I’ve given an enormous amount of thought to dying and the afterlife and such things as that.  I can honestly say I don’t know what happens to  you when you die.  I can honestly say I don’t know if there is an afterlife.  Neither can you if you’re truthful.  We don’t really know.  There will be all kinds of people who claim that they know for sure, but we know in the back of our minds that ain’t true.  Lot’s of people take refuge in religion for these answers.  I think that’s great.  I say use whatever gets you through the night.  I have my own beliefs of which I will not be sharing.  I think there’s way too much sharing these days.  Everyone wants to tell you their damn beliefs.  It usually ends in a fight or trouble of some kind.  Why bother.  Be  happy with your beliefs, but keep them to yourself.  It’ll make the world a happier place, though that is not the subject of this particular sermon.  The subject I wish to gesticulate about (I don’t really know what “gesticulate” means.  It just seemed like a really good word to put right there.  Makes me look smart)  is the existence of an afterlife in and of itself,  irrespective of personal religious views.   

        There needs to be an afterlife.   There are people I need to see again.  One of them just passed away last week.  He and I were having this great conversation two days before he died.  The problem is,  it wasn’t finished.  It was a “to-be- continued” conversation.  The guy I had this conversation with was David, my father-in-law and I valued his opinions greatly.  David spent most of his life as a college professor.  He knew a lot of stuff.  He was very smart.  Our last conversation revolved around the state of the world.  David knew exactly what happened and how it was ruined.  I hate to say exactly who he was blaming, because I don’t want anyone to get confused and start to think I believe this in any way.  I’m going to say it anyway.  Don’t get mad at me.  I’m simply repeating.  He said that women had ruined the world.  He was tired however, so he told me he would explain it all to me the next time we spoke.  We never spoke again.  I really wanted to hear this, not that any amount of arguement and evidence could make me believe it, but because it was going to be a fun discussion rife with wit and laughter.  I’ve been racking my brain trying decide what David was going to say.  What his examples were going to be.  I haven’t come up with anything yet.  At least I haven’t come up with anything I’m comfortable writing about here.  We had lot’s of those  kinds of discussions over the years.  They were always fun and you almost always came away thinking about things differently.  You might not have been persuaded, but at least you got to test what you believe.  That’s what was good about talking with David.  You better be able to defend what you believe or he would eat you alive.  There needs to be an afterlife.  I need to finish that conversation. 

         Last year about this time a good friend of mine died.  He died way too young.  His name was Rocky Carlton and he was the most creative human I’ve ever met.  He wrote songs and  poetry.   Everyone that knew him always believed he could be ultra famous.  He always made sure that never happened.  Only I and a select few friends of his got to hear his creations.  He was truly talented.  It would be nice to see my friend again.  I’d like to hear what he’s created since we last met and I don’t care in what form.  We could re-incarnate as dung beatles for all I care  as long as we could catch up on things.  I don’t want to have 99  virgins.  I’ve never understood how that works anyway.  It seems like much more of a hassle than anything.  Can you imagine asking 99 women if you can go have a beer with an old buddy.  That might take forever,  literally.  I guess golden streets and harps would be fine as long as they go easy on the harps.  I’ve never heard a harp song you could dance to.  Like I say, it doesn’t matter.  As long as it exists and I can have those conversations.

     The area I live in is commonly refered to as “green country.”  It’s not so green these days or at least it isn’t in my little parcel of it.  It’s brown country, or for you pbs painting show watchers, it’s burnt sienna country.  It’s hot and dry.  Not the usual hot and dry of normal summers mind you, it’s really hot and really dry.  It started early.  I built a snow-man one day and had to weed eat around him the next.  I’m not griping yet.  I understand that droughts are just things that happen every now and again.  I don’t want to seem suprised by it even though I am.  I’m trying to stay positive.  It’s getting tougher though.  My cows are being very negative about the situation.  They are yelling at me almost everyday now.  I tell them it’s not my fault and that I don’t control the weather.  Theyr’e hungry and in no mood for a lecture, so they continue to yell and demand relief.  The calves would probably be yelling at me too, but they spend most of the day sleeping.  They can’t stay awake for any period of time.  It’s understandable.  You drink nothing but warm milk and see how much you sleep.  The milk isn’t just normal straight from the mother warm either.  It’s being boiled inside their utters.  That’s how hot it is around here lately.  Damn Hot!

