Before the crash

Sitting outside the pump house I gaze across the upside down L shaped lake. Sitting at the bottom end of the L my view holds two portions of the lake. The first part is directly in front of me. The other part I can see over the earthen damn to my left. It is a man made lake, with the sole purpose of providing irrigation water to the golf course. The earthen damn is covered with grown up brush. Across the lake directly in front of me is a small patch of young pine trees that sit back from the edge of the pond . These trees serve as a screen for a rough access road to that side of the lake. Behind that the North Carolina woods take over. Directly in front of me at the lakes edge are a couple of willows trying to make another go at life after being cut back. There are also several Silver leaf native grasses that screen me from the outside world driving by on the road above me and to the right. The grasses are bushy up to five feet but the seed heads reach up to fourteen feet. The purplish seed head rests on a long stalk of light green gently sways in the wind and the coarsness of the bunched up leaves below create a gentle rattle that captures my attention. This is the place I hold as a secret refuge.

I have to believe that this is going to help me
Am I meant to share
Am I meant to survive

I feel the fun part of my life has ended. I still have joy everyday through my children, but it is not a complete joy. I feel estranged from my wife. Sometimes I think she just ran out of love

I fight the fight. Now I write for the FuzZ

It kills me being out of love. Like a gas station out of gas. I want to be filled up but I have to fight for a gallon. Just enough to barely keep me going. Sometimes I feel like I am stuck in my broken childhood again.

I've let myself get out of control. Everybody is fooled- Nobody knows.
Work is a joke- I am on autopilot just like everybody else, but it is killing me. I try to turn it off I can't I say that I do turn it off but, I lie.

I would move into the pump house if I could. Becoming a true hermit with my own little cave. I can see me making it into a home.

The FuzZ has gathered forces. Depression and Shannon have joined forces on the other side. I didn't want to talk about S and I said I wouldn't but this is the pump house log- just another one of my little lies I guess. I must focus on more important things like balancing myself, I must think out my emotion or I am lost.

I look horrible- I feel the same. It is hard to pinpoint what is to blame. While watching an A&E biography on Bruce Lee I start to observe myself. Thirty Two with two kids a job a wife all happy. At a shim short of six foot the 240 lbs I wear shows. Lounged into the corner of the couch I look down at the white furry basketball that is my stomach and the chicken legs that connect to it. Who would be happy to come home to this.

I am now afraid. Before I was overwhelming full of optimism but now I fear the worst. Will I be unhappy, will I freak out. I can't imagine what is going to happen but I am filled with fear. I cant put my thoughts together, there is so much to think about. When I have some focus it feels like I am just holding on and my brain feels like a tiny bit of butter trying to be spread over a piece of burnt toast.

Midnight Light 2

Seeing the light gives me hope. Hope of returning. I already know that is not true. Standing up I walk over to the glow. I look into it and see my home. A home that I have only left for a few hours. In the pre dawn light of that world I see the gas station. All is as it should be. A car passes by and I look to the right following its course, but I can't see it anymore. Instead I am looking at a row of dilapidated buildings surrounded by old junk that litters this world. I quickly look back and the soft glow of red shines upon me. I want to crawl into the hole where this light comes from but, it is embedded in the tight framework of the crossing guard post. It is only big enough for a bird to squeeze through.

Another car approaches the light filling up the road. A light that seems unnaturally bright for this deserted world. The car turns, it is not a car but a truck. A white truck, it is my white pony. It turns across the tracks and I see myself staring at myself. The other world me just looks at me and sees a shadow, like I have done so many times before on my way to work. I see myself look away and then look back. The shock that I first saw on my own face is now gone replaced with a relaxed smirk. The other me is relaxed because he has moved away from the hole and can't see into this world anymore just like I couldn't see the car going down the street before. Looking at my home world I can see the trees are devoid of leaves. It is winter there. It is morning there. I remember that smirk, it was on my face the first time I saw the man in the tracks. That was two years ago. Things in this world show the appearance of late spring. It is past midnight here. Transfixed I keep staring. I stand there so ling that my eyes grow tired, my legs want a rest but my heart cannot let it go. I must return to my family.

