Tag Archives: life

The Fast Train to the Meaning of Life

I have become friends with someone at work. I think his title has something to do with communications. I think a more appropriate title might be Area Omniscient. Jonathan knows anything you want to know about most anything. Sure, his primary duty is making sure the right people get together and, pardon me, the trains get there on time but, he has apparently decided not to be defined by any old title. Among a host of other talents, his natural curiosity has allowed him to speak Scannerese. Its my blog and I reserve the right to make up words from time to time. Scannerese is the language firemen, state troopers, DOT crews… use when they communicate on the radio. I’m sure you have heard it before on one of those crime dramas on TV. “Base this is 2600, 10-41 er, at subject, 10-55, corpus delicti, 1523, maux nix, on scene, 2600.” Everything said on a two-way radio also has to be said under the breath and indecipherably fast. He actually knows the lingo, he is able to understand it under the breath and is able to respond in kind.

I hope you can meet him one day.

Jonathan has a bunch of hobbies and one of those is trains. He loves them. He and his fellow train enthusiasts have a sort of

underground network. They take great joy in seeing a neat, vintage or otherwise rare train. This is where Jonathan shines. His ability to speak Scannerese allows him to listen to a scanner and determine if such a sighting is coming his way. We have a local train yard and when Dodo Bird of trains is on its way, he knows. He dutifully reports the potential sighting to the network and at the first opportunity, a break or lunch, he dons his hat and walking stick and walks the short way from the office to the tracks. Sometimes he meets his fellow enthusiasts and they oooh and ahhh together. Sometimes he might take a

Jonathan Melton

picture to later post on a social network but, many times watching trains is a solitary tribute known only to Jonathan and the train engineer who, I am sure, provides a neighborly wave.

I wish you could see the joy in Jonathan’s face when he is getting ready for his stroll.

I wondered for some time why Jonathan made his romps across the cornfield between the office and the tracks. I must admit, when I saw the unmitigated joy in his face I thought he had a special audience with Elvis or he had found the Indian treasure in Redbone Cave. Redbone Cave and a Cherokee treasure is a long story for another article. Anyway, that day, when he was getting his walking stick, he granted me rare access to his top secret train intelligence. I don’t remember the specimen he showed me in the picture but, I remember how he beamed when he showed it to me.

Jonathan Melton

I wish you could have been there.

I guess Jonathan chooses to put himself in joy’s way. He, we, have to work at it. Many times, joy requires our most precious commodity, time. Jonathan could easily busy himself with all manner of distraction. There are auditoriums to book, motor pool cars to check out, accidents to report…sometimes it is hard to focus. Sometimes we have to wait next to the tracks all day to see joy. Joy can be a very personal experience or sometimes we get to oooh and ahhh together. Joy is there, we just need to keep our hat and walking stick ready. The scanners, phones and demands of those who travel with us are loud but, if we focus, we might hear the train coming. Then we just have to choose to be at the track.

Ode to Bright Stars

1 Reply

We found out Monday that Glenn Frey had died. It will be impossible write about Glenn without superlatives so I won’t resist. To a person, everyone I knew was genuinely shocked. I guess we expected the reaper to first visit the other less sane members of the Eagles. In the end however, I guess the brightest stars are destined to burn out first…and bright his star was.

Quick, do you have a memory associated with an Eagles song?

There were so many. One of These Nights will forever be an 8-Track song. If you have no idea what I am talking about, ask your folks. It will be an 8-Track song cruising on Woodward Avenue in a beige seventies vintage Chevrolet Impala forever. If you are not sure what I am talking about ask Ronald or Roger. Desperado will be the slow dance song which defies the cute sitters at Patrick’s in perpetuity. Ask Tammy or Kim or… if you don’t believe me. Life in the Fast Lane is the song that makes you take your top off, Spitfire convertible top, that is. Already Gone has broken up more couples than Jerry Springer. If you don’t believe me, ask…

You thought I would blog about her? Nope, sorry.

Anyone with a pulse in the seventies or eighties can name at least one association with an Eagles song. In those decades those songs were prevalent, pervasive and some would say pungent comments about our time. Their lyrics and melodies rang true for another generation fourteen years later.

I know, I went to one of the reunion concerts at Clemson’s Death Valley in the late nineties.

