Learner's Permit...Threading The Needle...Driving In Space

My son Owen turned sixteen and soon after got his learner's permit.  He's a smart kid, with good reflexes, probably due to playing lacrosse goalie, so he's doing well learning with no apparent trepidation, which is why I feel I need to clue him in on some of the unexpected wackiness some drivers may present to him at any moment on the roads.  In fact, this started some years earlier on a road trip in Maine.  We had been in Vermont and were making our way far into Maine to go to our backwoods Paradise, when outside of Skowhegan we got stuck in a line of cars behind a slow driver.  We were on a long, low upward grade with fields on each side; a two-lane, fairly narrow country route, and I noticed in my rear-view mirror two or three cars approaching from behind, moving fast.  I got the impression they were traveling together.  They reached the line and started weaving in and out of the line, passing cars via the oncoming left lane, making their way through the line up the low hill.  A green minivan with New Jersey plates made a move to pass the slow lead car as it neared the summit of the grade.  I said to Owen, who was in the back seat, "See that guy, what he's doing?  That guy is nuts!  He can't see if there's anything coming up over the other side."  And then sure as shit came the perfect poetic justice for this dick move...a car popped up just over the hill in the left lane, and quickly darted off to the shoulder in a cloud of dust.  It was a State Police cruiser!  The cop spun around to pursue, pulled over the wrong car--we could see the stunned look on the woman's face as we passed her and the cop--then was off again as we reached the summit.  Just after that there was a major fork and it looked like fifty-fifty if he would catch the guy or go the wrong way, but he got him!  We saw that minivan pulled over a half mile down the way on our route.  I would bet that guy spent the night in jail.  You figure, speeding, unlawful passing, reckless driving, endangering the life of a police officer, being from New Jersey...yeah, maybe more than one night.

It was a thrill to see this all play out, and lucky nobody got hurt, but it could all have been avoided.  I know, I know, slow drivers dig in and say "I'm going the speed limit!", but I believe that if you see a line of cars behind you, even though your Hall Monitor mentality tells you it's for their own good, just pull over for half a minute and let them all go by!  Let them get a ticket (they probably won't), or get to their destination on time, or whatever, or this kind of roadway clusterfuck can happen.  I bet a lot of slow drivers get rear-ended, and yes, I know it's the rear-ender that is at fault.  I just also know instinctually that speed limits should really be more of a reference guideline than a set-in-stone rule, and that if you feel safe and in control, any speed within reason should be OK.  I find it extremely difficult to drive 25 MPH even in a school zone because I feel less in control just with the distraction of making the effort to keep the speed down.  But this matters little to Officer Friendly,  revenue generator, who gave me a speeding ticket an hour later in Greenville for going 39 MPH.

Two examples of dipshit driving  happened near me on the same day, probably noticed because I was not driving my own car and was being more vigilant.  First case; I was driving through Portland on Route 66 in the left lane, when I noticed that there was a car behind me in the right lane just hanging in my blind spot.  This went on for a good distance despite my subtle speed changes, and so I decided to take action.  Keeping the car in my sight a best as I could, I switched on my right turn signal, then very quickly moved into the right lane so that I was just ahead of the dipshit, hoping that this maneuver would educate him as to what he was doing.  I guess it didn't work, because he then switched to the left lane--and hung in my blind spot!  A few hours later I was again on Route 66 but this time I was at the twin hills between East Pediddleville and Marlborough.  As you begin climbing the long steep hill leading into Marlborough, there is a rather large sign that reads: "Slower Traffic Keep Right", and there is in fact a slow lane on the right side of the road.  You guessed it, I was behind a slow driver in the LEFT lane.  The guy wasn't getting the hint with me close behind him, wishing he would move over, so I began to consider passing him on the right.  Just as I was about to go, I checked my side mirror to find a car whizzing up the right lane to pass me!  Jesus, just fucking pull over, Grandpa!

Do you leave open spaces like I do so cars can merge, coming up to highway bottlenecks?  You should.  If everyone did, the bottlenecks would not occur.  You won't do it.

As for highway driving, I tend to NOT drive much over the speed limit.  One of my secret deepest fears is high-speed highway accidents.  Once I was called for jury duty in New Haven and one of the other people waiting there for Voir Dir was a state trooper, and I overheard him say that he and his cohorts at the barracks referred to the section of I-95 between New Haven and Stamford as "The Metal Muncher" because of all the accidents.  I avoid that road if at all possible.  I frequently drive from Pediddleville to Bridgeport for my radio show, and I'll use the Merritt Parkway since it's more civilized and is also a more direct route for me.  I don't remember if this happened on the Merritt or I-95, but when it happened for the first time right in front of me on the road, I was certain I was going to die...I'm talking about DickMove #1, shown in illustration #1.

You have to be a special kind of asshole daredevil to pull this move.  You are cutting somebody off despite what could happen, just to exit the highway from the Left Lane! That it is so important for you to not miss the exit that you would endanger others is indicative of a Civilization in decline.  Unfortunately since that time, it has happened so many times that I have become blase´about it when it happens, which is troubling to say the least.  Who are these people that would do this?  Are they afraid of being late for something and don't want to use the next exit and backtrack, (which would indicate to me that less deserving things than Life are valued)?  Or are these people just adrenalin junkies or sociopaths, and get some kind of thrill out of terrifying strangers on the road?  Special distiction goes to the unknown perpetrator of DickMove #2, which occurred right in front of me on The Metal Muncher, which is a three lane divided highway, where Mr. Nadsofsteel from the third (left) lane, cut me off in the center lane, then exited the highway a split second after a car in the right lane had been there.  Threading the needle...

...and despite the impossibility of imagining myself attempting anything like this, I suppose some admiration for the Nerve might be appropriate, which doesn't disturb me as much as my taking the event that was my first witnessing of DickMove #2 as matter-of-factly as I did.

Obviously you are most safe on the highway when you have the road to yourself.  It stands to reason that the more cars you have near you, the more likely you are to have a high-speed highway accident.  In driving safety courses I have taken at work, they advocate "the Space Cushion", where you leave a four second gap using a fixed object and counting to set the distance of your space cushion. I noticed that cars on the highway,  if manipulated correctly, will tend to group together.  I tried using the space cushion technique not only in front of me, but behind.  I fix the front space cushion behind the last car in a group, and keep this up until the cars that don"t pass me form the rear group, and there I am, all by myself in the middle.  I try to keep both space cushions equidistant, and they can be maintained for surprisingly long distances through subtle speed changes and frequent use of the rear-view mirror.  The last car in the front group likes it, the lead car in the rear group likes it, and I am Golden!  The absolute best position to be in is behind a big truck--nobody wants to get in that space for very long, but at the distance of the space cushion the truck is not obstructing the view ahead.  This is easy to maintain for as long as the truck is there.  If I really actively use this technique I get to the point where I am manipulating the traffic flow to my own benefit.  In fact I obsess about it.  I also consider that in making myself safer, I am making others less safe, so there's that... King of the road, safe as can be.