Everything I see through the window is special to me. I memorize the gas station. Conneco is written it white light in the bright light of the red overhang. The signs in the windows, advertisements for bud light, camel cigarettes and posters for the NC state lottery tickets. The neon Camel blinks to life stating the price of a pack of smokes. Behind the ads the shadow of the items on the shelves stand up like a black skyline with the darkness of the interior of the store mimicking the night sky. I frantically scan the area looking for something that tells me the date trying to confirm what i thought of the smirk I gave in the truck. I cannot find anything not even something that will tell me the time. The sun is almost up over there when the window starts to grow smaller. I don't notice at first but seeing less of my home pains me once again. Soon I am only looking through a peephole. Staying fixed to my spot searching for something that might help me. Then just like turning off the light on the other side that peep hole it is gone and all that I see is dark. My eyes are watering and I blink hard several times just like when I am trying to wake myself from a dream. Everything goes out of focus. My legs cramp and I lay myself down. Wiping the water from my eyes my vision starts to return.

Laying down close to the tracks I stare into the sky. Lose asphalt and rocks scatter the ground below me. There aren't many weeds here. I schuffle around to ride my back of rocks and simply lie there and watch the stars , eventually falling asleep.

I dream. I dream I am at work walking the course. Following the cart path up a small hill I come to a small group of pine trees. I see the green and know that I am on number nine. I can see the top of the half way house on the other side of the road behind the green. A small family of deer come out of the woods and I stop. The deer look away and i can tell they are not afraid of much but there is something that makes them uneasy. I slowly side step and hide behind some trees. The deer run across the fairway and bound into the woods at the other side. I simply stay hidden in the trees and don't move. I awake.

The sun is out and warms me well. The asphalt is soaking up the sunshine and returns it to me warming my back helping remove the stiffness from sleeping on the rocks. Thirsty I find my water bottle at the truck and take a mighty gulp then stop myself thinking there might not be more around. It is starting to get warm and I am tired. I head over to the abandoned Cotton Square mall to find shelter.

Midnight light

Shivering I wake up. Reaching out trying to find the covers of my bed to keep me warm I grab a fist full of weeds. Thinking that I am in one of those dreams where you think you are waking up only to find yourself in another dream I close my eyes and blink hard. This trick always works to snap me awake. As the chill of the night sinks deeper into my bones I realize I am not dreaming. The sleepiness of my slumber is wearing away from me and I recognise my surroundings. I am laying in the weeds in a elongated fetal position with the rusted shell of my truck behind me. I open my eyes fully and they seem sore and crusty. I chuckle to my self knowing why my eyes feel this way, I cried myself to sleep. A pang of sadness hits me thinking about why I was crying. I roll over and see a faint red glow coming from the directions of the tracks. A glimmer of hope crosses my mind. Rising up to my knees I look harder at the light. Taking in a quick glance of my surroundings I only make out the darkness of night and the darker outline of the Cotton Square mall. The ruined crossing guard posts stand out as a black steel web work reaching into the midnight sky. I really don't have any clue what time it might be. I never learned how to tell time by the movements of the stars. It is only by some weird internal clock that I guess it is some time past midnight. At the base of the black steel web work is the source of the glow

I am once again offered a chance of hope. On my feet now approaching the tracks I want to find my way out of here. The glow is familiar. It is the dull glow of the gas station awning that I left behind. Part of that awning is framed against the night sky on the other side of the tracks and part of it is shinning red. Ignoring the rest of my surroundings I walk up to the post. I look into the light. It is early morning at the gas station, the gas station on the other side.