         I’ve always heard that the Pacific Northwest has the highest suicide rates.  The reason that they give is  the pre-dominantly rainy/cloudy skies they have.   It sounds reasonable at first.  Cloudy/rainy skies sound pretty good to me right now.  In fact, it would seem like paradise.  So  why on earth would people get depressed about rain.  Rain is good.  It cools stuff off.  It allows stuff to grow.  Hell it’s even a pretty good drink.  Come on people of the Pacific Northwest.  Give me a break.  How about you try being slow roasted day after day.  You can watch as the grass turn brown and the trees start to sag and look disheveled.  Yeah, watch as animals that depend on those grasses start to suffer.  How do you like those apples?  Give me a freakin’ break.  Depressed about rain.  The more I think about it the madder I get.  You’ve got it backwards people.  You should get depressed by having too much heat and sun.  Rain gives life.  The sun burns your skin.  If you don’t believe me, then I dare you to try this experiment.  Take a ten hour shower and see how you feel.  Then sit naked in the sun for ten hours, without sunblock, and see which one is the worst.  It’s no contest.  Depressed about rain.  I mean depressed about rain.  Just say it out loud a few times to see how nonsensical it really is.  Depressed…..about……..rain.  Ridiculous.

        Nonetheless and I digress and heretofore I will be refraining from complaining hence  my thoughts shall bequeath themselves a negative and intolerant hue.  This rabble I spew was but a short exhortation meant for noone really.  A temporary set back in my quest for peaceful and tolerant thoughts during this normal happening called a drought.  I take it all back and apologize to all the rain-haters.  It’s your right to hate rain.  I just needed to vent a moment.  Get it off my chest.  I’m fine now.  I saw the weather forcast a little  while ago.  The seven day forcast looked like a bingo board for genuis’s.  I can hear a Nobel Prize winner calling out the numbers to a room full of super nerds- M…..105,  T…..107, F……104……..”I have completed the bingo algorythim” will be yelled out instead of just plain old “bingo.”  You can’t expect these high-powered mental giants to yell something like “bingo” out, please.  They work themselves silly in school forgoeing the usual pleasures of youth, and I mean the good ones to, the big ones, and you expect these people to yell out something as common as “bingo.”   How dare you?  They’ve earned the right to smart-up bingo.  Who are you, some kind of bingo purist?  The more I think about it the  madder I become.  Yelling “bingo” when you’re a genius.  It’s some kind of -ist I’m sure.  You’re a geniusist.  Going around tellling genius’s they have to yell “bingo”, ludicrous.  Ok, it happened again.  I take it all back and apologize to the bingo-yeller purists out there.  It won’t happen again.  I’ll just stop typing  when I feel the negative energy taking over.  Perhaps (I’ve stopped typing)

     I watch old movies and read old books.  It’s not that I don’t like new movies and new books.  I do.  I enjoy them occasionally.  It’s not the same though.  I like books and movies from the late forties to early seventies.  Somehow there’s more energy in them, more exuberance.  That’s how it seems to me.  Back then, actors would break out into a spontaneous song.  I know some of you younger folks might not understand this, so I’ll explain it.  Sometimes in an old movie the events that are unfolding are so dramatic, or so joyous, that the actor will have to stop and sing a song.  I know.  It’s shocking.  Yep, just stop and  sing a song.  I know you think it’s stupid but how many times in your life have you felt so good or so bad that you had to stop and sing?  I’ve done it numerous times.  Now granted, the people or animals around me didn’t come in on the chorus, but nonetheless, I did stop and sing.  Just the other day I had a particularly bad time and I broke into the “doom, despair, and agony on me” song from Hee Haw.  I don’t know if your “rap” music is good for this, but you can always borrow from us.  It’s not just the singing either.  Man, in the old movies when someone has had a particularly good time they will break out into a dance.  I don’t mean the over-choreographed things you have in your movies.  I mean a real get-after-it dance.  Some actor will start stomping his feet a hundred miles an hour and making this tapping sound.  It’s crazy if you ever see it.  Those movies are full of happy action even when the action is sad.  That’s why I like them. 

