your going without being run down. I got straight across the middle of town with only minor annoyances and rolled into the yard right on time. Cold but successful.
It was nice to see Jess again even though she had her own adventures getting down from Syaracuse. She's good people and it'll be a blast working with her on the 2011 Tour. We had a good chat before Mark and I took off for a short ride on a local rail-trail. A few miles with the Big Galoot and it was back on the road west to pick up the van and call it a day. The sun was bright and if not warm, at least tolerable and the wind was at my back. With any luck, there'll be a few more of these before I have to rely solely on the trainer. I hate the thought of salt and snow but spring will be here eventually...
Unexpectedly, my announced intention to leave the house at about 6 AM in order to have lots of time to make the 42 mile push to our office was met with unprecedented resistance from the management. I knew it would still be dark and likely be extremely chilly but I had lights hooked up on the 2.1 and had multiple layers of clothes all picked out to get me through until sunup. Nothing like thinking ahead. The weather forecast was for sunny and low 50's by midday so the return trip promised to be a breeze. A pre-dawn departure was my plan and all I lacked was fresh batteries for the headlight. Chris was watching all this preparation without much comment until she realized I'd be riding about 2 hours out of the gate in full dark. For the first time in our married life, I actually saw her stamp her foot on the rug, cross her arms and flat out say no. She's pretty much accustomed to my more common antics but I guess this one crossed the line in the sand. I think the foot-stomp was the killer indication that there would be a few alterations to my itinerary. I promised I wouldn't ride in the dark.
Instead, I hooked the rack on the van and loaded up the bike in the morning and took off on a slightly different angle. I'd drop the van at the shop (which happens to be in the direction I was going anyway) for an oil change, get geared up and ride the 20 or so remaining miles to the yard. By then, it would be daylight (sort of) so I could get around the prohibition on darkness and yet still get in some miles. So far...so good.
The guy at the counter looked at me like he was seeing an idiot for the first time when I told him I had to unload my bike before he could have the van. His customer-service face cracked a little but he handled it without calling me a moron to my face. I happened to glance at the thermometer on the overhead in the van as I was gathering up my stuff...27 degrees. That's pretty cool, even for me. Less than ideal but not unheard of in my biking escapades so a quick change into riding gear and I was on the road east in gray morning light. Gray being the key word because I soon realized that it was not only 27 degrees out there, but hanging around the valley was a pretty thick coating of fog.
Fog is a way of describing water floating around in the air and when the air is somewhat below freezing, said water tends to solidify on whatever thing it touches, things like me. My gloves, sweatshirt and glasses were soon decorated with a heavy layer of frost and the feeling went out of my hands. In changing my plan of attack, I guess I neglected the extra gloves I had layed out thinking it would be warmer with daylight. I missed them very much. I stopped every couple of miles to defrost and take a look to see if I still had fingers or if they'd snapped off in my gloves. Eventually though, the sun popped up and started the mercury in the positive direction. Luckily too, the mist burned off quickly and though it stayed cold, I could at least see where I was going. It was another hour before I could shift without actually looking at my fingers to see if they were doing what I wanted. Note to Shimano: You guys could make those shifter paddles a little bigger and it would be alright with me. They work a little hard when you have to use your whole frozen hand instead of the customary one finger.
Daylight brought out the commuters and so began the dodging of vehicles. I'm pretty used to that anymore so unless someone does something openly hostile, hustling around in traffic doesn't worry me much, I just jump right in and go. I try to get out of the way as much as I can but sometimes lack of maneuvering space means they either have to go around or hit me. Nobody's clipped me yet; close but no cigar so it I must be doing something right. Potholes and broken glass are as much a problem as anything but all obstacles were avoided and there was no horn-blowing or finger-waving this day. There's been other jaunts that included urban adventures but I'd never ridden in the city of Binghamton before. Turns out to be like all it's concrete cousins, it's just a matter of rolling with it and getting where your going without being run down. I got straight across the middle of town with only minor annoyances and rolled into the yard right on time. Cold but successful.
