General Babble

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We're going to the Dead concert next week.  Bobbie can't sing anymore so I suspect that's it for the band.  I wish they'd let John Mayer take it over.  Hard to say fare thee well.  It's not good bye, the music plays on.  Lots been said about the band and still is but as they say "statements seem vain at last."  Just a little jug band.

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And my kid's AC unit needs replacing.  Always happens, you spend money and you get handed an unexpected bill.  For me, if I get unexpected money, it's followed by a bill that takes it all and usually a little bit more. 

This is a nice story.  The 8th grader had no transportation to get to his graduation so he walked the 6 miles to where they were having it at a college.  The college hearing about it awarded him a full ride scholarship.  And NASCAR finding out he wants to work in their field gave him a ride and tickets to a race this weekend.  That's wonderful except I know the area he lives.  He's at high risk of being killed by guns before he ever gets to any of those things.  And nobody from his family went to that graduation.  He does have a male mentor so that's something.  And you know, the kid's looking out for himself.  I wish him luck.

Years back, I let a kid in a similar situation come live with us.  We got her through high school.  The first in her family to graduate.  That little bit of help changed her life's path.  Granted she was determined to change the direction it was headed and made all the right choices.  Her sister before her didn't do so well but her example for the younger one, it can be done, made a big difference for her and she did well.  The girl who stayed with us, just that little bit of help, a safe, stable place to stay was everything that made the difference for two people and is making the difference for their kids.  She was great to have around too.  It didn't seem like that much at the time just so simple, sleep here, eat when we eat, we're going to get you a job, teach you to drive, take you to the doctor when you're sick, regular dental care and give you gifts on gift giving occasions.  Normal stuff in my world.  She seemed surprised by all that.  And no, I'm the adult here, you don't have to do anything but keep your room picked up and take care of your kid responsibilities.  She thought she had to earn her keep.

[cineater]

Oh good, the solar panel company had to cancel the contract.  They can't take them total solar power.  It's not that I'm against solar but they need to investigate this before deciding this is where they want to put their money.  The lights for the plantation is what is running up their electric bill but he wants to move that out of the house anyway.  But it's not just as simple as throwing up a couple of panels on the roof and this house is not designed for going off the grid.  Do your research, get your shit together and build.  Give it 5 years, advances are being made.  Solar panels on this house only brings down the value and makes it harder to sell.

[cineater]

Well, that was worth missing the GNR concert yesterday.  See the cable guys poking around my yard.  They installed upgraded equipment and now I speed around the net.  Didn't even tear up the yard.    Say now they are passed me there will be no more survive disruptions.  I've been pretty much off line during business hours the last two days.

Some pictures popped up on my photo frame.  They caught my brother out on the road in his truck.  He's pulling two trailers!  Forgot how exciting it is to run across somebody you know when you're out on the road.  The pictures make me smile.  His arm is out the window, waving at them.  Bet there was a big smile on his face as they go by.  Big smiles in the car too.

[cineater]

That guy so lied to me!     Cable and internet have been out during the day for the last two days.

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I am so out of touch with the drug world, good thing.  So we're walking out of the Dead concert and they are selling single balloons for $10.  "Hippy Crack" according to the article I read.  It's a thing, mostly at Dead related concerts and popular in Europe.  Nitrous oxide, quick high.  My daughter, the nurse, says if anybody falls down, keep walking, unless they're dead.  How do I know if they're dead?  I guess she planned to revive but up to that point she was off duty. 

https://www.newsweek.com/nitrous-phish-fans-hippie-crack-madison-square-garden-new-york-city-646022

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Music Sunday.  I don't get many of these in the spring.  Rained out of my original plans for the day.  Don't mind the Dead jamming their ass off so much.  I come up with my best ideas listening to music or digging in the dirt.  Usually the Dead inspire me to write.  They are such great storytellers.  I do have a chapter I started.  The story ran on before I could get it typed out so reset.  Not going down that path or I might when I finally get around to typing it.  The story flows off my fingertips as I type it.  Not doing that today though.  My fingers are pretty tight and tired from working in the garden.  Trying to loosen them up by blogging here.  You should see the typos from this side.  Spell check is a wonderful thing. 

Anyway, DJ.  She was in mama mode the other night.  Gets in my car and announces it's the cleanest she's ever seen it.  I don't consider it clean and later on she's going to spill a plant on my floor.  And just shut up, your car is always loaded with dog hair.  I quit hanging out with her because she always wants to run down what's going on in your life, analize what you need to do better when you didn't even present it as a problem.     She's the kind of social worker I would have hated as a foster child.  She did ask me for the link to the incontinence underwear I got my mom.  There ya go, solution to a real problem.