      I particularly like a group of writers from this period.  I really like Jack Kerouac and Kurt Vonnetgut as well as numerous others.  For these guys, the world seemed a little fresher.  Everything was changing quickly.  Questions were being asked.  A lot of these writers went about trying to answer them or at least explore the various answers.  When I read these books I feel their brazeness.  Their wide-eyed approach to looking at the world.  I guess it’s because their world had changed so quickly after WWII and it was pretty new-looking to them.  Think of how Jazz, Blues, and Rock and Roll have changed forever how human beings think of music.  It’s got to be that newness.  That has to be where that vibe comes from.  That energenic vibe.  I think that’s why we seem a little drab these days.  Even though there has been huge technological changes since the seventies and some social changes, the eighties until now have been a lot of the same old stuff.  I’m not saying a lot of it isn’t good.  It is.  Still, it seems like the same old stuff.  If some girls are screaming and passing out over some singer or band you can bet they are paid actors or it’s the socially acceptable and calcuated thing to do.  It isn’t spontaneous.  There hasn’t been anything really big and new happen since then.  I mean, who has had an Elvis type situation, since Elvis.  Just about everybody has the same rights now as everyone else excluding the gay folks of course, but they’re working on it.  Maybe the next big thing will be a gay Elvis type situation.  A super-star from somewhere no one  has ever heard of that can sing and dance in a new special way that he stole from the poor native peoples that raised him and bench press five hundred pounds while reciting the declaration of independence and be way gay and then become president.  That would be exciting.  Things would be exciting.  There would be spontaneous dancing and singing all the time.  The state of the union address would be a big production with congressman dancing in unison and the president floating down to the podium on a wire wearing  black tights.  That’s exciting and new.  I don’t think I’m ready for it.  I really don’t think I’m  ready for it.

The big, bad, mad, American moon rose tonight over my barn as Americans lay restlessly sleeping. Restless dreaming, scheming, screaming for the next big idea, the next phase, the next big thing we all are destined for. Greatness you know. We all got it in us or so we’ve been told and man I’m getting old as I restlessly plan for my dose. My small dose of greatness or maybe my big dose, I don’t know.  For now I’m just a smo, a smuck, a common ditch digger you dig.  But I’m a good American you see.  I dream big.  I could be president some day.  You can’t say I won’t.  I probably shouldn’t.  I don’t have any notion, preconcieved or otherwise, of what I’d do with that much responsibility.  I don’t have a clue of what I’d do.  I’d set in the oval office and have a drink and a cigar and hope like hell that phone doesn’t ring.  Don’t look to me for your answers.  I don’t have’m and I ain’t gonna pretend for you.  There’s too much at stake and I won’t fake, but I might still become president.  You can’t say I can’t.  That’s the beauty and the horror of this insane asylum we call America.  I’ve got to dream big, hit the jackpot, move, shake and hustle/hurry.  I see them everyday.  There’s hustle cars and hurry trucks blasting down the road to known destinations with intent to distribute.  I try to get out of their way.  I yield to the power.  I check  to the raiser.  I’ll take the pitch and hope it’s a ball but I might take a swing some day.  You have to.  As an American you have to and everybody says “Amen.”  You’ve got to lose to win.  It’s the White House for me baby.  It’s Wall Street.  It’s somewhere else.  It can’t be here in this moon barn with the heat and the crickets.  The moon barn is nice though.  No hassles.  No questions requiring intimate knowledge of heavy things.  Just jazz playing through my radio as I work on my car.  Let the moon shine on someplace else for now.  On monied folk with important mornings to attend to.  Restless mornings after restless sleep preparing for restless meetings.  I lay in dirt and oil peeking at the big important moon as a cricket screams out sarcasm.  I accept it.  It’s OK.  I understand.  I’d better plan for some-day.

    I’ve recently been dealing with a squeaky wheel.  I say squeaky wheel, but I mean braying jackass.  It’s physically painful to hear this person speak.  This person comes off as a bully, then your buddy, then your enemy, then your buddy while making all kinds of threats and accusations.  I know the world is full of  these types.  I usually do my best to avoid them and for the most part I do a good job.  I can’t avoid this one.  Dammit!  I can’t find a remedy for this.  This person isn’t going to stop this non-sense.  It will continue on forever until he gets what he wants, which is unreasonable at best.  I guess this is why the world is full of these squeakers.  They get what they want even when it’s stupid.  My kind of person only makes reasonable requests and is always affable during the process.  That is how I am.  I don’t want to inconvenience anyone.  I feel guilty enough asking for anything.  That’s how my type rolls.  We don’t always get what we want but we’re always pleasant.  We’re out there making the world a friendlier place, a nicer place.  But no, you jackasses out there, you squeakers,  you desire to jeopardize our tranquility with your hateful stupidity.  There’s got to be a way to deal with your type.  I have an idea.  It’s just an idea mind you.