Make The Americas Great Again

Pre-addendum:  Today I saw CNN broadcasting an interview with Cory Lewandowski, Trump's attack dog former campaign manager.  I didn't hear anything he said because the sound was low on the TV in the diner, but fuck him.  What really got me was the headline CNN was showing in the crawl:  "Trump praises Supreme Court for blocking Obama immigration plan"  Really, CNN?  Are you that shitty of a news organization that you would characterize it that way?  The Supreme Court voted, and came to an impasse, a tie, because the asshole party won't confirm or even allow for a vote on Obama's nomination.  That's not in any way the Supreme Court blocking anything.  Because of the tie, the lower court's ruling stands.  This is just protocol since there is an even number of justices who came to a tie vote.  And so CNN gives The fucking Donald a headline for this?

Now another attempt at clarification:  Lately Donald Trump's comments about Mexicans have been called "racist".  Though it pains me to defend him on this topic, he is not technically being racist.  A dickhead, yes, but not racist.  It is true that he has said racist things about African Americans, which is abhorrent, disgustingly misogynist things about women, downright cruel things about disabled people, very insensitive things about people he would characterize as "losers", and the things he's said about Mexicans are insulting and bigoted, but not technically racist.

Mexicans are not a Race.  They are citizens or residents of the country of Mexico.  Let's school Trump and his willfully ignorant followers on a little Geography.  The Western Hemisphere is known collectively as "The Americas".  There is NO SUCH COUNTRY AS AMERICA.  The Americas are made up of a group of countries on the continent of South America; places like Argentina, Peru, and Brazil, the thinnish strip of land comprising Central America; places like Panama and Nicaragua, and the three countries that comprise the continent of North America, which are Canada, The United States of America, and Mexico.  Yes that's right, Mexico is considered part of North America, no matter how icky it makes Skeeter and Bubba feel.  Therefore, everyone who lives in the Western Hemisphere is American.

Yes, Donald Trump, you asshole, Mexicans are every bit as "American" as you are.

Yes, Donald Trump, you fucking douchebag, it is time to make The Americas great again.

Yes, Donald Trump, it is time to build a fucking wall--around YOU.

Excursions Aboard The U.S.S. Pediddleville...Kayak Bucket List...Funeral Procession For A Dead Swan...

Editor's Note:  I've just about given up on the author of this blog, avalonjeff.  He goes months at a time between even logging on to this blog, and usually does very little except start new entries that he never works on (for instance the long-anticipated one about Race, one about "deli etiquette", one about a cure for Athlete's Foot, and no doubt a few more bouncing off the skull in some kind of consciousness limbo), does not answer the phone (maybe he dropped his phone in The Water?), and if I drive by his house in Pediddleville there is no sign of him, just the sound of bagpipes and roosters.  So it was with some surprise that I found this entry in a forwarded email from some shady record producer's invalid email address, with the heading, "Hey Dipshit".  Somehow it bounced back to me and I figured I'd publish it.

 
The U.S.S. Pediddleville is my Old Town Heron model kayak, a gift from my family, Christmas 2013.  I had been wanting to explore many of the waterways in the Pediddleville area for some time, and had compiled a bucket list of them.  Summer of 2014 turned out not to be very active on that front because of my extended trips to Michigan and Ohio that season, and I kicked myself for not finding a way to bring it with me and go out on Lake Huron, or even the Muskingum River, but I did hit a few targets that year.  The 2015 season, now probably over, saw many of the targets hit.  I would sometimes go out twice in a weekend, or after work on the long days till Sunset.  I got many great pictures--though some of the best have been lost to The Water, and had a lot of life-affirming Solitude.

   
In 2014 I only got to the upper and lower Moodus Reservoirs, Babcock Pond, and the lower portion of Salmon Cove from the boat launch in view of the East Haddam swing bridge over the Connecticut River.  Went up the Blackhall River in Old Lyme with X-Ray Man.  I brought the kayak on vacation to Maine and hit the First and Second West Branch Ponds. I've been to Babcock Pond several times because it's close by and easy to get to if I just want to go out for the exercise or the sunset.  Same with the reservoirs, which are much less clogged with lily pads.  I think that was about it, just enough to get The Bug and compile the bucket list.

Early in the season of 2015 I got going on the quest.  I had gotten a four day work week with Fridays off, and it made it easy to find the time to go out kayaking.  One Friday I went out twice in one day.  I got going early in the morning.  I wanted to find a pond near me that I had seen on Google Earth.  It was off a road near Babcock Pond.  The road became gravel as it entered the deep woods, and I kept looking to my left for some way to get to my destination, Pine Meadows Park Pond, but wasn't  seeing it.  I was driving a Nissan Altima, not exactly a four-wheeler, and after a while started to wonder if this was a good idea.  The road got "less-travelled" the further I went until it came to a T intersection.  I tried a left, but the road soon got dicey, and with no way to turn around, I backed it up back to the intersection.  Well, I had come this far, so it was worth at least trying the other direction, and I could see a watery area to the left as I went in.  It looked very swampy rather than pond, but worth checking out.  Soon I found a sign on the right that said "Standish Pond". Well, here we go!  This pond was identified as state property on a sign I saw as I portaged the Pediddleville down to the pond.  It had a little observation hut and a wooden footbridge (in disrepair) over a narrow part of the pond, and a big open field on the other side of the bridge.  Clearly this pond is not visited often these days, and it was just what I was looking for!  There was no boat access to speak of, but I found a way near a fallen tree.  The pond had an abundance of lily pads and millfoil. There were really only a few open water areas, probably kept clear by the beavers, so the paddling was slow-going.  There were several herons around the pond and a beaver lodge.  The beavers were not used to any boat traffic, and made several loud splashes to send me the message that I was not welcome.  But I WAS welcome in my own way!  There was nobody to be seen this whole excursion--I've come to regard not seeing any human beings as a bonus on each trip.  I realized when I was away out in Michigan by myself that Solitude is my Friend.  Solitude feels most natural to me.  Connecticut is densely populated, even out in the East, and finding seclusion like this near my home is a blessing.  No sign of people, and The Silence!

I went out again that day, to Great Hill Pond, where I used to swim a lot when I was younger.  The pond is loomed over by the small mountain my friends and I used to hike up, and party and camp out on the rocks, and bearing a resemblance to Glastonbury Tor in England, became part of our band mythology--another story for another time, except to say that when I was in Glastonbury I was overtaken by that Mystical feeling I have been getting  lately from The Silence. Other trips this season were to Pickerel Lake right near me in Pediddleville, Mono Pond in Columbia, Williams Lake in Lebanon,  Beseck Lake in Middlefield,  Salmon River upstream from the cove to the Route 151 overpass, Salmon River above Leesville Dam as far as I could go (not very far), and Moodus River from the cove as far upstream as I could go.