Seperation

The rusted heap of my truck next to me I start putting things together. The dream of the crow on the tracks comes to mind. The many times I saw the man on the tracks looking at me. Before they all seemed insignificant but now they make perfect sense. I had been preparing myself for this, maybe only on a subconscious level but I new it was a possibility. How I don't quite know. I was open to the idea, I had to be because it haunted me for over a year. Believing it could happen was the only thing that kept me sane. Going around thinking you might just one day disappear and keeping your sanity is no easy task. Fighting it would ensure that I had no chance of keeping my sanity. Spending a year as a man divided was no easy task but I always kept the other me in check feeding him enough to keep him alive and now I am living that other person. A pain rips across my heart, the pain of loneliness. My family is somewhere else. I am somewhere else. That is just too much for my divided self to endure. So many truths about what is happening to me flow over me that it is hard to take it all in. I don't care about this place. I never thought I would crack like this. The pain surges up again and tears stream down my face. My little girl with her beautiful golden hair running through the yard. Playing checkers with my son staring into his stormy blue eyes and the sweetness of his face. All of it is gone. Dropping to my knees I scream out. I know there is nobody to hear me. Rolling onto my side I simply lie down onto the weeds that are overgrowing the asphalt. I lie there and cry. My wife who it seems like I spent my whole life looking for is taken from me in an instant. The one person who I knew shared my outlook on life. The one person who you know will understand why something was funny of made you mad when everybody else just didn't get it. All of it just vanished like the world where I once lived. I see her eyes staring at me with her cheeks raised up in a smile. I can't stop my pain. I double over holding myself tight. Closing my eyes I fight my sadness but all I see are her eyes. Blue like my son and daughter but special in their own way. They are multifaceted like a gem stone showing great dept and understanding. Different hues of blue are flakes throughout her eyes showing their dept. There is but one fault, and that fault makes them perfect to me. Her right eye has a small fleck of brown at the bottom. Something so unusual that I cherish it with all of my heart. My breathing is contained to short bursts as I try and stifle through the sobs. I need to calm down or I won't be able to breathe. I relax but feel no better than a zombie or an empty shell. I simply lie there on the ground with no will to move, get up or do anything but simply cease to exist. I lie there and let the depression fill me up and cover me over like a heavy burden I do not care to bare. I open my eyes and I am looking back the way I had come. Over the tracks and I see a deserted world. The gas station had long collapsed on itself. The red glow from the signs that I had seen when spinning out of control is now a deep faded pink that is almost transparent. The track are still intact and the crossing guard frame work that I should of crashed into shows no sign of damage just some rust. The one on the other side has collapsed. I knew that it would be like that. In the dream of the crow I was sitting on the framework above the tracks and could look into this world or the one I had left. But not anymore that was a one way trip. I start to cry again and just lie there in the setting sun.

Puting down the White pony

No crash, it must of been that bad for me to not even hear it. My eyes are still closed. My vision is filled with pink. The pinkish orange glow that the sun makes when you are staring right into it with your eyes closed. Thinking that it can't be the sunshine, I feel wind on my face. Just the slightest breeze. It feels just like lying in the grass on a bright sunny day. Something I have done so many times before on the golf course. Never do I feel so alive as when I just stop and lie down in the grass and stare at the sky or just gently absorb the energy of the sun. This euphoria washes over me and I am forgetting what has happened to me. I hold onto it a bit longer wondering if dying always feels this good.



I start becoming aware of my surroundings but only by touch. My eyes are still closed. I am still in my truck. I can feel the seat underneath me, with its basic comfort and somewhat scratchy weaved upholstery. My right arm is resting on the plastic arm rest. Then the breeze brushed my face again, warm and delicious, just like a summer day. Things don't add up, first how can I be in my truck and feel a breeze when all of my windows are up. Where did all of this warmth come from? It was cold and dark on my way to work, even if it is hours later it is still winter. I stop thinking and simply open my eyes.

Somehow I knew what I was going to see because I have seen it before. I am still shocked to see it, telling my self I won't be some unsuspecting dupe I try and keep my cool. It isn't working my hears is speeding up faster and faster. I was right I am still in my truck but my windshield is gone, with no sign of broken glass or anything. All of my windows are gone they look as if they have simply dissolved. I look out onto a parking lot covered in grass and weeds. A parking lot I saw destroyed several months ago. It stretches long and flat for over a half a mile. Just off to my right is the Cotton Square mall. The old factory turned into a shopping center. There it sits just like the dream of the crow, roof sliced away on the back half, smoke tower crumbling, windows gone but all of that red brick standing strong. The side I am facing could almost look like an old school. Large square windows, all glass is gone, evenly places across the facade. The large windows are stacked three high, one for each floor. Further away from me is the building juts out into the lot breaking that smoothness. I start to lose focus ans the breeze picks up. It is still warm but it is really dry and it makes my eyes water. I look down to shield my eyes. Then I see my poor white pony. Everything that I was not touching has aged a thousand years. The passenger seat and the kid booster that sat there are nothing but molded plastic and springs. My own seat was just as it was this morning, this morning, I scan the sky and my guess says it is about three in the afternoon. I see the hood of the white pony, all the paint is gone and only the deepest hues of rust prevail with some spots being complete holes. I look to my left and see the driver door seems to be in OK shape. My elbow propped up against it. Pulling the handle the door swings open and I step out. Before I take a better look around I look at my pony.