Never thought sharing my little manipulation to get my mother to wear incontinence underwear would help so many people but it has.  Really, who talks about incontinence underwear?    Yeah, I did.

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Finally, I got to buy my grandson clothes.  Clothes for the first few months was pretty much covered by the baby shower.  Listen kid, I'm sorry about that cute little lion on the butt of your pants.  You can pee on it if you want.    

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My college housemate texts me, what's the names of the guys from Sweden?  She's taking a writing class and writing about a backpacking trip we took when we graduated college.  The only thing I remember about them was they always wanted to share your cigarette.  I will give you one if I can just smoke this one by myself!  They weren't having it.  We were out for six weeks, something happen almost everyday on that trip.  You're 21, you know, adventure just happens.  Reminds me though I haven't told her who Jesus is or probably is.

We were early meeting friends in Tao so we decided to take the long way and go by Vegas.  Coming down through Utah, Nevada, somewhere in there we pass Jesus hitching on the side of the road.  Wasn't just me, broad daylight, we both saw him. The hair, the white robe, you know Jesus when you see him. Yeah, we're not picking that up.  About 45 minutes later, there he is again, hitching on the side of the road.  We never stopped.  How many Jesuses can be out here?  Kind of freaked us.  Many years later I'm talking to Dizzy's aunt.  Turns out it might have been her brother.  Something he was doing about that time and the area he was in.     So not Jesus, probably Dizzy's uncle.  Small world.

Kind of nice she remembers that trip too as our greatest adventure.  Not many people get to have a great adventure in life.

[cineater]

The guy who runs the business for supplies to grow pot     The first time I went in there to get a gift card, they had never done one before.  Took them 20 minutes to figure out how they would do gift cards but they were out of paper so he just wrote it on his business card and would "remember" but would also recognize his signature on the card.  Yeah, I talked him through a back up plan.  So today, I go in for another gift card.  Out of paper again and I get the business card again.  This time for back up plan I tell him who it's for.  He works for you sometimes.  Took a second but then recognition happens.  "Oh yeah, I have to call him today to come fill the tanks."  Forgot to remind him this was a gift card, don't mention I was there.  Not to worried, this guy's a space case.

[cineater]

Three days of birthday parties for me.  We now know who took out my amazon list.  My birthday isn't until Monday, the big 66.  Breakfast with my daughter tomorrow.  Brunch with friends Monday and dinner with mom Monday night.  I rather like getting presents.  

Got one of those cooling hats.  Just how long were they going to let me walk around with it on and the price tag hanging off the top.     Finally saw it was there in my shadow.  Got two wind spinners and a wind chime.  Not even a hint of a breeze out there.

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Has to be the best tool guy birthday gift ever.  Every week the Snap on Tool truck pulls up at the business across the street from DJ's house.  Last week he turned into her driveway.  Parked, got out, handed her husband a catalog.  Happy Birthday dear, have at it.     And he did, kid in a candy store.

It's my birthday!  Having a great time.  Gave a garden tour, went to lunch with the girls, dinner tonight with mom.  People keep telling me to watch for the amazon tuck!  I'm on the hunt for a carrot cake.  If they don't have one on the menu for dinner, I'm stopping by the store and getting a whole cake.  It's my birthday and I can have a whole cake, not just a piece. 

[cineater]

No carrot cake but they had cheesecake but, I was too full to partake.  Good birthday. 

Tomorrow I'm getting myself a gift.  I popped the chain on a necklace I've worn since 79.  Didn't tell anybody I needed a new chain.  I'm kind of particular about the one I want and it's on me for breaking it in the first place.  First time I broke it, I caught in on a plant.  The last time on the pulley to the power washer.  It's been off my chest since last fall but I still feel it there.  And it's weird when I reach for it and it's not there.  Small little rose pendant with a diamond in it.  Made from South Dakota gold.  It has the pink and green colors.  The folks got it for me when I graduated college.  Nobody said I had to wear it for life but I do even when I wear other necklaces.  Don't know why, it's just my necklace.  The chain can't be fixed.  It's one of those flat herringbone patterns, very delicate.

[cineater]

I broke the chain right at the latch so they can fix that.  But the pendant is wearing through so they have to reinforce it.  Did not walk out of there with my necklace on my neck.

Wow, I only have one appointment on my calendar for July.  So unlike me.  Then again, I don't have my garden days or pinball nights on it.  I still have shit to do but it still looks weird to have the calendar so blank.