     I think we could set up some type of hotline that would work like one of those phone sex things, only it would deal exclusively with squeakers.  The trick here would be keeping the squeakers from knowing it’s just a hot-line for their type.  Any business could use the service when dealing with a squeaker.  Just tell the squeaker that you are transferring him or her to the person in charge.  That’s when you connect him or her with the hot-line.  The squeaker then lodges a complaint, yells, and generally talks ridiculous as they do.  The hotline employee plays along and takes all this abuse but also listens closely to the person gleaning any personal information.  It is my belief that a squeaker is someone who needs affirmation, who needs love.  After gathering a little information the hotline employee will then strike up an informal conversation.  The hot-line employee will laugh and laugh at everything the squeaker thinks is funny.  The employee will also compliment the squeaker on their intelligence and thank them for being such a good person  and citizen.  After gaining a rapport with the squeaker, the hot-line employee will then manufacture a tragic story of their own.  The story must contain elements of loneliness and misfortune as well as the desire to continue chatting in a more personal way.  The  hot-line employee must work sex into the conversation after a rapport has been established.  This can be done by telling the squeaker how sexy they sound and how handsome or pretty they must be to have such a sexy voice and a high intellect.  The squeaker needs this affirmation.  It’s all about them against the world.  The hot-line employee must give them the affirmation they desire while establishing their own squeaker credentials.  A squeaker will only make a connection with another squeaker.  A normal/squeaker connection is impossible.  Squeakers will only mate with their own kind.  That’s why there are so many of them.  After the hotline employee has made a connection with the squeaker, then and only then will the hot-line employee begin phone sex proceedings.   Hotline employees will be trained in the squeaker way of mating.   I will demonstrate a typical passage from a normal squeaker mating ritual.  Squeaker-”you’re doing it wrong.  Why did you say that?  Why can’t you speak more clearly?”  “That’s not where that goes.”  The hot-line employee shall verse themselves in this insult-laden mating ritual.  When it is evident that the squeaker has finished his or her insult/mating sequence, the hotline employee shall quickly tell the squeaker that their complaint has been documented and thank them for their time and hang up.  The squeaker should be pacified by this, and if he or she ever calls back, make sure he or she speaks to the same hotline employee.  The sequence should then repeat thus locking the squeaker in a phone sex/anger/ affirmation vortex.  I believe us normals would pay good money to have these people out of our hair.  I know I would.  What a glorious rainbow filled day that would be!  Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, why can’t I?  There’s no squeakers to offend us, tell me why, tell me why can’t I?  A guy can dream, right?

     I’m sick of this consciousness.  This insane American consciousness.  We continually compare and measure ourselves against each other.  It’s how we know our value.  If you have a nicer vehicle it means you are doing better than me.  If you have a nicer house it means you are just better than me.  I try not to care about such things.  It’s hard though.  People who have made it seem so happy.  Even when they are divorcing or in trouble for some terrible deed they still seem happier.  They may not be.  I don’t know.  They just look the part.  Rolling to your trial in a limo denotes style and taste and happiness.  Happiness dammit!  It can be bought I’m sure of it.  Sure they tell us about all the lotto winners who have a bad time with their cash.  Do they ever tell us about the ones who live happily ever after?  That’s a big No.  I know when I first get my pittance, or paycheck as it is called, I am pretty happy.  As I dole it out to the people who own me I get less happy.  I believe this is proof. 

      I’m looking at my chances for making more money and thus gaining some extra happiness.   I don’t like my chances.  I am trying  some stuff.  That stuff doesn’t seem to be paying  off.  I’ve heard people say, people that should know, that you have to spend money to make money.  Well I spent a bunch of money.  I made some money.  I’ve basically broken even if you don’t count the hours and  hours I’ve put into my endeavor.  It’s not happening for me.  I have no one but to blame but all of  you.  If you all would stop looking so nice in your fancy houses and your fancy cars then I would not feel so small.  I would not feel so inadequate.  The comparison between me and you would not end so  badly for me.   That’s why I’m close to throwing up my hands and saying the hell with it.  Why not go all the way?  Be the ultimate comparative loser.  Be a bum.  A wino.  A lay-about.  A hobo.  A Democrat if you’re a Republican, or a Republican if you’re a Democrat.  I could easily just admit I have lost the battle and relax, drink, beg for food, get beaten up or killed, freeze to death, whatever.  Who cares?  I guess my wife and kid would care.  Dammit!  So I’ll get up tomorrow morning and slap a poor-man’s smile on my face and go out there and tread water, spin my wheels, chase my tail, run in one place, and stay even.  I’m not falling behind and I’m not getting ahead.  I’m comparing my ass off to the rest of you.  Please think of me when you decide if you want the racing stripes or not.  You really don’t need them.