That concert’s attendance was just weird. There were people my age who loved the Eagles but, didn’t really have a chance to see them in concert before the spectacular breakup. There were old people who had probably seen the Eagles numerous times and then there were the kids. Don Henley seems to want to attribute their kid appeal to the rise of classic rock stations. I think he is just too humble to admit the music is timeless.

Whatever the secret sauce, the Eagles doled it out in buckets.

Henley was quoted in a statement a few days ago that Glenn Fry “was the one who started it all…the sparkplug…” I think that is the kind of thing a partner says about his fallen friend. Truth is, the Fry, Henley partnership will go down in the history of American music. To be sure, there were others, Meisner, Walsh, Felder… But, Fry and Henley had the vision. Sometimes by sheer force of will they kept the dream alive.

Until they couldn’t.

In 1980 a couple of years before I graduated high school, it was over. Some of us actually grieved. We always believed and in 94 we were given one more small dose of melodic genius. The Eagles were granted what a precious few will receive in this life, a curtain call. This time, it’s gutwrenchingly final. I think we are sad that another generation will never get the gift of 94. Maybe we are sad the group who wrote the score to our youth is now gone forever. We are sad for Don and the others. We are just shocked and sad. Rest in peace, Glenn.

I Guess My Affair is Over

Leave a reply

We have been together for some time. Jennifer, my wife, introduced me to her a few years back. That might be a little strange but, Jen could see we had so much in common. Her brother Joe is a big Clemson fan like me. Like me, she over-visits the upstate of South Carolina. Recharging her batteries involves a cabin on a lake somewhere up there. I can see myself doing the same thing. I have an idea which lake but, I will keep her secret. Our affair is based on mutual admiration, respect and similar history. We are similar in all the things that really matter. Well, mutual to the extent she wouldn’t know me from Adam’s housecat at the grocery store.

Do you think it is kinda weird that I think my wife loves her too? I guess it doesn’t matter. It is over anyway.

I was introduced one morning when Jennifer and I were reading the paper. With my supernatural powers of intuition, I noticed she was sniffling. “I will never read Sharon Randall again. Just read it,” she said sticking a rolled up section of paper in my face like I hadn’t gone outside to do my business. I don’t really read the “Life” section of the Times Daily but, I humored her. I don’t remember the story but, I remember the lump in my throat. It was big as a softball. It was probably a column about her first husband. I remember how Sharon would stop with a sort of literary device to ask me a question. That’s exactly how it felt. She wanted to stop her story a minute to see if I was ok… you know, paying attention.

I have stolen Sharon’s device and I am not giving it back. You can’t make me.

Reading her columns, I always feel like I am listening to a story over her breakfast table. I know the characters of her stories. Joe, her brother, is blind and is a BIG Clemson fan. I know her boss turned second husband. I have heard all of the grand babies’, Wiley, Randy and Henry…

I wish you could have been there the day Jennifer learned I was reading Sharon’s columns on-line, ON THURSDAY.

Jennifer is black-fingered newspaper reader from way back. Without Dead trees and Diet Mountain Dews, I don’t think we would ever make it to church. That morning I grinned, handed her the paper and told her she would probably like Sharon that morning. “How do you know?” I surprised even myself by keeping that secret until Sunday. “Because, I read it online Thursday,” I said without even the slightest hint of guilt.

Ok, maybe I felt a little guilty.

We both have a connection to Sharon’s work that is hard to describe. She seems to have been there. Her accounts of her first husband were a huge solace after my daddy-in-law died. I have no idea why. If someday in my writing I can connect in some small way as she has, it will have been a good day.

I guess you have read by now that Sharon won’t be in the paper Sunday.

I will miss our visits. I will miss our little chats. I will miss her family. Now they like the cousins we never see. I don’t know about syndication. I am not sure Sharon will ever grace the pages of the Times Daily again. If it turns out Sharon isn’t coming back, I know more than a few people will be sad.

I know two people whose Sunday morning will never be the same.

Sharon Randall says she is looking into self-syndication. You can read her archived columns and the status of her syndication here.

Catching Up

Leave a reply

I have been on a little sabbatical for a few months.

Since we visited last, my clan moved from the Half Acre Wood. Our little world is a little more sterile and severe today. Don’t get me wrong, suburbia has its advantages. Those pesky Dandelions are a distant memory after the scorched earth of new construction. The new sod stands in formation ready to beat back nature. We traded our easily traversed Leyland Cypress and Razzledazzle bushes for a six-foot privacy fence. For our trouble, we have met precisely two of our new neighbors. One of those meetings was about, you guessed it, our fence.