It was nice to see Jess again even though she had her own adventures getting down from Syaracuse. She's good people and it'll be a blast working with her on the 2011 Tour. We had a good chat before Mark and I took off for a short ride on a local rail-trail. A few miles with the Big Galoot and it was back on the road west to pick up the van and call it a day. The sun was bright and if not warm, at least tolerable and the wind was at my back. With any luck, there'll be a few more of these before I have to rely solely on the trainer. I hate the thought of salt and snow but spring will be here eventually...
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Trick or Not
It's the 31st of October, which is Halloween in the real world. Oh boy...tell me it ain't so.
Just to be up-front, I pretty much hate this non-holiday anymore. It was fun when I was a kid I guess but like everything else, it's degenerated into another opportunity to blow out your credit line on expensive costumes and decorations instead of just carving up a pumpkin and soaping the neighbors windows. Trick-or-treating is almost an industry in itself; structured with designated hours and approved locations. The annual hike around town with a costume and a sack is now escorted, patrolled and by curfew, will end at 8pm or else for most folks thank you very much. For the miscreants who decide to stay out dodging the police, the tracks are more temptation than they can usually resist. If I wind up working (which I will this year), the whole night will likely be punctuated with eggs, rocks, paintballs, junk on the tracks and the occasional chicken-player trying to 'scare' the train crew. The old mannequin-sprawled-on-the rails trick might be a big yuk to the locals but I never know till it's too late if that might be a real body I just ran over. Yeah kids, that's a real thrill.
Call me jaded but to me it also sort of kicks off the mad-consumption, retail-driven hell that marks the last couple months of the year. We don't even get a break from the shrill, ridiculous political screaming of the election cycle before the nauseating 'Holiday' ads kick in and TV becomes even more unbearable than usual.
A bonus at this time of year is the networks overwhelming desire to show every horror movie ever made for the whole month of October. I clicked on in the hotel the other day as I was packing for home and just as the screen popped in, I was treated to a close-up, full view of a semi-dressed and busty young lass (they're all semi-dressed and busty in horror movies) being split right down the middle by an axe-wielding zombie...complete with a follow up shot of steamy innards plopping on the ground. Nice. That made my whole day guys, thanks. I know you are required by tradition and poor taste to show all the straight-to-video splatter failures that have ever been produced in a four week span but come on...it's 2 in the afternoon and you've probably run this sleaze-bag 50 times since Thursday...give it a rest. On top of that, no matter how many times it airs it still sucks and is not likely to improve with age. In case you can't tell, this stuff makes me a little cranky.
Every time around it gets harder to take. I don't watch the tube very often anyway but sometimes when I'm stuck in the hotel for hours, I channel surf out of boredom. I might be able to take a 'CSI' or 'Modern Marvels' rerun for the 80th time if 6 minutes of high-volume commercials weren't spaced by 3 minutes of show. I wish I could trap a brace of ad execs. in a room for 24 hours and blast them with their own insanity so they'd know how the rest of us feel. On second thought, they'd probably have a ball and spend the whole time congratulating each other. Thanksgiving and Christmas on cable is worse than the split girl sometimes.
I'm sure I'll return to this as the season rolls on but for now...I'm holiday-ed up to my eyeballs and hoping it pours tonight to keep the tricks to a minimum. It might be a long trip.
Just to be up-front, I pretty much hate this non-holiday anymore. It was fun when I was a kid I guess but like everything else, it's degenerated into another opportunity to blow out your credit line on expensive costumes and decorations instead of just carving up a pumpkin and soaping the neighbors windows. Trick-or-treating is almost an industry in itself; structured with designated hours and approved locations. The annual hike around town with a costume and a sack is now escorted, patrolled and by curfew, will end at 8pm or else for most folks thank you very much. For the miscreants who decide to stay out dodging the police, the tracks are more temptation than they can usually resist. If I wind up working (which I will this year), the whole night will likely be punctuated with eggs, rocks, paintballs, junk on the tracks and the occasional chicken-player trying to 'scare' the train crew. The old mannequin-sprawled-on-the rails trick might be a big yuk to the locals but I never know till it's too late if that might be a real body I just ran over. Yeah kids, that's a real thrill.
Call me jaded but to me it also sort of kicks off the mad-consumption, retail-driven hell that marks the last couple months of the year. We don't even get a break from the shrill, ridiculous political screaming of the election cycle before the nauseating 'Holiday' ads kick in and TV becomes even more unbearable than usual.