We went to Maine again on vacation, and I went to Jordan Pond and Long Pond in the Acadia National Park area, and also went on my first salt-water venture out into Seal Cove and Mt. Desert narrows and explored Moose Island.  Again I was alone for most of this.  I was perturbed because the Pediddleville was at home in Connecticut, and I was using my sister-in-law's Pelican kayak, which was very tippy compared to mine.  I'm surprised I risked it on my first excursion into the freezing cold Atlantic in this kayak, but I was determined.  It was a very overcast, misty day and I got across the narrows to the island without incident.  I had to constantly use my legs as a counter to the tipping in the rough water, living and learning.   The island was beautiful.  The spruce forest was thick, except for a storm-damaged swampy grove I walked through on the path that circuited the island.  Sphagnum moss everywhere.  The path went into the woods and emerged on the coast, then continued along it, looping back to where I had parked the kayak on a spit of sea stones at the narrows.   I was looking for blueberries, which were not near ready yet, when I looked down at my feet and saw, smack-dab in the middle of the path, a tiny blueberry bush with one ripe blueberry at its top. How unlikely!  It was a gift, and I ate it right there.  As I walked along I suddenly panicked that maybe the tide had come in and that I had not pulled the kayak far enough away from shore.  I started running, imagining seeing the kayak floating away and stranding me there.  It was still safely there when I got to it, and it was time to go.  It rained heavily as I got near where my car was parked--getting drenched was another first.

The upper part of Salmon Cove became a go-to spot for me this past season.  This is a wide open area of water at the base of Mt. Tom, Machimoodus State Park, the supposed source of the famed "Moodus Noises", where the Salmon and Moodus rivers merge.  There is a road off Johnsonville Road that leads down to a small parking area near the water access.  At this point the Connecticut River and these tributaries are tidal.  At low tide water access is sometimes iffy, and not wanting to drag the kayak through thirty feet of muck, I would go somewhere else if need be.  At high tide it's no problem.  My first, much anticipated trip up Salmon River from here took place after a couple of tide-thwarted attempts.  I went in the late afternoon one day, got into the water, and headed upstream.  Soon I found that there is no cell signal there, which I find thrilling, though potentially disastrous.  I get into losing myself and not being found.  There were multiple small islands on the river, which at some point I will explore on foot.  The water is deep enough here to warrant a rope swing and jump-off spot off a big rock face soon after rounding a bend out of the cove.  The trick here is finding a landing spot, and I'll jump sometime next season.  As I went upstream I began to see the houses of the river-dwellers and wondered what it must be like living along the waterway.  Do people travel by boat to each other's houses for parties?  Or are these people the type that keep to themselves by their river Shangri-Las?  Probably a mixture of both.  I continued on past the old resort I used to work at, now torn down and made into a state park.   Maybe some of those stories will pop up on this blog at some point.  On the opposite side of the river the dwellings were up on a steep incline with steps down to the river, and were tucked into the trees almost invisible from the foliage.  I got a creepy feeling that with a private road access, these were really private dwellings where I imagined the possibility that very secret things could occur...When I got to the overpass of Route 151 I stopped and enjoyed seeing the area from the new angle I was getting, and turned around to head back.

The cove is also the mouth of the Moodus River, a smaller river that flows out of the Johnsonville millpond.  As far as you can go up this river there are no houses, few signs of human activity but for one observation hut and a few bird nesting houses.  The water is calm and very reflective and surrounded by wilderness at the base of Mt. Tom and further in.  Some fallen trees have been cut to allow passage, though one big one that is not cut makes passage under it difficult at high tide.  This is a magical excursion, winding its way through woods with no sign of people.  Kingfishers, herons, and interesting water-side plants everywhere, and there is a little side gulley leading to a beaver pond near the river.  My first trip up Moodus River made a great impression on me, that this existed so near my home, and my second was accompanied by experiencing the tide coming in, which pushed my kayak effortlessly upstream for a time before rounding a bend.  Here's another spot I will return to many times when the bucket list is less important than easy access and guaranteed splendor.

Nearing the end of the season, I felt a need to go up Salmon River again, this time the goal being as far up as possible below Leesville Dam.  It was a really nice day, and I figured I had better not miss perhaps the last opportunity of the season.  I got into the cove and noticed a number of swans floating around.  They were ahead of my course upstream, and a few took off in flight as I approached.  After a short while I noticed something floating on the water.  Nearing it, I saw that it was a dead swan, its arrestingly long neck sticking straight out from its body floating on the surface.  Part of its torso along the spine was torn open.  It is rare to be able to see a swan up this close, and really perceive the great size of the bird.  I got the vague sense that I might be attacked by the other swans if I lingered too long, so I moved on upstream.  Change of plans as I noticed a small tributary river to my left and decided to explore the waterway-less-travelled.  This stream wound its way through tall reeds and  into the woods.  I saw only one house along the way up a steep bank tucked into the forest and from there it was wilderness.  I don't know the name of this river, may find it out later, but it turned out to be a key trip that may be my last for the season, and though there may be a few more days left before it gets too cold, it may be fitting to stop for the season.  I got to the end of the line for this river as a deposit of small stones across the flow made it impassable.  I got out of the kayak here to pee and look around.  It was a nice setting for an end-of-the-line, end-of-the-season picture of the U.S.S. Pediddleville.  I had my phone in a plastic zip-lock bag and had stupidly placed it on top of the kayak as I took the photo with my camera--I usually snap redundant photos with the camera and with the phone.  When I went to get back in the kayak I moved it toward the water and then saw the bag with the phone in the water.  I grabbed it quickly and shook the water out of it as best as I could, but the bag had not been sealed, and the phone was swamped.  This phone was a trooper--it had fallen into a toilet at a Starbuck's in Michigan, and also the Lower Moodus Reservoir, and though it was still working at this point, it soon would not take a charge and I found out that charging it was the worst thing I could do, and I lost all of my photos on that phone!

So with consternation about the phone I headed back down stream, and back into Salmon River.  The tide was coming in and I had to paddle against the waves of the flood tide coming up from the cove.  I looked for the dead swan and didn't see it at first.  There were still lots of swans around, a bit further down stream exiting the cove.  I would guess there were about thirty of them, and I noticed that they seemed to be lined up, just drifting down stream in a line that I followed to my right, and then I found the dead swan, maybe an eighth of a mile downstream from where I saw it last, still floating and bringing up the rear of this swan flotilla.  Were these swans in mourning for the dead one?  Swans are known to mate for life, maybe they also grieve their dead. Was this a funeral procession?  I wondered how far down the river they would accompany the dead one--till it sinks, or gets snagged in a tree limb or washes ashore?  Would they go all the way down to Long Island Sound?

I sat for a while and pondered all of this.  Yes, it was a good thing I didn't miss this opportunity to go kayaking one last time, and had the chance to see this most rarified of scenes, a near Mystical experience.  I looked up the symbolism of seeing a dead swan--I could only find the meaning of seeing a dead swan in a dream--and since I enter a dream-like state on these excursions, took that as the true template.  A dead swan signifies frustration towards a person or situation, and it just so happens that that was another reason I went out that day!  It's good for me to get out into the Solitude, the Silence, yes even the head music stops sometimes when I'm out there.

Silence tells a real good story
Perfect Silence-never boring
It's like Music-all around
Silence is my favorite sound---Sylvia Platypus

Ghost Towns And Dead Zones...Truncated And Dispersed In Ohio...Rolling Coal And The One-Hundered-And-Thirty Year Fire...