To be sure, however, a few of our neighbors have not yet been built.

Our little cul-de-sac only really has two houses with families installed. Our Saturday and Sunday mornings are still filled with hammer blows, mixing and sawing. We are a work in progress. We had a little note from the Homeowners Association in our mailbox one day but, no one has come by to welcome us. Jennifer tells me there will be more people moving around in the summer.

I am looking forward to summer.

After being invited for left-overs at my mother-in-laws last night, we drove by the Half Acre Wood. See, Leslie’s left-overs are better than most first-cooked meals. Fried Okra, Limas, Roast… well, I bet you can taste my picture. Being two blocks away from your Mother-In-Law has its advantages. Being six miles away is, well, slimming. We had taken Jennifer’s car so she forced me to ride by the Half Acre Wood. It was my first time since I saw it in the rear view mirror of the U-Haul. I saw the double four-foot Oaks with Rach’s tree house first. The tree house was still in-tact but, the new owner, a single guy, had taken down the swings. I saw the Cedar with the dog grave yard next. Then the garden shed came into view.

I miss the Half Acre Wood.

I guess new adventures are on the way. I think our new abode needs a name. I will work on that. Home is such a loaded word. Home is where Rach’s height and date is written on the pantry door. Home is where the coffee pot has stained the counter. Home is where a piece of hardwood creaks and should be avoided before everybody wakes. Home is where the best dog ever, period, … is buried, until the next best dog is.

Al Knows Best

Leave a reply

We had a funny saying in our family about my Grandfather Curtis. We whispered that if he had fifteen minutes he could make you kin to us. I met a man named Al Hathorn later when I clerked at a drug store who was the same way. Al loved the public. He took joy in learning your story. In a few questions, he could usually find a mutual friend. It wasn’t hard for Al because he knew EVERYBODY. He made the little drugstore chain a smash hit in Russellville where I grew up. He separated our little chain drugstore from the pack because he actually cared about his customers. He loved their stories and loved serving them. He kept glass bottles way after the other guys because his customers liked them. He compounded salves and even rolled pills because he knew it would make you feel special. That kind of thing made you feel like he had gone that extra mile just for you. Rolling pills you ask, well that is an article for another day. Anyway, he knew, instinctively, what companies sometimes forget these days. He knew his check depended on his customers and he was grateful.

I hope you get to meet Al someday. He probably knew your uncle twice removed.

There were plenty of drugstores in Russellville and Al understood he needed to be different. God made him that way and he took full advantage of his difference to become a very successful pharmacist and a very good boss. It wasn’t a gimmick. It was a real service that no one could provide quite like he did. He taught me the real way to treat customers. He lived it. I guess he mostly sells friendship. The pills, liniments and salves were just a side benefit. I heard when he left the latest conglomerate to buy our little chain for a local neighborhood drug store, he carried over 300 scripts a day with him. Scripts are drugstore lingo for prescriptions.

See, you always learn something here.

The conglomerate was interested in how many scripts a pharmacist could fill in a day. They made the pharmacist stand 20 feet away from customers so he would not be distracted from checking scripts. Those scripts were really filled by a kid two or three years out of high school. Rolling a pill or compounding a salve was out of the question. The little clerks were supposed to establish the relationship with the customer. That was hard because there was a new one every few months. Apparently it is hard to make a living on eight dollars and hour. I think the conglomerate missed the strength of their pharmacist they got in-trade when they bought our little chain.

Do you sense a loss like that somewhere you do business?

Companies seem to be more interested in a gimmick or some kind of sneaky edge instead of a real innovative product these days. They want to put less cereal in a box, it’s settlement man, it’s settlement, or pay their employees less to put quick money on the bottom line. When they do this kind of short term money grab, I believe they lose their corporate souls. Yeah, I just said corporations had a soul. Well if not a soul, at least they should have a conscience. I think they should ask themselves if they have a product or service that really might make the world a better place. How they answer that question, I believe, is their corporate soul.

Do you know a corporation that really makes a better mousetrap? I think I know a few.