    My favorite author is Jack Kerouac.  I like the way he thinks.  I like the rhythm of his writing.  Whenever I seem to be out of rhythm I pick up one of my Kerouac books and soon things seem to start cutting right along smoothly.  I get that slow jazz beat feeling.  I start to dig things I wouldn’t usually dig.  I start to use words like “dig”.  I can’t help it.  I read Kerouac and my mind starts wanting to really look at things, really understand things.  Dig things.  I was in this state of mind when I decided to go to the races Friday night.  I took Kerouac to the car races.

    I noticed right off that I was in Kerouac mode.  I stood in line and made myself disappear.  I stood and listened and watched everything.  The first thing that really struck my interest was this guy standing a couple of spots in front of me.  Usually I wouldn’t have noticed him.  My head normally would have been in the clouds playing all kinds of scenarios that could possibly make me rich.  I noticed though.  I knew he couldn’t have been a local right off.  We’re not too  clothes conscious around here but this was a blatant disregard for all things Okie when it comes to clothes.  This guy had on a pair of cut-off jean shorts.  This would usually be acceptable.   However, these jeans looked brand new.  It was as if he had decided to take his knife out and make his blue jeans into shorts on the way to the races.  Cut-offs are fine as long as they are made from worn clothing but cutting a pair of new jeans into cut-offs, that is unacceptable.  So after I got over my hang up on the jean shorts I noticed this guy had on a pair of insulated underwear tops that the sleeves had been cut off.  What?  Now I’m hung up again.  Insulated underwear tops with the sleeves cut off in the middle of the summer, What?  The top looked new as well.   So this guy just cuts off his pants to make shorts and then ruins a new winter-time garment by cutting off the sleeves.  It’s a hundred degrees outside.  At least the guy had on tennis shoes.  They were black stylish tennis shoes with red laces and they looked brand spanking new.  He wore a very nice pair of half calf white socks with them.  It hits me for a second that this guy might be special.  I decided to check out this guys face and watch his body language.  Maybe I could find a clue by doing that.  The problem is that this guy looked very normal.  He is somewhere in his mid to late thirties.  He has glasses.  He has a full head of slightly greying medium length brown hair that is oiled down with something and combed back.  Old fashioned looking slicked-back hair.  He’s not using the “product” that people use these days for hair.  He’s got some Elvis, fifties, daddio, grease on those locks.  He is speaking to some woman and they seem to be having a very pleasant conversation.  The lady looks dead normal in race-car adorned t-shirt and Khaki shorts with ankle socks and white tennis shoes.  I can’t hear anything they say but the conversation looks very normal.  Then I finally get the clue I’ve been waiting for.  He says something he thinks is funny and he smiles.  That smile is a dead give away.  He does not smile in the normal okie way.  We do more of a smirk or a full open mouth, slack jawed thing.  That’s how we do it.  This guy pulled all the skin back from his teeth.  That’s how he smiled.  Whenever he would start to smile I would see the flesh muscles start to pull lips and skin away from his teeth.  I’ve seen this before.  I’ve seen Northern folks do this.  It’s a little creepy.  I had my answer and didn’t need to explore this anymore.  He’s a yankee.  A northerner.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

         The timing was perfect.  I  had finished my dig on the yank when it was my turn to buy a ticket.  I went in and took a seat a few minutes before the national anthem and the praryer.  It’s the prayer that really got my Kerouac going.  The man that does the prayer before the races each Friday night warrants a short explanation.  You see I have pre-concieved notions concerning the man that says the  prayer.  I know who he is.  I’ve met him.  I can’t dig him on quite the same level as the yank.  I’ll just explain a little about him and then get to the point.  He is a Vietnam vet.  He’s a good person.  He’s probably not normal but what the  hell, who is?  Anyways, he always start the prayer like most prayers start.  He greets the almighty with a howdy.  It’s right after the howdy that things get different.  He starts to speak in a very casual voice, very laid back.  He starts telling the almighty what’s been going on in the world, sort of catching him up on things.  Then he throws in a few tidbits about what’s been going on with him.  These things can range from small things like headaches or soreness to big things like surgery.  It’s very casual, very first name howdy neighbor stuff.  After the catching up part he launches into a commercial for the race track.  It’s a nice thing to do.  It seems odd that a real prayer by a real guy, not an actor in a comedy, would be doing commercials inside a prayer to the almighty.  I think this is when he is speaking to us.  He seems to meander between speaking to  us and the almighty.  It’s very  much like  he’s at a dinner party with god and friends.  He always mentions the armed services.  I like that.  We all owe those cats alot, always will.  After the armed services he always launches into a short story.  The stories are always about someone he knows who is going through a bad time.  The stories are touching and very real.  I’m unsure if the short story is for us or the almighty.  Either way it’s a nice jesture.  He ends his prayer in a typical manner not befitting the casual cosmic journey we just took with him.   I Kerouac-dug that prayer and it’s form. 