EDITOR'S NOTE:  Little did I know that not only do I edit this blog, but I also have to be the author's babysitter.  The post now finally published here dates back to events that happened in August of 2014 when the author, avalonjeff, seems to have gone AWOL.  It was known he had gone to Ohio, but there was no evidence of his return.  Finally he was found under a pile of boxes, vinyl records, and musical instruments in his house in Pediddleville, quite unaware how long it had been since his last post.  A bit of not-so gentle persuasion had to be employed...

I volunteered, once again, to go away from Pediddleville for yet another three week stint to work as a relief/ mercenary field technician, this time in rural Southeastern Ohio.  The fucked-up Corporate politics that soured my last trip to Michigan popped right up at the outset of this trip.  First, it was scheduled for three weeks, and I was told that I had made the cut and would be going.  Next thing I heard was that the trip was shortened to only a week, and was asked if I still wanted to go.  At first I thought I wouldn't, that it would be a waste of time--I was still not caught up with myself from my first trip back in March-- but then I thought better of it.  Any reason to have an adventure, I thought, was good. I admit I am bored out of my fucking mind in this job and just being somewhere else makes it more bearable, I have found.  Plus I still haven't clambered completely out of the Hole of Pediddleville, so the opportunity to make more money working tons of Overtime, eased by the Novelty of being away, made my decision for me.  But then my boss told me that I now was NOT going to be able to go, since they changed the time frame and re-canvassed everybody.  The last email I had gotten had said that it was the FINAL LIST, arrived at by seniority, and there I was the last candidate on the list, confirmed.  I sent off an email to the administrator who was coordinating the trip.  In it, I demanded an explanation as to why I had been on the finalized list, and then was not, and I added that I wanted an HONEST explanation. I think the word "honest" gave them the Heebie-Jeebies, and soon my phone rang with a call from my boss saying I had been given premature information, and that I was going. It was Adventure Time again...

Nineteen of us from different parts of Connecticut left, a day later than the original start date, for the Southeastern part of Ohio known as " Outstate". It was a long drive to be making in one day, a long time to muse on the screwy situation and anticipate the next week's adventure.  Somewhere in Southwest Pennsylvania, near dusk, when the final fingers of gravitational pull from Home let go, I saw an inspiring sight that brought me back to my first trip to the Thumb of Michigan:  up on the tops of twin flat-topped mountains, dozens of wind turbines, spinning serenely. They stood there on the mountaintops like two armies of giants, two armies of Hope for the Future, resolute, yet breezy...

What I found in Ohio was a land that Time forgot, a shadow of what it once was back in the black old coal mining days.  It had been a depressed area for quite some time.  You rarely see a house or building that has even been painted in decades.  Abandoned houses and buildings are not torn down, they're just left there to collapse and get grown over with vines.  Often a mobile home is moved onto the property and placed next to the old house while it stands decaying. There are many small oil rigs seen on properties where the people have sold the mineral rights to their land.

Driving from my hotel in Zanesville, through Crooksville and Roseville, every day nearly an hour South to Nelsonville, New Straitsville, and others, the cell signal vanished.  I use an iPad for dispatching my jobs, testing lines, chatting with support people, all things needing cell signal.  It was very difficult working like this.  Sometimes I'd have to drive ten miles out to get signal, do everything I could possibly need to do on the iPad, then drive all the way back to do the physical part of the job.  There were few places to get lunch in some of the towns I was in.  I kept noticing all the decay, the vacant buildings left to collapse, often covered with thick mats of vines.  It wasn't fun like being in Michigan.  It was pretty in the rural parts, very hilly, and most of the people I met were all very nice, but a weird thing I noticed that was a little disconcerting, like getting used to the grid over in Michigan had been for me, was that the area was so hilly, just gentle rolling hills and valleys, that you could never really see any kind of horizon. Pretty and rural, but claustrophobic.

Claustrophobic, yeah, maybe the kind of locale that could foster a scene like the Redneck Conference I witnessed with my own two eyes.  I was up a telephone pole looking at a property with a big flat lawn and a mobile home at the back end.  There were at least ten young men, what I would call Rednecks, and a few young women, all hanging out in this yard, blasting Country Radio, whooping it up, drinking Bud Light (exclusively).  They were loud and boisterous and they yelled up to me on the pole asking if I'd like a beer.  I declined because I was working, and because it was Bud Light.  "It's too late to be working on a Friday." one of them said to me.  They didn't know I would probably end up working until at least ten PM that night. At some point I heard one guy say "Hey, lets get a picture of us and our babies for Facebook!" It didn't register with me, but I would have expected to see some of the guys and their girlfriends line up for the photo, but what actually happened next I could not have predicted.  They all got into their pickup trucks and revved them up.  Black smoke suddenly filled the yard and drifted my way.  One-by-one they lined the trucks up next to each other, all ten of them across the left side of the yard facing the girl with the cell phone.  Then all ten guys sat on the hoods of their "babies", held aloft their Bud Lights, and posed for the picture!

It gets even better.  I continued working, soon moving my ladder across the street to the side of the house I was servicing.  I don't know if maybe they noticed the Connecticut license plate on my truck, and wanted to put on a show for the Yankee, or for whatever reason they had, but the scene I witnessed will stand with the short list of most awesome experiences of my life. I may have subconsciously noted the hubbub as I climbed my ladder to attach the wire to the house, but soon enough there were multiple blasts of loud truck engines, and that thick black death smog erupted all over the yard across the street.  Revving the trucks and hooting, the rednecks filed out the driveway, took a right onto the street, then a left onto the street where I was set up near the corner, almost all of them blowing their horns, hooting, and blasting thick clouds of that evil black smoke in a convoy right next to me and up the steep hill that was there.  I could hear them nearing the top of the hill, then driving the loop that was up there, then they all came back down the hill, still making a big commotion.  Satisfied probably that they had put on a heck of a show for the stranger from Liberal Connecticut, they went by me, turned right, and continued past the mobile home out to the main road and drove off towards New Straitsville.  Normally I would not condone such brazen destructive attitudes, but this was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen in Real Life, and I suppose not something most people would ever see.  Fucking hilarious! Adventure Time...

What they were doing with the black smoke out their exhaust pipes is called "Rolling Coal".  It happens because of a deliberate modification that is done to the diesel engine to produce the smoke, and it's done as a middle finger to Liberals and Environmentalists generally, and to President Obama specifically.  Rolling Coal has nothing to do with actual coal, but I will relate to you the story of real coal burning that turned some of these towns into ghost towns.  Really a little bit of misplaced anger round these parts...

New Straitsville was established as a coal mining company town, complete with all the misery that goes along with such a place, which in the 1880's saw the forming of the first coal miner's Union in the country.  Inevitably a strike took place, and getting frustrated with how things were going, some of the striking miners loaded up a bunch of logs on a cart, doused them with kerosene and lit them on fire, then pushed the cart down the mineshaft.  The coal in the mine caught fire and it still burns today after one hundred and thirty years!  The fire has traveled along the coal veins all these years and sometimes smoke will rise from the ground in Wayne National Forest.  Presumably this will continue indefinitely and nothing can be done about it.  It certainly ended the strike,  with the unintended results of the mine being closed down, the miners all losing their jobs, and the local economy collapsing.