No longer white she is all rust. The tires are gone and she sits on rusty rims except in the back. Those rims are gone and the only thing holding her up is the frame. Everything looks ancient like abandoned farm equipment sitting in a field waiting until it just rusts for so long that it simply disintegrates to nothingness. Before shutting the door I grab my water bottle that was sitting with me in my seat and my keys in the pocket of the drivers door. The sun tels me I'll need water and I already know I need my keys. I swing the door shut out of habit. As soon as it latches it begins a rapid transformation. It is catching up with the rest of the truck. I watch in management as the paint peels away from the door. The plastic handle just falls off. The seat inside starts turning to dust. The breeze picks up again and a mini dust devil picks up in the cab of my truck. The particles of cloth whirling around and around until the seat is devoid of covering and stuffing. It all starts flying out the window at me. Once again I close my eyes as I am pelted with fabric. My nose fills with the smell of must and moldy cloth. The breeze dies. My side view mirror falls to the ground, the glass does not break, it is already gone, the plastic turns to plastic pebbles and rolls away. Now all of the truck looks the same rotten, useless, abandoned, dead. I mourn for the loss of my white pony.

Crossing the Tracks

The day that had eluded me for so long has finally come. My usual routine of waking before the sun and preparing myself for work brought no special occurrence. I have been getting up early for the last 12 years as my work dictated the necessity. I have never needed an extra moment in the morning and after going to the bathroom to do my necessaries and brush my teeth I quickly dressed and was out the door. The white pony, my truck, as always was ready to take her last journey to my course. Tomorrow I would be taking a new direction because I have finally landed that big job. My time here was intended to be short but it drug on over the course of five years when i only wanted it to last one. I always was searching for the one thing that I was doing wrong that would allow me to be free of my current employment. I never figured it out but accomplished it. This some what haunts me because I had tried to accomplish so much and was always looking for the one thing that would move me forwards in my career. Taking my usual route to work I once again diverged the shortest and quickest route to go by the old factory lot once again. This route pleased me on some deeper level than the one that made me search out the shortest quickest route.

Merging off of the parkway I turn left onto the street that will lead me to my next turn at the olf factory. I drive alongside the tracks and soon come to the spot where I must cross them. This spot has had some reverence for me for quite some time. Letting my mind wonder to the old factory that was torn down some years ago I near my turn. When everything seems to be fall into place like the tumblers of a lock opening a door. I once again see the pedestrian dressed all in black except his socks crossing the street at a light jog. Instead this time he is closer to the tracks unlike before when he was further back towards the bus stop. Once again i only see his socks. Then he comes into focus as I am about to make my turn. Turning the wheel to the left when I was wanting to go right I swerve into the left hand lane. Something is wrong. Last time I only had to slow down and the man was allowed safe passage. Veering and braking to avoid an accident I miss the dark pedestrian. I then head back to the right lane quickly not to miss my turn when suddenly my cab is filled with light. Light from behind me. The lights of the semi-truck I never saw until now. Always enjoying the solitude of this route I never thought to look for other cars. My best chance of avoiding becoming road kill is to just punch it and try and complete my turn and cross the tracks to safety. As my cab is filled with light my ears are filled with the loud horn of the tractor trailer and the report of the air brakes behind me. I can tell that the truck driver did not approve of my decision to cross the tracks. The white pony is revving with everything she has got but then I see the man in the tracks. Not the pedestrian but the one I have seen so many times when I cross the tracks. The one that is there and then disappears. He is standing in the same spot as always, behind the steel framework of the crossing signal post. I think I know who he is now in my last moments, he is the reaper, and he has come to collect. I smile. Then the crash. In all of the different accidents I have been in before things seem to slow down, it didn't happen this time. Things seemed to open up. I see light, the light is the path that I will travel with the reaper. The semi crashes into the back corner of my truck speeding it up faster that I was going before. The little pony starts to spin around and I think I might be safe. As I spin away from the reaper man I think I am going to escape him, but as he fades from view I see him smile, the light goes away. I keep spinning, the jiffy lube comes into vision then fades, the pedestrian with his look of amazement come into vision and is brushed away, the trailer as it screeches to a halt, then the convenient store with its red sign streaks across my windshield. I know where this roulette wheel will stop and it is the last thing I see before I close my eyes. The white pony is on the tracks and i am facing what looks like a tower of silver steel. i am getting ready to crash into the crossing signal post. I see the light in front of me again. I close my eyes waiting for the crash and the smack of my airbag. It never comes.