      The race track I go to has this drawing every race night.  You buy a ticket for a dollar.  If they draw your ticket you get half the money from the ticket sales and the other half goes to some charity.  This way you can feel good and righteous about gambling.  I always buy a ticket or two.  It doesn’t hurt that the ticket girls are young and very pretty.  They have on shorts, real ones, and t-shirts.  They are usually very friendly and flirty with all the older guys of which I am one.  It’s a good way to sell more tickets.  The ticket girl that works my area is a tall blonde nicely proportioned.  She is young so I only admire her from an artistic perspective.  I usually make her walk up the stairs to sell me a ticktet one at a time through out the evening.  I do this because I believe it improves my chances of winning.  I like to have tickets at different places in the hat.  It’s called logical even though I have never won a drawing or even been close.  This ticket girl friday night ignored me.  I’m an easy sell.  Walk up to my seat and I will hand you a dollar and say something profound.  You hand me a ticket and smile and then leave.  We repeat this several times during the evening.  I think this ticket girl thinks I’m a perv or something.  She made sure she was never looking my way when in my section.  She went out of her way to avert her eyes.  She’s all hung up on me being a perv.  I’m not a perv.  How dare she think such vile thoughts.  I didn’t buy a ticket.  I was branded a pervert in her mind.  I’ll forever be a discusting pervert to her even though it is based on no evidence and would be thrown out of court in a second should there be such a court for thoughts I think people  have about me.  I dug the fact that I could read her mind.  Kerouac dug the fact that we both could read her mind.  I Kerouac-dug the races in general.  It was probably my night to win that damn drawing though.  I’m taking her to thought court.  I want my money.

    I’ve been out in the barn putting a motor together.  It’s hot.  I’m sweaty and greasy.  Yet I’m feeling pretty good.  I’m going to race again.  It’s been more than a year since I sat behind the wheel of my race car.  I’ve considered giving it up.  I’ve seriously thought about selling the car and the parts I’ve stock piled over the years.  At least I think I’ve thought seriously about it.  I’ve never told anyone that any of it was for sale.  I keep wondering why I want to do it.  I’m forty three years old.  I keep telling myself that I’m not trying to impress anybody by doing it.  I truly think I’m not, but I can’t be for sure.  Such is the nature of one’s vanity.  I really love dirt track racing.  It satisfies the inner and outer hillbilly in me.  I love watching it about as well as I like doing it.  I could just go watch.  That’s what I’ve been doing, but here I am out in the barn sweating and greasy.  Why?

     I think I can answer why easily.  I recently went to watch the races.  I’m setting there really loving watching guys, and a few girls, flying around the track trying their best to pass the next guy or hold off the guy that’s doing the passing and something hit me.  I started looking inside the cars and watching the driver.  I started to remember what’s going on in one’s mind when your out there.  I saw a friend of mine get tagged in the back and spun out.  I couldn’t wait for him to get back on the track.  I knew what was fixing to happen.  I knew he was hot.  I knew he would drive as hard as he could to catch the guy.  He put on quite a little show for the remaining laps.  He didn’t catch the guy but you could tell he was trying.  I started feeling like a driver again.  I started seeing the race as if I were driving.  That felt good.  My nerves seem to come alive.  I knew then that I was going to drive again and have a little fun.  I’ve never raced in the big classes-the expensive ones.  I’ve always raced the lower classes where the cars don’t go quite as fast or the payout isn’t near as big.  That’s ok.  I know there are some very competitive people in the more expensive classes, but you ought to try and beat a guy that rolled into the races and entered with his last dollar.  He wants to win badly.  He needs to win.  That guy, or girl, will race the hell out of you.  That’s fun when you can be up in the front and contending with those guys that spend every waking moment working on getting faster.  Learning how to get faster.  Those guys are tough to beat.  I promise they’re tough to beat.  I’ve gotten to do that on occasion.  A lot of times I end up in the infield because something fell off or caught fire.  Such is the case for the truly broke race car driver.  As long as I get some laps in I’m happy.  Still though.  Why spend the money and the time.  Why get nasty and sweaty for some laps around a dirt track in hicksville nowhereland.  I’m getting to the answer I swear.