Without a better mousetrap, a company is reduced to the gimmick to get an edge. Our Walmart culture rewards a company that builds the same mousetrap with child labor in Whateverstan over the brand built with pride for years in New Jersey. If you lock those kids in a fire-trap and payem 50 cents a day, throwing every third mousetrap away still makes you a pile of cash. Shareholders reward that company too. We don’t buy and hold good company stock with a decent return. We look for the quick buck from a company that has lost its soul at the altar of the almighty buck. In this environment, laying off a loyal work force and shipping the jobs to the fire-trap in Whateverstan becomes admirable and the stock soars. When dollar worship becomes the sole motivation for either buyers or sellers we not only lose OUR souls, we lose what made our country great. We lose things like innovation, service and real value. We lose our values. I think our values are the ones which Al’s customers come to buy. It sure ain’t the pills. They can buy those anywhere.

Another Brick in the School Show

1 Reply

I may have gone to one of my last “Summer Camp” shows tonight and I can’t help but, to be a little sad. Summer Camp in this context is a little misleading. There were no cottages, camp fires or cots at this camp. Depending on where you are, I have heard these programs called a number of things, Extended Day, After Care, Working Family programs, Beyond the Bell and my favorite, Hobby Hour. I have visions of Bob Villa and Tim Taylor instead of the usual college kid trying to get a jump on their fellow education majors. Whatever you call them, these programs are a modern answer to latch-key kids.

I wish you could have seen the show.

I was trying to smell the roses, I guess. So I spent some time watching the parents. First I looked for the parents who were traveling with us. A few of them seemed to be a little like me, maybe more alert. Some were still checking their email and producing the requisite golf clap at the end of each number. Like the rest of us, they were still in their scrubs, ties and greasy work uniforms. With the schedule busted due to the program, some were wondering what from the freezer could be possibly cooked and served in ten or fifteen minutes or if they could still mow the grass. Some were wondering if those pizza coupons were still in the car.

It seems like yesterday when my wife and I sat in the kindergarten auditorium.

I wish you could have been there that day. Our new principal, Dr. Morgan, apparently still feeling the sting of sending his youngest son to college, told us something I didn’t really understand at the time. He said to have fun, smell the roses and above all, DON’T BLINK. He went on to say these would be the fastest passing thirteen years of our lives.

With most of my daughter’s Extended Day Summer Camps in the rear view mirror I have some advice for you.

Never miss an opportunity to see the joy. I wish you could have seen the faces of the children whose parents were checking their email. The highlight of a second graders month is apparently being able to lip-sink a Taylor Swift song in front of all the camp parents. Even the jaded, unamused and sophisticated kids my daughter’s age had a hard time containing the smile from time to time. Look for the joy in the real teachers. You can tell a good teacher a hundred miles away. They smile, tap their feet and laugh frequently. They can’t help themselves. They love and dote on THEIR kids.

But, there is one of those college kids that I am really sorry you missed.

This was the one just off stage showing the first graders the dance moves. Her face, well, it was raw joy. It betrayed more than I ever could on this written page. It was full of hope, promise and the realization of an avocation well selected. Her hair bounced and she displayed a kind of unrelenting smile that made MY face hurt. After the number was over and her kids were getting their requisite golf-clap, she hugged them all. Her affection held up the show because her kids were taking too long to get off the stage. It may have bugged everyone who worried about dinner, schedules, weed-eater string, cleaning gutters, email, a raise… It didn’t bug me at all.

The Mind of an Engineer

2 Replies

My brain is in a state of constant conflict. The war is between my creative side and my inner engineer. I seem, at times, to be able to negotiate a truce between these forces, so I have become the self-appointed ambassador for my brethren. It is an ugly war that usually ends up with hurt feelings and bewilderment. You may have a similar response as you deal with my kind. We are creatures who really have your best interest at heart but, our amazing lack of people-skills, tendency for recreational problem solving and general alien approach to life make our interactions sometimes, well, unsatisfying. In the spirit of harmony, I offer this insight into the brain of an engineer. If you are willing to step over a few Legos and old Erector Set parts, I will be happy to show you around.