I met some nice people in New Straitsville, the Thompsons, when I went to their house to do a job for them.  They sat me down at the kitchen table while I was on hold for a long while for company support people, gave me a glass of iced tea, and chatted with me about my job and why I was there from Connecticut.  They gave me a bag of excellent ripe tomatoes from their garden, which I kept in my truck and ate along with some almonds and apples when I couldn't find somewhere to have lunch.   The Thompson's issue could not be resolved that day because they hadn't received shipment of a modem, so I moved on, but I dispatched on it again the next day.  Doubting the modem would be there, I went anyway, and found Mr. Thompson in the front yard.  We sat down on the front porch for another chat.  Soon Mrs. Thompson appeared with a glass of iced tea for me.  Nice people.  Mr. Thompson was on the town council and I asked about the town being "the Mooshine capital of the world".  He didn't mention the coal fire--I found out about that later on the internet--but he told me about a local beverage recipe made with Moonshine and apples called "Apple Pie" that he enjoyed.  There is a legal Moonshine distillery/ museum in the town right on Main Street, but there remain many illegal bootleggers all over the place here.  The town puts on an annual Moonshine Festival, but I didn't ask how the bootleggers participate in a sanctioned function such as that.  Dipshit that I am, I never sampled anything from the area because I really do prefer IPA's to any hard liquor, but this is how New Straitsville pulled itself out, to an extent, of the economic collapse.  Other towns in the area, Shawnee and Corning, for example, did not fare as well.  Nelsonville was propped up for a long time by the Nelsonville Block Company and other brick manufacturers, and Roseville and Crooksville had the famous pottery and china companies, but the competition from foreign manufacturers did it's inevitable damage.  The whole area is pretty run-down.  The town of Shawnee, in particular, has what was once a beautiful Main Street downtown area that is now basically a ghost town.  There are big brick row buildings with store fronts and restaurant spaces and apartments upstairs all empty, boarded up and collapsing under the vines.

Somehow it seemed like more than ten days that I was away.  I was able to see a lot in those few days before they split us up and sent two thirds of our group to other locations.  Ryan and a few others got sent further west to Xenia, and Welby and others got sent further South to Marietta.  Those of us who were working South of Zanesville ended up finishing out the tour in the Zanesville area.  Zanesville is a relatively uninteresting town except for the Y Bridge over the brown water of the Muskingum River and some interesting Church and Municipal architecture.  They have a brewpub, which I never got to try.  Working in Zanesville was easier because there was cell signal, but the plant was just as beat-up as in the rural areas.  I don't know what they think we'd get accomplished in only a week in the first place, then they went and dispersed us further.  At any rate it was another adventure in a new place, I made a bit more money than I normally would, and I was spared the boredom of the home turf.  A sense of Weirdness was creeping in, though.  My room had a mildewy funk to it that I should have complained about. The Michael Brown shooting and subsequent riots and protests took place while I was in Ohio, and Robin Williams committed suicide.  There were Halliburton work crews staying at my hotel.   The Xenia crew got to leave a day early because they ended up with a two-day drive.  There was a sense of finality with this trip.  Even though there was one more trip (which I did not put in for) to Detroit after this one, we all knew there would be no more of this since the outfit we worked for was going to be sold off in a matter of months to a new company that did not have such a large range of coverage.  I know I am stuck where I am now for good.

The Most Unique Resort In Pediddleville...The Last Installment Of The Michigan Adventures...Liquor Chicken...

When I was a teenager, lots of kids from Pediddleville, East Pediddleville, and Moodus had Summer jobs at Frank Davis Resort.  Most jobs were kitchen help, waitstaff, and some grounds work.  My friend Rick and I had also worked there, but our experience was different since we were night security guards--a whole different story to be told at a later time, and it now can be told since the place no longer exists.  In fact, there is the go-ahead for the story I am really here to relate.  Anyway, the resort had a sign out front on the lawn which claimed that Frank Davis Resort was "The Most Unique Resort In America".  The claim probably came from the fact that Moodus once was called "the Catskills of Connecticut", and lots of people from NYC and Boston came to the numerous resorts there.  In old movies if you see some character talking about summering in Connecticut, that's what they were talking about.  By the time I came around, this heyday was long gone, and there were only three resorts left, Frank Davis Resort being the most popular.  Mr. Long, our High School English teacher, pointed out that the claim was ridiculous, not simply because there was nothing special about the place, but because it is impossible to be the most unique anything.  "Unique" is defined as being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else."  So there is unique, and not unique, without any kind of graded scale.

...and it's the same kind of Logic that makes the Big Corporate Slogan of the company I work for the stupidest thing I've ever heard.  Some executive at some high level, or maybe at a public relations/advertising firm made big bucks for coming up with that one, and it makes no sense.  It even functions as a double-negative. "Rethink Possible" Mr Long would say that "Possible" means "It CAN be done."  There is only one way to rethink that--that it CAN'T be done! They have used the slogan for years, so apparently it just goes over most people's heads unless you think about it.  And who gives much thought to a stupid Corporate slogan?  I bring it up because lately there has been some movement in the company that truly corroborates the double-negative.  That's all I'll say about it now because I'm really here today to talk about the last two weeks of my last trip to the Detroit area...

I told the story in my last post about how I had been assigned  (it seemed) to work in the nice rural and waterside areas north of Metro Detroit that I had become so enchanted with during my time there back in March.  Reynard, Ryan, BigDave and I were assigned there, while the rest of the guys were in other areas, which meant that they were mostly right there in Detroit, below Eight Mile, every day. We all agreed that it would be fair and Humane for it to be mixed up some, so that we could all have some good, some bad.  But we knew also that seeing as we were all Mercenaries, any complaints or suggestions about our assignments would be given little consideration. That Sunday of the first week I bumped into Reynard up in Croswell and we talked about how great it was to be where we were, and about feeling for the guys stuck in Detroit every day. Monday afternoon I bumped into Reynard again-- he was parked under a shade tree next to two scuzzed-out empty houses  and across from an old industrial building with no doors and covered with grafitti.  "We've gotta stop meeting like this!"  I said when I went over to his van.  "Yeah, I was wondering about this. " he said. "Dave and Ryan are in Detroit today too."  So here we were thinking maybe they switched us and that we'd be working in Detroit, maybe for the rest of the time.  Of course I was always fully aware it could happen, and was prepared for it, but my high hopes for more ecstatic experiences out in the Thumb seemed to be going up in flames like a squatter house...

That day in Detroit was pretty interesting, and I never felt in harm's way.  I did a job at a city community center installing a line for a job referral service.  It was cool because I felt like I was contributing to the City, doing my part for Motor City on it's way up again.  I was totally safe there, parked in the lot with five or six police cruisers.  That day in Detroit was also the only really hot day for the entire Summer.  I was sitting in the lot cranking the air conditioner when I got the email saying one of the local techs had been held up at gunpoint not far from where I was. Here we go. Next was a daycare center out of service in semi-industrial area that wasn't anything worse than I've seen in Bridgeport, then an Islamic auto parts salvage garage to the South near Dearborn.  I went into Dearborn, which seems almost to be bi-lingual, for a falafel sandwich, then went to a pretty wrecked residential neighborhood, still not feeling unsafe, just cautious.  After that was when I saw Reynard-- we were both planning on heading in relatively early, regrouping for what was going to be coming down the pike. That, and not wanting to end up in the Hood after nightfall.