     It’s because it’s being done.  That’s it.  That’s the whole thing.  It’s being done.  If you love something and it’s being done, you have to do it.  I must race.  It’s being done out there in the mad American world.  People all over are working a full time job so they can come home and work another full time job getting their car ready to race.  People all over this still-wild American experiment are sweating and getting greasy so they can go get in on the action.  It’s being done and I’m doing it to.  I’m with it.  I’m in it.  You people out there already doing it better beware.  My junk heap is hitting the track.  Bump me and see what you get.  All race car drivers turn into transformers when they strap in.  If we’re pushed around we will transform.  If we are wronged we will transform.  It’s being done every Friday and Saturday night everywhere.  There’s no more western expansion.  No more wilderness to conquer.  People don’t load everything up and go somewhere where there is nothing and try to keep their family alive.  We don’t have that outlet anymore.  At least the common man doesn’t.  We strap ourselves in race cars and roll, blast, orbit, blow, tear, dig around a path that has no end.  People left their families and friends to go live in the wild wilderness.  They did this because it was being done.  I can see them standing there watching the next wagon roll out of town and thinking “if you can do it, so can I.  How dare you do this without me.”  When it’s being done you have to do it.

    I’ve been dodging rabbits lately.  I mean, I seem to be dodging them more than usual.  Rabbit dodging is a common practice when you drive out in the country.  I dodge because I don’t want to kill them even though they are delicious and I have eaten my share in my life.  I know some that say  they don’t dodge them.  I don’t really believe this.  It sounds like bravado to me.  Who runs over a little furry rabbit on purpose?  I bet Hitler wouldn’t have run over a rabbit for no reason.  Well Hitler is probably a bad example, but who runs over a rabbit for the hell of it?  I dodge them.  I used to hunt them when I was young.  Now I dodge them.  I don’t mind if you hunt them.  Hunting is fine, but I digress.

       The rabbits running into the middle of the road set me to thinking about our current political climate.  I believe I am a middle of the road type political person.  I believe a lot of us are.  Unfortunately for us, we get lumped in with nuts on the extremes within our particular party.  Both sides have nuts.  We don’t like nuts.  I must say something here.  When I say “nuts” I mean people with extreme political views.  I didn’t want anyone to get confused since we just had this big wiener picture scandal with that politician named Wiener.  Sorry I had to explain that.  I don’t know if there is a congressman Nuts but if there is I didn’t want to offend him or start a rumor that Congressman Nuts is sending pictures of his actual nuts to young women.  That would be nuts both literally and figuratively, but I digress.

        What I am talking about is this area in between both parties that we occupy.  I think we have common sense.  I  think we can compromise on almost anything.  I’m going to speak for us now and if it offends you, then you are not one of us.  I believe we can compromise on abortion.  We could easily say no more abortions unless in the case of  rape, incest, or life of the mother.  That’s reasonable.  I don’t think reasonable people believe that abortion is the best  form of birth control.  It’s just not.  We can compromise however.  We can limit who can get one with this one  big caveat-sex education must be taught in school.  I mean reasonable sex education of course.  I know what some of you nuts are thinking.  You’re thinking I’d have the janitor and the cook demonstrate various sex acts in front of a class of third graders.  I’m NOT thinking that.  I’m thinking teens need good honest information about how someone gets pregnant.  I think we must insist on this.  It’s a good compromise.  It’s right in the middle where we are.  Here’s another one- I think gays should be able to get married only we won’t call it marriage.  We’ll call it fairiage.  Fairiage has the same legal rights of marriage but it’s not marriage.  It’s Fairiage.  See how easy this is.  We can compromise on taxes and the debt ceiling and cutting spending.  We can easily do it because we are not being sucked into the crazy two party vortex.  We need a name for this new party.  It’s has to be something middle sounding and it also needs to pay homage to the rabbits who gave me this idea.  How about Centerhares?  That sounds too nasty.  Harems?  I think that’s already a nasty word.  Midfurcrats?  That sounds pretty bad as well.  Dammit, I’m undecided.

      There are all kinds of sayings that deal with repeating mistakes.  I’ll give you one of my favorites, “screw me once, shame on you.  screw me twice, shame on me.”  I understand this.  At least I believe I do.  This is how my Dad raised me and my brother.  We never got into much trouble for a mistake.  He understood that mistakes are always going to happen.  We would get into horrendous trouble if we made the same mistake twice.  I saw him use this philosophy many times in real life.  My dad worked at a factory for 35 years.  He made many close friends.  I worked there a short time when I was just out of high school.  It would always amaze me at how he dealt with issues that would come up.  I saw one of his friends borrow some money from  him.  It wasn’t a lot of money.  I remember it being something like twenty dollars or so.  Weeks went by and the guy didn’t pay him back.  I asked Dad one day if it bothered him that the guy had never paid him back.  He said it didn’t.  I asked him how this could  be.  He explained to me that he had bought this person for twenty bucks and that the guy would never ask him again for a loan.  He said twenty bucks was a cheap price to pay for a person.  He figured it was the same principle as not making the same mistakes.  He figured it was a mistake to loan the guy money and he wouldn’t make it again.  Plus he would never be put in that awkward position again by that person and if the guy did ask for another loan he would be immediately reminded of how the last one turned out.  Of course this principle wouldn’t work for large sums of money.  Maybe that’s why he never loaned more than twenty bucks. 