You’ve got a problem-I have questions

Ok, so you have asked an engineer about your problem. Let the inquisition begin! Just know, the number of questions will be proportional to our comfort with the subject. I must stop here to explain the lingo. To us, life is an equation. We love words like proportional, exponential, variable, relationship… Those words help us bring order to our scary world. Anyway, we will question you on every conceivable facet of your problem. Be warned, our questions may be seemingly unrelated, arcane and sometimes personal with no regard to your dignity or discretion. While you answer our questions, many times we make notes and draw pictures. Doing this is not a sign of disrespect or a lack of engagement, it helps us focus on your problem. Sometimes, after you are totally exhausted, we will feel we have accumulated enough data

I love data

Engineers feel that with enough data we could solve world hunger, answer the questions of human mortality and cause world peace. Data, we feel, is a gift from God. It should be shared freely and given with glee. We love to manipulate it, organize it, order it and arrange it. We make bar-charts, graphs and histograms from data. We formulate equations and create solutions from data. We love data.

I never have enough napkin drawings and lists

Once our data has been organized and we have properly stabbed entropy in the eye, the real fun begins. We get out our green graph paper or fire up the Excel spreadsheet. This decision is primarily dictated by the age of the engineer. Come back later for an in-depth discussion on that topic. We live for this phase of the problem-solution flow-chart. At this point, if one graph is good, three are better. A sketch or list of the pertinent facts will be produced to scale. We draw, edit and re-edit beautiful flow charts, decision matrices and back them up with solid charts and graphs. Those charts and graphs should describe the exact nature of the uncertainty and the relationship of all the variables in a potential solution.

Off to Engineer Mountain

Once we have checked-off items one through three we then must retreat to engineer mountain to ponder the results. This is a solitary affair and you are not invited. Engineer Mountain is really not a place but, a state of mind. Sometimes this physical place could be a Hacky Sac on the lawn or an office or the conference room. During this phase of problem solving, human interaction is not welcomed nor is it necessary. If human interaction becomes necessary, like some warning of impending doom, you know, fire, earthquake, tornado and alike, the process must be started again. We feel the process is most like building a pyramid. Blocks must be placed sequentially with the details of the solution confronted and overcome one at a time. These parts of the solution must be tested independently in a sort of thought experiment. Cause and effect are very interesting even entertaining. We like this process to build on itself to an apex of complete and orgasmic; clear-cut and final; breathtaking and brilliant, solution. Any disruption to this process will cause us to begin the process again. Should we be disturbed, you should expect a mix of anger, incredulousness and confusion on our part. We may not react well. It also may take an exceptional effort to gain our attention while we are on Engineer Mountain.

When I deliver your solution

Once we have properly studied your problem, sometimes days or weeks later, we will show up, many times unannounced and without an appointment, with our solution to your problem. If you have forgotten all about it and don’t even remember your question, just play along. This might require your whole repertoire or expressions, body language and listening words. Words like brilliant, inspired and grateful are always welcomed.

I hope this has helped. We are also able to answer questions on our feet, however, we always reserve the right to go through this process anyway. We love thought experiments of all kinds and usually can’t resist redundant and unwanted analysis. If you have moved on and find one of us presenting you with this kind of solution, simply refer to item five. We may resist immediate answers but, many times you will find our solutions in this scenario just as useful.

Broken Cadillac

Leave a reply

I hope you can excuse me while I depart from my normal faire. I am having a crisis of, well, usefulness. Today I was confronted with people who cannot admit my chosen avocation is anything other than an unaffordable, silly, even criminal waste of resources. I find myself looking at their logic and trying to understand why I cannot see or understand their point of view. I find myself questioning my job, belief system and even my connection to my understanding of what God wants for me in my life.

This is a little longer than usual but, maybe it is a conversation we need to have.

It started as a pretty good day. I was able to do what I do best with a large part of the day. My favorite and most productive time at work is in the recon. No, not a camouflaged romp on a moonless night. This kind of romp allows me to bring my near twenty years of transportation engineering experience, those late nights of study at Clemson and some common sense to your service. Well, your service if you drive. In these romps my tools are a vehicle, a steno pad and my brain, well, my brain attached to my eyes. I ride a state route, look for defects and decide who should fix the problem, when the problem should be fixed and how the problem should be fixed. The when is very important because, as you probably know, we are in a perpetual state of underfunding at the DOT.

Underfunding you say? I heard you clear your throat, look away and wonder if those left-over steak tips in the refrigerator were still edible. Let me stop and tell you a story.

Your gramps was sittin around with grammy a few decades ago and decided his widget business might take off if he could drive a car instead of ridin Daisy, the horse, to the people buying his widgets. He might even sell a few over in Anywhereville and Podunk. It was a few days ride to those places and he might have a real advantage over his competition with some kind of automobile. He also though that he and grammy might even be able to put some of her fried pies in a basket and drive over to the levee for a picnic from time to time.