A bonus at this time of year is the networks overwhelming desire to show every horror movie ever made for the whole month of October. I clicked on in the hotel the other day as I was packing for home and just as the screen popped in, I was treated to a close-up, full view of a semi-dressed and busty young lass (they're all semi-dressed and busty in horror movies) being split right down the middle by an axe-wielding zombie...complete with a follow up shot of steamy innards plopping on the ground. Nice. That made my whole day guys, thanks. I know you are required by tradition and poor taste to show all the straight-to-video splatter failures that have ever been produced in a four week span but come on...it's 2 in the afternoon and you've probably run this sleaze-bag 50 times since Thursday...give it a rest. On top of that, no matter how many times it airs it still sucks and is not likely to improve with age. In case you can't tell, this stuff makes me a little cranky.
Every time around it gets harder to take. I don't watch the tube very often anyway but sometimes when I'm stuck in the hotel for hours, I channel surf out of boredom. I might be able to take a 'CSI' or 'Modern Marvels' rerun for the 80th time if 6 minutes of high-volume commercials weren't spaced by 3 minutes of show. I wish I could trap a brace of ad execs. in a room for 24 hours and blast them with their own insanity so they'd know how the rest of us feel. On second thought, they'd probably have a ball and spend the whole time congratulating each other. Thanksgiving and Christmas on cable is worse than the split girl sometimes.
I'm sure I'll return to this as the season rolls on but for now...I'm holiday-ed up to my eyeballs and hoping it pours tonight to keep the tricks to a minimum. It might be a long trip.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Spinning
Flying these days. Not literally but it feels like the earth is spinning under the landing gear most of my waking hours. I'm only working two 'round trips a week so I actually have a couple days off in between but with everything else, I can't catch my breath.
Old Drafty has been on the market for a little over a week and we've had a couple of showings but mostly it's cleaning rampages and trying to come to grips with the fact that we might actually pull this off. I've been rolling with it as well as I can. This is all new to us again.
More when I can...
Old Drafty has been on the market for a little over a week and we've had a couple of showings but mostly it's cleaning rampages and trying to come to grips with the fact that we might actually pull this off. I've been rolling with it as well as I can. This is all new to us again.
More when I can...
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
House For Sale
I've been falling down on the job lately. Not literally of course because to fall down and get injured on my real job is to come into the realm of the dreaded Medical Department and "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here". No, nothing physical like that. Just slacking off on blogging while all hell breaks loose around Old Drafty. It's never too peaceful hereabouts for any stretch longer than ten minutes anyway but this is real shock and awe. Suddenly, we put the house up for sale. Suddenly, we're thinking of moving. Suddenly, everything looks a whole lot different.
Things have been more than a tad hectic since we decided to put the big homestead on the market. Without going into all the details, let's just say this little adventure came out of the blue and we're still struggling to believe it might actually come to pass. Just when you think nothing else can happen...
We've lived in this monster house for twenty years or so and raised our kids here. It's the only home they've ever known but it's just getting to be too much for the old guy. The recent estimate I got for repairs on the roof (again) kind of took the wind out of my sails for the last time. It was a pretty substantial chunk of cash and even if I had it in my pocket, (which I don't), there's still everything else below the eves yet to do. It also dawned on me that I've got about 15 years to go until I'll be either retired or real close to it and frankly, I don't want to do drywall and plumbing until then...much less for untold years after I leave the right-side seat for good. It's time for someone else to have a go at the old chicken farm. My dearest wish is to retire and do things I WANT to do; not things I HAVE to do. Unless Bob Vila drops in with his checkbook and a boatload of contractors, there's never going to be an end to the fixing-up projects for me. With my lack of schedule and bizarre working life, I could quite possibly tinker on this place until I die and still not have it all done. Reality sometimes sucks but there it is.
The illusion of all twenty-somethings that life just goes on and on over the horizon has sort of faded for me as most illusions will. These days I'm thinking more about the end of things and watching the clock. There comes a point where you have to quit kidding yourself and face the fact that you will most certainly not live forever. I think it's time to look down the road with different eyes.