Speaking of pinball.  I'm working on standing with my weight on both feet instead of on my right leg.  Pretty uncomfortable but it's working.  Last few months I've been draining down the side pretty quickly.  Has to be the way I'm hitting the ball.  Made playoffs last week but came in last place.  Tonight was practice night and preplays.  Had to play all 17 machines.  Yeah my right wrist and shoulder hurt.    The more I hurt, the better I play.  Towards the end I'm getting multiple multi balls on the same ball.  Hit a couple of replays.  If I could only play like that every night.

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Got my necklace back.  All's right again in my world.    Had them check the sparkly, and grandmother's engagement ring, prongs are fine.  Never would have occured to me you had to watch the prongs for wear on your ring.  Found out about that the second time I broke the necklace.  I was in danger of losing the stone.  Cleaned my ring and it caught the light coming home.  It just sparkles, throws little lights out.

[cineater]

My college housemate finished the story.  Sent it to me.  I'll read it in a bit, might share it.  How much of the Greybull Wyoming story is she telling?  That's where we ran into the Swedish guys.  Remember I'm 22.  Didn't have the good graces to drink, puke and pass out.  I went straight into blackout.  You know if I can out drink the cowboys, I'm going to be in the middle of it.  There's a bull rider in this story.  Ends with a buffalo.  As she says, it's mostly true.  I'm thinking, it's edited in case the kids see it.   

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Yeah the edited version.  We were stuck there for a week and a half.  The Chrysler Dealer had only been open a week.  The second time we saw that bullrider a truck pulled up, the back hatch came down and he rolled out.    We went to Cody with the Swedes and I think hitched back.  That buffalo came running out of the woods, in the dark and we missed him by inches.  There was no time to scream.  There's a couple of cowboys missing from that story and the pot plant in the police station window.  But here it is.  I'm glad she enjoys writing.  That was a free lease car my dad got through work.  I bought a new car when we got back.

Stuck in Greybull

“Get a horse!!” the voice yelled at us as we stood with our backpacks, thumbs out, on the side of a two-lane highway in the Wyoming sagebrush.  The laughter spilling out of the pickup windows as it zoomed out of sight stung.

Cindy and I were on our ‘big adventure’, having just graduated from the University of Missouri.  We were taking the summer off, having saved up a little cash and armed with our parent’s gas credit cards. Her father, an executive at the local Chrysler manufacturing plant, had gifted my college roomie with a shiny new 1979 red Dodge Omni hatchback, which had now stranded us in the middle of nowhere.  Surely, a couple of college girls next to a broken-down car would cause a chivalrous cowboy to stop and offer aid.  We certainly didn’t expect to be heckled.

With no other vehicles in sight, we resigned ourselves to begin walking toward the town we could see miles in the distance.  The sun beat down on us as we trudged along the gravel shoulder, the backpack straps digging into our shoulders, the road shimmering in the heat.  A black vulture circled lazily overhead, slowly rising in the cloudless sky.

In the distance, we heard an approaching vehicle and whipped around to stick out our thumbs.  A huge land yacht of a pink Cadillac convertible appeared over the top of the ridge and pulled over for us.  A friendly voice with a decidedly foreign accent asked us if we needed a ride.  Tossing our packs in the cavernous trunk, we scrambled into the back seat of our new friend’s car.

Our saviors, Per and Nils were also ‘discovering America’.  Tall, slim, impossibly good-looking blue-eyed blonds, they had completed their mandatory 2-year service in Sweden, flown to New York and bought the used Caddy.  Planning to travel wherever the wind blew them, they eventually wanted to end up in San Francisco, sell the car and fly home.

They waited for us at the lone auto-repair shop in town as Cindy arranged for the car to be towed there.  Having passed a mom & pop camping spot—The Green Oasis, we all decided to double back and see if we might get a spot there for the night.  As we checked in, we asked the kindly owner if we could give the repair shop their business number so we could be contacted when the car was ready.  She readily agreed to let us know if they called.

Shaded by large maple trees, the tent area, with carefully tended grass, was the lovely oasis it claimed to be.  We pitched our tents, unloaded our packs, and settled in to wait for the update on the car. 

A little later, our hostess, Mrs. Meyers, came out to call Cindy to the phone.  The auto-repair shop had an update, which turned out to be unfortunate news.  Although the car was completely under warranty, it was so new that there weren’t any replacement parts IN THE STATE! They were going to have to get them from Denver.  Oh, and they would be coming by Greyhound bus.  But wait, there’s more, because it was a Friday, they didn’t expect it would be here anytime before next Tuesday. 

So, we here were, stuck in Greybull Wyoming for the duration.  Time to explore.  Evidently, this small town of under 1800 souls had 5 bars and 1 stoplight.  Cindy and I strolled down the street to the nearest watering hole and stepped inside to the cool air of the windowless concrete block building.  Our eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness lit only by a myriad of neon beer signs lining all four walls.  The familiar dive bar smell of stale beer and old cigarette smoke filled the air.  The requisite dead-animal heads hung dustily over the back of the long bar that stretched the length of the building with an assortment of beads and ladies’ lingerie hanging from their antlers.