So grampaw went downtown and bought a Cadillac. Grammy had to dig pretty deep in the cookie jar to pay for the Caddy. She had to dig even further for the oil changes, tune ups and tires which followed. Well, after a while, grampaw had made so much selling his widgets to his new customers in Podunk that he and grammy were able to go to the beach for the first time since he stormed one in Normandy. Before long your daddy came along and he too used the Caddy. He used it to go over to Backwater University and get his BS degree in stuff and things. Your daddy’s degree was another first in your family’s history. He made a good living with that Caddy. He spent his hard-earned money to take care of your grampaw’s gift and was also able to take you to the beach when you were a kid.

A few years ago, he gave you the Caddy. It needed some work on the transmission but, you said the cost was too high. You justified this decision because you had seen the transmission mechanics taking coffee breaks that were too long. You didn’t change the oil because someone on TV told you it wasn’t necessary. They told you that you could save money on oil by using some kind of a fairy dust. You knew your dad and grampaw had conscientiously bought and changed the oil for years but, you liked the idea of something for nothing. Anyway, you had heard those oil change mechanics were sorry, lazy, overpriced. One morning you woke up and needed the Caddy to get to a work meeting over in Podunk. The Caddy smoked and missed. It quit half-way to Podunk. You got fired.

Did some of the story ring true for you? If it did, you are not a bad person. You are really like everybody else when it comes to roads and funding. As long as your road seems to work then you are ok. You don’t think too hard about roads and bridges. Because, after all, some people on the TV have told you road prices are somehow different from milk prices. Yes, I compared roads to milk. Ok, try this little thought experiment with me. If you were to walk into Wal-Mart and demand milk for 1992 prices what would happen? By the way, 1992 was the last time the gas tax was increased. Do you think Wal-Mart would call people who would take you away in a straight-jacket for a nice relaxing night in a rubber room for making that demand?

But, back to my day in the life…

I ate lunch at a fast food establishment known for taking perfectly healthy fish, adding batter and deep-frying anything approaching healthy out of it. By this time, I had four pages of road defects. Unfortunately, some of the defects will have to wait. The trick, art and science of it is which ones? That’s when you really need me. Which defects are the true “widow makers” like a four-inch pavement drop off and which are inconveniences. I guess I should add one more category. Which defects will cost you the most money in the long run if I don’t fix it today?

It was now time for a meeting about a kinda dangerous set intersections next to the interstate. Two nearby truck stops and series of increasingly busy intersecting roads had boogered the exit to the point the witches brew of trucks and cars had begun to boil over. The best way to fix it was to eliminate some of the crossing roads and combine those crossing roads into one with a traffic signal. I was meeting with the local mayor and some county officials. The big question on everyone’s mind was not if a series of very bad truck versus car accidents was about to happen, it was how we would pay for the improvements. I won’t bore you with the details but, we halved the baby.

I must tell you, I worry that the metaphor turns into a real live thing.

After a few more hours and a few more pages, I met with a DOT neighbor about a driveway. He wanted to build a set of storage buildings where an old set was removed by a tornado four or five years back. I wonder how many storage buildings… who could possibly rent all these things? Anyway, this citizen was upset that his driveway must be permitted and built to today’s rules. After explaining that we engineers were an odd sort and when we figured out building something a certain way killed people, we had a strange way of asking people not to build things that way anymore. I went on to explain the people of the great state of Alabama had spoken and they really felt their gas taxes shouldn’t pay for his new driveway which would kill fewer people. My logic apparently escaped him.

Did my logic make any sense to you? Should I make myself a tin-foil hat?

After a few minutes of the citizen snorting and flinging profanities about government bureaucracy, waste and inefficiency, I noticed he had an identity badge for a local utility. Trying another tack, I asked him if his utility, also a monopoly, didn’t have rules about attaching to their services. I then asked if they didn’t learn lessons and change rules from time to time. He conceded both points but, was unmoved by my logic. Somehow a utility was different from a state DOT. I tell you, the only difference I saw was that his pay and benefits were better. Of course he also had better equipment. He also got paid for his overtime… My utility bill has seen numerous increases since 1992 and sure my neighbors and I gripe for a day or two but, that griping doesn’t morph into some kind of philosophical almost religious vendetta against utility companies.