The kids will probably be out and gone sooner than later and when they pack out to homes of their own, it'll be just Chris and I rattling around in this three-story-endless-renovation project. We've poured a lot into the place over the years but the long and short of it is that we're getting older and time is starting to look more and more like a finite commodity. There's a limit to how much I'll ever do unless my sulfur-water well suddenly becomes the fountain of youth or an armored truck pulls up and just happens to unload pallets of money on the porch. Do I really want to be hanging sheetrock and pulling wire when I'm about 90? Not if there's any way out of it I don't.
I realized a while back that I've been working since I was about twelve in one form or another which translates into almost forty years of nearly continuous employment so far. Not that I'm complaining but its been a pretty long haul. I've still got half a career with the railroad ahead of me so I'm not ready for the rocker quite yet but at least the end is in sight. When I do finally get to the end of it, I might just want to sit on the porch for a minute, sip a beer and think things over instead of installing a bathroom. I might consider mowing the grass eventually...or I might toss a neighbor kid 20 bucks to do it while I have another beer and supervise. Who knows? There may be grandkids to wreak havoc with by then. There's always the original plan Chris and I have for our retirement...two full-dressed Harleys, an offshore bank account for my pension checks, summer clothes in the tour-packs and no forwarding address. One way or another, my days of fixing it up before it falls down will be over.
Yep, the house is for sale and I hope the payoff is more than just an end to the mortgage. I hope it's the life we've worked so hard for all these years.
Things have been more than a tad hectic since we decided to put the big homestead on the market. Without going into all the details, let's just say this little adventure came out of the blue and we're still struggling to believe it might actually come to pass. Just when you think nothing else can happen...
We've lived in this monster house for twenty years or so and raised our kids here. It's the only home they've ever known but it's just getting to be too much for the old guy. The recent estimate I got for repairs on the roof (again) kind of took the wind out of my sails for the last time. It was a pretty substantial chunk of cash and even if I had it in my pocket, (which I don't), there's still everything else below the eves yet to do. It also dawned on me that I've got about 15 years to go until I'll be either retired or real close to it and frankly, I don't want to do drywall and plumbing until then...much less for untold years after I leave the right-side seat for good. It's time for someone else to have a go at the old chicken farm. My dearest wish is to retire and do things I WANT to do; not things I HAVE to do. Unless Bob Vila drops in with his checkbook and a boatload of contractors, there's never going to be an end to the fixing-up projects for me. With my lack of schedule and bizarre working life, I could quite possibly tinker on this place until I die and still not have it all done. Reality sometimes sucks but there it is.
The illusion of all twenty-somethings that life just goes on and on over the horizon has sort of faded for me as most illusions will. These days I'm thinking more about the end of things and watching the clock. There comes a point where you have to quit kidding yourself and face the fact that you will most certainly not live forever. I think it's time to look down the road with different eyes.
The kids will probably be out and gone sooner than later and when they pack out to homes of their own, it'll be just Chris and I rattling around in this three-story-endless-renovation project. We've poured a lot into the place over the years but the long and short of it is that we're getting older and time is starting to look more and more like a finite commodity. There's a limit to how much I'll ever do unless my sulfur-water well suddenly becomes the fountain of youth or an armored truck pulls up and just happens to unload pallets of money on the porch. Do I really want to be hanging sheetrock and pulling wire when I'm about 90? Not if there's any way out of it I don't.
I realized a while back that I've been working since I was about twelve in one form or another which translates into almost forty years of nearly continuous employment so far. Not that I'm complaining but its been a pretty long haul. I've still got half a career with the railroad ahead of me so I'm not ready for the rocker quite yet but at least the end is in sight. When I do finally get to the end of it, I might just want to sit on the porch for a minute, sip a beer and think things over instead of installing a bathroom. I might consider mowing the grass eventually...or I might toss a neighbor kid 20 bucks to do it while I have another beer and supervise. Who knows? There may be grandkids to wreak havoc with by then. There's always the original plan Chris and I have for our retirement...two full-dressed Harleys, an offshore bank account for my pension checks, summer clothes in the tour-packs and no forwarding address. One way or another, my days of fixing it up before it falls down will be over.
Yep, the house is for sale and I hope the payoff is more than just an end to the mortgage. I hope it's the life we've worked so hard for all these years.
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