Here I suppose is a good spot to tell a story about my brother-in-law, Welby, who came out to Michigan other times when I did not.  He was working in a bad neighborhood and a local power company truck pulled up to him.  The driver was black and said "What are you doing here?"  " We'll I have this repair job..." Welby answered.  " No, I mean what are YOU doing here?  You're white.  You should not be here." the lineman said.  "You're in danger here.  I'm in danger!  I hope you have a gun, do you?"  "Well no, I'm not allowed to have one."  "Man, all of us down here are packin'.  You better get yourself one if you're gonna be here." He hung out for a while to back Welby up, then gave him a list of really bad areas that he should never go to alone.  Tribal kindredship transcends Race among Utility workers. The guys started questioning the assignment locations and doubling up for safety though they were not really directed to by Management.  You gotta do what you gotta do, and no job is worth losing your life over.  Like I said, I really had no reason to complain or fret, just accept...

Given all this I was bracing myself, thinking about how much less money I would be making since I would not be working late every day, thinking of the process of calling other guys for back-up, thinking of setting up a dummy wallet to give a thief if need be, but that day was the only day I ever worked in Detroit.  Monday I found myself in the suburbs again, though this time they were northwest of Detroit.  Royal Oak, West Bloomfield, Pontiac and Farmington Hills.  This area was kind of like Connecticut.  There were some lakes that made for curvy roads rather than that grid I drove to the East.  There were some hills, too, so that a town named Farmington Hills actually had some real hills, unlike Sterling Heights.

And that was where I stayed for the rest of my time in Michigan.  Every day I would dispatch and head out to West Bloomfield.  It seemed a bit more upscale than the Eastern suburbs.  There were even some affluent neighborhoods that I saw.  This was a relief, I guess, not having to deal with Detroit, but it took the adventure factor down a couple of notches.  Every day up and down the same roads past strip malls and professional office buildings--a dreamland for American Consumerism, but a drag for me.  It got very boring, just like back home.  Out that way the ninety degree grid was much less apparent, so the GPS driving directions always had me hopping on the highway to get from town to town.  Right there, that cuts down on the level of Novelty.  It was just easier to follow along than to try to outsmart the GPS with roads less travelled.  I saw very little of interest to take pictures of.

 
The other big difference with this trip compared to my Winter trip was the amount of drinking.  It was nice weather, and the hotel had a roofed patio area that had picnic tables and chairs and two gas grills. This became the party spot.  Any given night if you didn't go across Van Dyke to Malone's, there was a group of guys from Connecticut hanging out, cooking Polish Sausage from Hamtramck or burgers, and drinking.  There was lots of beer, and some Bourbon, and some Tequila, and some maple-flavored Moonshine.  I was of course on a beer Quest, trying as many Michigan-made India Pale Ales as I could.  Working late, and the draw of the party made me less productive than I like to try to be when I'm away with no distractions, but it was fun.  The telephone worker Tribe loves to tell stories about jobs they've done, and I heard many personal stories about that city that was all over the National news all the time.  It could get loud.  The politics of who was and wasn't working in Detroit came up from time to time.  It was apparent that any of the people at our company that we wanted to give a shit, did not.  It would have been easy, and smart, for them to mix up our work locations, but it never happened.  I would sit there and say little.  How could I complain about being bored when other guys complained about getting stiff necks from always looking over their shoulders?  Strip malls?  Much less devastating than burned-out neighborhoods and giant holes in the road and the danger of electrocution because of people stealing power by hooking up jumper cables up the poles.

When in Connecticut, our dispatchers are located in Michigan, right in the area I was working in, and it had become customary each trip for some of them to meet up with us at Malone's.   When I got there that night I was a little earlier than most.  There were only a few people of both groups there yet, and it was awkward.  I didn't feel well--I think it was the grocery store Sushi I had for lunch--and the people there were ones I didn't know well.  Two Connecticut guys who had been keeping to themselves started asking me if I was working in the nice areas.  They were really pissed about being stuck in Detroit.  As the crew started showing up and the drinks started going down, the topic was broached several times.  A weird scene--comradery laced with contentiousness.  Our dispatchers, of course, were peons just like us, and had no control over where they turfed us.  TJ got a bit hot under the collar.  People were getting drunk, laughing, complaining, rationalizing.  I couldn't say much.  I sat there feeling kind of disconnected and left early to a bad night's sleep,  getting up a few times overnight with diarrhea.  Nothing changed of course, and we all kept on keeping on where we were.

Four days before our slated departure date I was working in Bloomfield Hills, went to dispatch, and nothing came up.  Weird, if they were so swamped with work here that they needed help from Connecticut mercenaries, why this was happening.  I looked at the dispatch chat site and found nobody available.  Even weirder.  I called Ryan to see if he knew anything about it.  "Oh, you didn't hear?  They're sending us home.  Tomorrow."  I was looking through emails, texts, and there was nothing about it.  "I don't have any word about that.  Did you get an email?"  "No, I head it from Dave."  "So is it just a rumor or what?  They should let us know.  Somebody pranking us?"  The rest of that afternoon and evening turned into a bizarre event.  This was pretty big news for us, but there was very little word, officially, from anybody at the company in either state.  I was able to pick up one more job that day, and since I was now in a vengeful mood, the job I got was perfect--an hour away up North, and the GPS was stumped by road construction and could not find my job location for a long while.  It is a rare thing in the work world where the peon has the power to enact (at least financially) revenge against the Company.

When I got back to the hotel there was an inevitable group hanging out at the patio.  Drinks were going down as we tried to figure out if this situation was real or not.  All we knew was that one of the guys had gotten a call from a local manager, who up until then had had no contact with us, saying that we were being sent home the next day.  Nobody had heard any news from their organizations back home.  Some guys had called their bosses and they had not heard anything either.  This was now not just a party, but a business meeting with booze.  We decided that in the morning we would all show up to the patio, but not dispatch until we heard what we were doing.  Like other times we were expected to work half a day, then drive to a mid-way hotel in Ohio, but we figured if we didn't dispatch, it would raise some flags and maybe we would get some confirmation.  Also we would use this company time to pack up our belongings rather than our own time this night.  There was drinking to be done, grill food to be gotten rid of.  The edginess caused by the lack of information made for some wild conversations and behavior.  The guy we called Tipsy McStaggers drove in by the patio, already cocked.  Ryan came in from one of the bars and told us that BigDave had met up with three women and was bringing them back to the hotel to party with us.  A little later I could see BigDave staggering across the parking lot toward us, by himself, and I figured that he had struck out in his endeavor, but soon after, three cars drove in and parked near us, and these three young women got out and came on over.  What followed was a pretty comical scene of drinking, twerking, and a big sandwich lap dance kind of thing that one of the guys somehow got in the middle of.  You had to be there.  These women were like something you'd see in a movie, like you wouldn't expect to see in real Life.  They were drinking anything that was there, whooping it up, and you could sense that this was nothing out or the ordinary for them.  Most of us by this time had gotten through the business aspect of this meeting and were starting to think about the long drive the next day, and at about One A.M.  we all bailed on the scene, leaving Dave with the women.  I don't think he ended up working the next day, but he did make it to the hotel in Ohio.