Packed with all sorts of cowboy types with tight fitting Wranglers, tucked-in snap button shirts and huge silver belt buckles, we quickly learned the annual county rodeo was in town for the weekend.  Pushing our way to the bar to order a drink, one of the locals struck up a conversation with us.  He was a rodeo clown—steering the broncs and bulls away from fallen riders.  Did we want to come to a party tonight?  Well, sure—what else were we going to do?

Arriving at the address where the party was taking place, we could hear country music blaring from the single-wide trailer.  John, who invited us, stepped out of the group around a roaring bonfire in the front yard, greeted us warmly and introduced us to his friends—mostly bull riders.  They were all drinking heavily, he explained, because they wanted to be hung over when they came out of the gate tomorrow at the rodeo.  They justified that if you were feeling bad from drinking too much, you didn’t have time to be scared. Who were we to argue with that logic?

The night wore on with enough alcohol drunk that the testosterone level was getting a little out of hand for Cindy and me.  We decided to reconnoiter in the bathroom as all girls are wont to do.  Outside the door, we heard a loud whoop, and woosh—an arrow fired from a crossbow came through the bathroom wall.  Time to make our exit before someone gets killed!

We headed back to our campground tent, and fell asleep wondering about the sanity of those cowboys.  Was that typical of most rodeos?  As city girls with no frame of reference, we just hoped for the best outcome for them—no injuries and good ride to show off their latest trophy to the ‘buckle bunnies’.

The rest of our stay was uneventful.  Our Swedish friends moved on to visit Cody and parts west.  We got the call late Tuesday that our car was repaired and ready to go.  Our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Meyers, bid us farewell with Mr. Meyers giving us a lift to the repair shop.  Even though it was getting dark, we decided to hit the road as we were supposed to meet other friends in Lake Tahoe and didn’t want to miss them due to our delay. 

Speeding down a deserted winding road free of the tourist hoards in Yellowstone, we’re singing along to an Eagles song on the radio trying to stay awake.  Out of the darkness, our headlights suddenly illuminate a bison standing in the middle of the road.  Slamming on the brakes, both of us screaming at the top of our lungs, I pulled up with just inches to spare in the newly repaired car that is smaller than the animal now staring at us.  He slowly lumbered off, and we waited until our hearts stop pounding to even attempt to speak. 

“What next?!”, Cindy exclaimed.  I didn’t know then, but we had plenty more adventures ahead of us before we headed back to the reality of finding our first ‘real’ jobs.

[cineater]

So we did make it down to Tao.  House behind every tree.  And somewhere in there we saw Jesus.    We were meeting up with some of our other college friends.  They were on a similar adventure but they took the southern route and headed home from there.  We continued out to LA and then back through the south.

Greybull, Wyoming was my runaway to city for a long time.  Prince played there.  Some girl won a contest.  It's a little oasis in the great American plains.  The dust bowl had happened 40 years earlier than when I got there.  Nothing better to do while we were stuck there so we hiked out onto the plains.  Kind of like a dessert but grasslands.  Not much grass where we were but it was trying to come back.  Mostly soil erosion, canyons cut into the dry earth.  You get out there and it's open as far as you can see and further.  Kind of like looking out on an ocean but you can see farther.  The vastness of it is humbling.  You are a spec out there.  The town has the Big Horn mountains to the east and the great Rockies to the west.

Coming into Denver from Kansas you understand why they put Great in front of the Rockies.  It's like boom, mountain range.  There's no gradual increase to height there.  You see them from miles out.  Kansas is totally flat, no hills, nothing to see.  Best driven across in the dark if you have the nerve to run over rodents skittering across the highway the whole way.  Flat out, hate Kansas.  It's why we went up through Nebraska, through the Dakotas, over to Wyoming with a quick stop in Denver for a wedding.  Somehow we were in Montana to see some of her relatives.  And somehow we got word our friends were a week behind getting to Tao.  Don't know how that happen as there were no cell phones then.

We were all over the place out there.  Stopped to take overnight hikes, see points of interest, the Corn Palace isn't worth it, visit family and friends.  We were gone six weeks.  I was worried about my cat.  Feeling like I need a place to put my tent for a while and gather all my shit together.  I was homeless at that point.  Moving back from college to the folks house until I got a job.

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   So I googled Greybull.  Still only have one stop light.  Featured attraction.  https://townofgreybull.com/

[cineater]

Why do they make jeans out of stretchy material these days?  Hate that.  My pants keep falling off down.