         I’vemade the same mistake three times this year already.  Every time I think I’m doing the right thing and it turns out I haven’t.  I know my Dad is up in the cosmos shaking his head.  The mistake I’m making has to do with patience.  Dad died in 2007 and left me in charge of taking care of the cattle for my mother.  I’ve taken care of cattle all my life.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t in charge of making decisions.  He made the decisions.  I carried them out.  Now I make the decisions.  This year I’m in charge of twenty head of first-calf heifers.  They’re new to all this.  First the bull molested them.  They were unhappy about that.  Now they’ve gained weight and are moody.  They don’t like that.  Then one day a needy calf comes oozing out of them and they don’t like that.  I watch this process closely.  Earlier in the year I watched a heifer have a calf.  After a few days it was still very skinny and seemed to be laying around a lot.  I got worried it wasn’t getting any milk or it’s mother wasn’t taking good care of it.  I fought off the  mother and grabbed it.  I carried it to the barn where I put it in a small pen with it’s mother.  I mixed some milk replacer in a big bottle.  For those of you who don’t know you bottle feed a calf just like a human baby.  The bottle is just way bigger.  I fought this little skinny calf for an hour trying to make it suck the bottle.  It bawled.  It bucked.  It kicked.  The mother is over the top of us blowing hot air out of her nostrils on me.  I finally gave up.  The calf was fighting and jumping and I stepped back and cursed it.  I told it to die.  See if I care.  Go ahead.  I hope you suffer you little ungrateful jackass.  The little skinny calf then ran right over to it’s mother and began sucking.  He was getting enough all along.  I was just impatient. 

        About a month later I was driving in the pasture and I come across a little skinny calf laying in the tall grass.  It didn’t look good to me.  Its momma was standing over there just eating hay very nonchalantly.  I walked over to the calf and it didn’t get up.  I rubbed its head and it just stared blankly at me.  I immediately went to the house and got my mother.  She drove me back out there and I loaded the calf in my lap and we sat on the tail gate as she drove us back to the barn.  The momma heifer came running over to me and smelled of the calf and of me and followed us into the pen.  I mixed a bottle for the calf.  I fought the calf.  It bawled and kicked and jumped and refused to take the bottle.  I cursed it.  I told it to die.  I told it I hoped it did die of starvation for being such an ungrateful jackass.  I walked out of the pen and my mother began to laugh.  I turned around to see the calf sucking its momma.  That’s twice.  You think I would have learned something by now.

               Four days ago the last heifer had her calf.  I happened to be close by when it occurred.  I watched the heifer lick it clean.  I came back the following day and the calf was laying down and didn’t seem to be doing very well.  I decided I had learned my lesson and would not mess with it.  The next evening the situation was the same.  The calf looked terribly skinny but I resisted the temptation.  The fourth day I couldn’t find it.  I looked everywhere.  Finally that evening i saw it laying in the shade by the fence.  It’s mother was no where near it.  I couldn’t take it any longer.  I drove over to it and rubbed it’s head.  It just stared at me.  I’m thinking this time I’m right.  I go to pick it up and it starts jumping and bawling.  I have a good grip on it.  It’s putting up a good fight, but I’m not deterred.  I will save this calf.  It gets turned around and its head gets between my legs.  I lock my legs around it’s neck.  I’m determined.  It’s pulling back hard and then it decides to jump into me.  I fall to the ground and the calf runs away with breathtaking speed.  Usain bolt would have never caught this calf.  I’m laying on the ground watching this black streak fly through the pasture.  About that time its mother came trotting up and they met a good distance from me.  She licked it and it immediately went to sucking.  I swear I heard her say to the calf, ” what did the bad man try to do to you sweetheart?”  “Did he touch you?”  That’s three.  Damn!  I’m erring all over the place here.  There’s another saying my Dad had that seems appropriate to my situation.  He used to say, “some people live and learn, some people just live.”  Put me in the second category I guess.