It came out that there had been declared a Nation-wide capping of Overtime in the Company.  This was due to the end of the Fiscal that was coming up and they wanted to make the Bottom Line look spiffy for it.  Somebody must have realized that "Holy Shit, we've got twenty techs out there in Michigan raking in the hours--and look at this--they're scheduled to be driving home on a Saturday, which would be all Double-Time!!  Holy Shit, we've got to pull them back early!"  So this was the reason for the cluster-fuck we had going on.  Typical Corporate Dickishness.  There is nothing sweeter in this work than to do nothing but drive a vehicle for double what you normally earn,  all day long for twelve hours, and they took that sweet Mercenary opportunity away from us to save Face for themselves.  The upper level executive, a special breed of lizard-like businessman whose concerns are laser-focused on cheapening the whole experience for the peons.  It's hard to blame them too much, though.  They grew up in a sick Money culture, idolizing fathers who were probably the biggest Swine you could imagine--if only they had seen it and learned from the bad example.  But you don't see these things when you get to go to Vail every Winter, maybe study abroad in Europe, or Thailand...You don't see the Death Toll that come with those Christmas bonuses.

Sometime in the mid-morning the next day I received an email with the address of my hotel in Ohio.  This was the ONLY official communication I got from the company about returning home.  That's it.  I finished work and headed out, outsmarting GPS routes that would require tolls, and taking my time getting back homeward.  Yup.  Rethink Possible...

From Sterling Heights To Bath City...The Elusive Wolverine...Black Squirrels, Blue Water, Green Pastures...

Editor's Note:  This piece was posted nearly one month after the events described occurred.  The author,  avalonjeff, is admittedly a world class Procrastinator, however this post was delayed mostly by the fact that the Blog format cannot accommodate long length posts attempted on the iPad.  He was unable to scroll without losing parts of the text, got frustrated, and gave up until arriving back home in Pediddleville, whereupon "other" stumbling blocks occurred.  Yeah, that's it...


Here I am back in Michigan for another three week stint.  It feels different this time.  Even though all the roads and everything are all flat and in straight lines, it feels more rounded- off because all the trees have leafed out and the ambient background is Green rather than White, Dead Brown and Gray. On my first trip out I found it disconcerting to not be able to identify some of the trees.  Now I can say they were probably Elms, Cottonwoods, Butternuts or Willows I was seeing, none of which are plentiful in Pediddleville.  Today the air was full of the Cottonwood's downy seeds flying around like snow.

I know the first time I came out here it was a very spur of the moment thing and just about everything was unexpected--I certainly appreciated my trips up to the Thumb and along Lakes Huron and St. Clair, seeing the wind turbines and the vast openness out there, plus it made it easier and more interesting working the long hours.  So far on this trip I have been stuck in the boring suburbs, even though I am supposedly assigned to the Mount Clemens (Bath City) area covering Port Huron.  I know maybe I should be patient, that the great bonus I seek will come, but right about now, sitting in my truck on hold with a call center for forty-five minutes listening to drivel hold music as cars zoom by at a busy intersection, I feel the urge in a dire way.  I did get in to Detroit for one job this past Sunday.  It was at a house that sat, along with three others, right next to a giant abandoned factory complex that took up an entire three block area.  Two garage doors were gone from the side of the building, and I could see daylight all the way through to the other side.  Just inside the doors was a pit which contained the burned-out hull of a twenty foot speed boat.  It must have been quite a scene at one time.  This neighborhood was quiet--dead quiet.  The house I was going to had a threatening, paranoid sign on the front door saying not to knock, so I just left a note saying that the occupants needed a different utility to do the work requested, took a few pictures of the factory, and drove off taking in all the urban decay.  I didn't feel in danger because there was nobody at all around.  The bright side was that it was so different from the suburbs.

I knew right away when I got up to the Thumb back in March that I would love to see this place in the Summer, and here I am, but so far I've been cramped in the busy boring suburbs north of Detroit, only up as far as Twenty Three Mile Road.  It's like if you took the Boston Post Road in Milford, CT, straightened out about twenty three miles of it, then lined up fifteen of those all next to each other. Every National chain store and restaurant you can imagine is here, over and over again.  I am very goat-like when it comes to Consumerism, and I can't seem to wrap my mind around this place.  Just a couple of days ago I came to the realization that if you are at a four-way intersection, there will be a CVS/pharmacy at one of the corners, always.  Often there is also a Walgreens and a Rite Aid.  I'd almost guess this is a state law mandating "corner drugstores".

I felt pretty disappointed about all this, but still it beats working right in Detroit, I guess, where there is always the possibility of danger.  I had become enchanted with the rural parts of Michigan I saw in the Winter, and in coming back here I wanted more.  When I got back home from Michigan at the beginning of April I was very inspired to get back working on a couple of projects I had left behind, but things didn't pan out.  Scheduling conflicts, technical difficulties, and a serious battle with the 'ol Creatism Disease all dogged me.  I was completely bored and frustrated with work back home,
motivationally challenged, and all the money I made in Michigan was quickly depleted.  About all I remember from that time between trips to Michigan was a slow, slow change to warm weather, lots of hectic running around, disinterest in work, a lot of Championship level Procrastination, and the dumb, blanket rule of Pediddleville Law.  I was watching the Fargo mini-series on TV.  The long shots of cars driving on long, flat roads in the middle of a desolate winter in Minnesota reminded me of what it was like for me back in March, up in the Thumb.

The turning point came when I tried to dispatch and could not.  I contacted my dispatcher and she said she'd have to "open me up", and Boom! I was now in the 810 area code!  I got to Allentown, a depressed-looking little village surrounded by flat, open farmlands, and to Port Huron, St. Clair, and  East China along the blue, blue St. Clair River, right across from Ontario.  Now I was happy.   Seeing these places in the summer that I had seen only in Winter was a rush.  Some roads I had travelled before, others not.  I was driving along in the farmlands one afternoon and I saw a dead animal on the roadside.  Something about it seemed strange, and I thought it was probably just a cat, but something made me turn around and take a look at it. This animal had light colored fur with orange-y stripes.   It was definitely not a cat, definitely not a raccoon.  It had vicious -looking teeth very much resembling those of a Wolverine.  Canine-looking, but snaggly and sharp, these teeth were dangerous.  I think this animal is in the same family as Weasels and Wolverines, but I can't seem to find it online to identify it.  Later that day I was talking to an old-timer while fixing his line and I mentioned it to him. He said it would be a very rare thing if it was in fact a Wolverine.  The coloring of this animal is wrong for a Wolverine also, but the shape of the face and what I could make out of the body, and those teeth!  I need to find out what it is.  I'm going with Wolverine till I know better, but since then I have seen two more of them dead by the road, so the likelihood that they are Wolverines is low.  Even still,  I'll be on the watch for a live one.