Just tell me, why is a utility rate hike any different from a gas tax increase?

Finally, on my way home, I got the call all transportation workers dread. There had been a fatality on one of my roads. I use the personal pronoun on purpose. When there are accidents, they are accidents on MY roads. I arrived on the scene to take my pictures and do my investigation just as they were removing the victim from the vehicle. Many times there are next of kin there to identify the body. Today was no exception. There is an emotional gravity placed on your shoulders as a transportation professional at these scenes which defies my written explanation.

The fairy dust didn’t work for this victim. The fairy dust didn’t work for more than 100 others today. I am tired of fairy dust. I want my concrete, asphalt, rocks and steel back. I want a group of dedicated professionals, operators and technicians who aren’t treated as pariahs to use those materials to take care of the Cadillac your grandfather gave you.

Afflicted with Lameitude

2 Replies

One of the perks of this new blogging job is being able to make up words. Today’s word is Lameitude. Big Brother Gates apparently hates my new word because he continues to underline it with a squiggly bright red line. At some point, I may add it to the dictionary which I am sure will be immediately reported through some seemingly innocuous update to the bowels of the high command in Redmond. His friend Mark will send multitudes of hoodie wearing geeks to determine what to sell me since I invented it. Their arch enemies, Larry and Sergey, over in Mountain View will develop some sort of algorithm to predict the who, what, when, where and why of new words and how they might capitalize on this knowledge.

Do you have as much trouble with focus as I do? Do you think it is part of my disease?

Well, back to the word of the day. Lameitude is a progressive seemingly incurable illness which afflicts parents. Research on this disease has been troublesome because it affects parents though a wide range of ages, nationalities and cultures. In a strange twist of the scientific method however, it has now been determined that the disease’s onset is most closely linked not to the age of the victim but, to the age of the victim’s children. More study is needed and continue to monitor this website for breaking news on this disease.

I think I should tell you some of the symptoms so that you will know if you have contracted this insidious disease.

After diapers, colic and potty training my wife and I were happy parents for a time…

I have to stop here. Can you believe Bill underlines potty? The fact that Bill doesn’t know the word potty is both scary and an indictment of our society. Were there so many levels of nannies and caretakers between himself and his children that he was robbed of the splendor of the potty? Well, I just feel sad for him…

Parenting was simple. Our daughter had needs and we met them. Food was easy after sterilized bottles, breast pumps and frozen milk. She ate most anything including broccoli and crunchy carrots. Entertainment was a breeze. Hours and hours of uncontrolled laughter could be produced by the cutting of the eyes. Clothing was a snap. A sundress with the blue vomit stain of too much birthday cake was socially acceptable. As long as she was clean, fed, warm and dry, things went well. Her only extravagance was a song to go to sleep and a new dress for church. Songs work for lots of things. My favorite is Sweet Baby James.

You must be vigilant with this disease because, out of nowhere, sometime around her 11^th birthday I began to be afflicted with Lameitude.

Yup, I hate to tell you but, eye cutting will quit working. Total and complete meltdowns will occur when you bring out the blue vomit dress. My Lameitude makes her refuse to eat broccoli, carrots, lasagna, chicken stew, potato soup, peppers, onions… well, it would be easier to list her current Lameitude tolerant menu. My singing has become revolting due to my Lameitude. I really don’t see or understand how embarrassing my Lameitude has become. It is so embarrassing my daughter has resorted to walking several steps ahead or behind me when in public.

I tell you, Lameitude affects everything including my speech and voice.

Lameitude has caused the language centers in my brain not to function properly. It makes me think I am speaking easily decipherable sentences but, apparently, I can’t. Many times I believe I am speaking but, my daughter’s eyes remain in a glazed, catatonic state.

It is a really terrible disease and I hope you don’t get it.

I really hate it for my daughter. She has resorted to staying in her room because she can’t stand the disease’s effects. She hardly, if ever, smiles. She mostly talks to her friends though Facetime, Facebook, IPhone, IPad, IThis and Facethat now. She must fill her days with Instagram and YouTube and other things I can’t understand because of my disease. I hate to say this but, I am afraid her mother has it too. There was a time when they were inseparable. My daughter was even clingy to her mom but, my daughter has to get away from her now too.