Earlier in the day I worked on a line for an old widow who had a nice little property tucked away
among the flatness, not far from the  power transmission lines that seem to run off to Infinity.  This
was obviously the highlight of her day, and she watched me as I worked and chatted, mostly asking me about what I was doing.  She wasn't really aware that she had a problem with her line- the neighbor who watches out for her had called in the trouble ticket.  As we chatted she mentioned that her husband had had a phone line out in the large garage in her back yard, and that he used it when he used to go out there to "watch TV".  I said I should check that line, since disuse and corrosion could be her problem, but I was really interested in what was in that garage.  Keep in mind this area is just outside of Metro Detroit, though it is rural.  Sure as shit, there was a Model T, an old, old Cadillac, and a red 1980 Pinto, all under covers in mint condition!  It's a good bet that her husband had worked for Ford. This is the kind of stuff you'll see here if you look!  Now I was starting to have fun.

I finished work and I had some gear to pick up out by the telephone pole.  I drove my truck out there and noticed a stalk of asparagus growing there in the long grass.  It looked good, and my plan was to harvest it and munch on it raw, but the lady walked out to the road to chat some more.  It seemed like she had read my mind and wanted to keep her asparagus, but she was probably just lonely.  I left the asparagus, waved goodbye to her several times and drove off to the crossbox to sign off.  Over at the crossbox I finally took the opportunity to blow up my  Swedish Bagpipes and play for a little bit. The pipes were the one thing I was able to accomplish when I had been home.  Their completion had been stalled due to my first trip to Michigan, and after I got home I was able to turn a functional, but not quite accurate chanter.  At least now I could play them and see what they were like.  It has been a goal of mine to play these and get acquainted with them while I'm here, but stuck mostly in the suburbs I feel inhibited.  No, it has to be out in the rural areas.

Another job I had had a surreal feel to it.  I was at an unmanned facility of some sort belonging to the Town of St. Clair replacing a temporary feed left over from the Winter.  It was in the middle of nowhere down a dirt road.  There was a locked chain across the driveway, so I had to walk in about a quarter mile just as I felt the urge to poop.  When I got in there, lo and behold, there was a Port-O-Potty! Walking in, I had noticed the odor of a dead animal.  I saw something laying in the field, thought it was a deer, but then it turned out to be a cardboard box.  As I did the work I had to pull the old wire off the ground in the field. I saw that the field had been a large puddle for some time, and it had recently dried up.  In all the last depressions at the bottom of the puddle there were the dead bodies of thousands of polliwogs- which were what I had been smelling.  Then I noticed thousands of tiny baby toads hopping on the ground as I neared. They were about the size of a pea, and there were so many of them that I had to be careful not to step on them.  These were the winners in the race against Time.

Between jobs I travelled along the road that goes along the St. Clair River, which is the outlet from Lake Huron.  Across the River is Ontario.  The water of the River, like the Lake, is incredibly Blue.  I believe this is because there is a light colored clay bottom, the water is clean and clear, and it's not all clogged with algae and organic debris.  Beautiful.  I had a Divinely located job at a the Culinary Institute of Michigan, right at the Nexus where Lake Huron turns into the river, and the bridge that goes from Port Huron to Canada.

The furthest up the Thumb that I've gotten so far is to the town of Peck, where I saw a buffalo farm.  I bumped into Raynard, one of my Connecticut co-workers at the tiny central office in the
town.  I was practically giddy as we talked about how much we liked it up there-- and it was beginning to seem like we would see more of this--and we were very hopeful.  I said I almost felt guilty because some of the guys work right in Detroit every day.  They are not seeing God's Country, they are seeing dilapidated houses, crack sales, prostitutes, horrendous roads, and overgrown neighborhoods on their way back to Nature.  I left Raynard and went on to my next job, at a house right on Lake Huron. It had a private beach and the people who lived there were not home.  Of course, I went down the stairway to the beach and enjoyed it for a while.  I collected some beach stones and gazed at the massive beauty of the giant Blue Lake.  Of course, I pulled out the Swedish Bagpipes and had a little jam session with the Lake.  Now I almost feel like I might have been gloating at how great time I was having doing my job.  Heading South I did one more job in Marine City,  again Divinely placed right near the River.  I completed my work, then took a stroll through the nice riverside park for a while.  People were fishing in the river, walking around with ice cream cones, and enjoying the nice early evening.  I may have realized at that point that when I was working in these rural areas I seemed to have near mystical experiences--everything in slow motion, seeing every detail, feeling free--and that that, was that.  True enough.  The whole rest of my time in Michigan had an entirely different flavor...

So...

As a radio programmer I thought I'd stick up for my fellow radio people and talk about a trend I'm sure you've noticed if you listen to Public Radio.  Doing interviews is not my forte, but I respect those that do, and it's a Tribal thing to defend them.  Defend them? Against what?  Interviewees being sarcastic?  Evasive?  Just what, exactly?

The word "So".  How so?  You've heard it, more and more, as more and more interviewees hear it, and then emulate it when they get their chance to be on the radio talking about the subject on which they are experts.  I find it very annoying, and it colors my attitude toward the person speaking, no matter what the subject matter, or my level of agreement with what is being said, so much so that I thought I'd examine this trend.

It goes something like this:

Interviewer:  "What led up to this new initiative?"
Interviewee:  " So, there was a need for blah blah blah..."

In the past, the interviewee would begin with "Well... " or "Good question..."  or " It's like this...", all of which are similar to "So...", but why has "So..." gotten so overused lately?  It really seems to be a trend in radio interviews.  Not to pick on NPR, but I believe this originated there.  I don't really notice it much on TV, so it's perplexing where this is coming from.  I think I know.  I think it comes from Scientists, Doctors, and Academics.  NPR has a higher concentration of these types of interviewees than most other mainstream media, and it goes without saying, Fox.

I won't blame the Scientists, Doctors, and Academics for this, because these people are generally highly educated, and are used to giving lectures, dissertations, and such, and using the word "So" is just a technique used to denote continuation of a thought or process to the listeners.  These people started the trend inadvertently simply due to their Natures...

No, it is the trend followers that are guilty.  After hearing it said a number of times, it starts to become protocol, spurred on by the infiltration of EGO.  See, the Scientists, Doctors, and Academics do it because they fall into what I'll call "lecture mode", where they are asked a question, and not being used to that type of interruption, then continue on with their train of thought by using the word "So".  It's the trend followers who hear this and adopt the practice.  Why?  I think it's Ego.  The person is awfully impressed with themselves for being invited to talk on the radio about their area of expertise, and use "So" as the first word of their answers--( and particularly annoying when they use it for their very FIRST answer) because of their ego.  Starting the answer with "So" negates the presence of the question, even of the interviewer.  At this point "so" translates to something like "So, I'm just going to continue on saying what I was going to say anyway, but for the interruption from this radio person".

I may be wrong on this for some, but I'm sure I'm dead on for many, and the trend self-perpetuates.  If I was an interviewer on one of these radio shows I would maybe stand up for myself, and for the sake of my listeners and stipulate, pre-interview, that the interviewee NOT begin any answers with "So", maybe even rig up a wrong answer buzzer in case they do.   I know that if I worked as a sound editor at an NPR station, I would be tempted to edit out the "So"s.  It would be easy enough since they are at the beginning of the answers, and are most often followed by an equally annoying pause...but nah!  Let 'em make asses of themselves.