Westward Ho! cont.

The success I had in Phoenix was only followed by the failures I had in Greensboro. Culture shock is what I felt but I never left my own country. If my time in rural Kentucky had grown my country mouse my time in Phoenix had grown my city mouse into a cat that devoured my country mouse. I wasn't in the a rural setting but I felt like everything was backwards. The West is progressive while the South does not have that same feeling. That is what hurt us the most. We were aliens and we wanted to go home. Aliens that couldn't go home not yet we new we were stronger than just a little movers remorse but still that larger cultural force was moving against us. I cannot remember feeling like more of an outsider, everybody was nice just different. Shannon and I couldn't stand it, it sent us to the brink, then out of sheer desperation while walking the dog I started staring into a patch of clover. I thought if I can find a four leaf clover then I will make it. I looked and looked optimism started to grow inside of me. I started feeling better just looking for the clover just being hopeful. It was not much of a surprise when I did find the clover because I could all ready feel it's power working on me. I was immediately uplifted in spirit and knew that I could find a way to survive and thrive. Shannon had the exact same experience. Also feeling down she walked the dog over to the clover patch and began to search for the famed lucky four leaf clover. I remember her telling me this story and thinking that there is no way that she would find one. But as she told me her story I knew again that she would. The way that a married couple shares things that are some times too close to the heart for words I knew that she had felt that doom in her heart and joy of finding the lucky charm. As she continued with her story I herd her go through my exact experience. Feelings of doubt and looking for salvation in a piece of clover, that simply said everything will be OK. She found it and I then told my story which was much abbreviated because they were the same for both of us. We would be all right. We were a pair of four leafed clover in a field of threes stranded until something took us away.

Maybe Chapter 1

I started this story with the intent of relating a fun and happy stories but then I realized I am miserable. I find myself surrounded by good, friendly people. The climate and environment is very agreeable. There really is nothing to complain about. Now I remember I am poor . Poor enough to make government assistance. A place I never thought I would be. I am barely making it Squeaking by from check to check. Don’t get me wrong – I have been broke before, the only differnce was it was just me. Now with a wife, two children and a dog to take care of my priorities have changed. Sneaking by with a box of cereal are long gone.
There was also a statements on reality that have been shown to me that I felt necessary to communicate to others. There was a time where I was searching for answers and found some plus more questions. At some point the search was over. I think that was when I found love. This time it was real.

I started the journal because of the feelings I was having. Being a teenager of those hormones maybe it is just heavy lust. Shannon was the love that provided me with my answers and stopped my quest for knowledge. It was love that made me feel complete. A yin and yang. I was also making art at the time which satisfied my creativity. Alas here I am again writing, searching for the lost parts of that left behind person. The love is still there. This is not a story of heartbreak. The fuzzyness has returned. The same as I have returned to the East. I did not have these feelings when I lived in the West. I was too focused on my job. Now that is is winter again my body has slow down my mind has awakened. In Phoenix there are no seasons. No down time for my line of work. The focus to learn a new environment and a new golf course pushed the fuzzyness away.
Was I too busy for it or did it only need to grow and spread like a mold. Making more and more fuzz until I would find it and finish whatI started. Now it has grown in strength and will not allow itself to be ignored anymore. This will make me whole again uniting me with the destiny that separated me. Where did it start again what was the catalyst. The symbol . What could it mean. Why would it awaken me, unless

This is what is making my life miserable. Not the poverty. Poverty only related to worldly goods – goods that provide comfort and a feeling of self worth through monetary means by being a consumer. When my son smiles at me – touches me there is no man that is richer. Every parent has that joy. The desire to return that joy to your children through the acquisition of toys and the like is misguided.

This feeling that I am bigger than myself. That I have let myself down. How can you do that if you don’t even know what it was that you did or did not do.

I am very close to being sucked in by it all and losing the gift of clear vision of the world. As work started in Phoenix I found myself in a very competitive market. By good fortune my employer was one of the top places to be in the Valley. Up until now the job of golf course maintenance was medium of communicating with the environment and its life force. Arriving at the other end of the spectrum the management of a golf course become very serious and technical. An aspect I found interesting and become engrossing. I started a journey into becoming management, a consumer, a mindless drone to the Wal-Mart of life. This surprisingly kept me busy enough to fend off the fuzz. The construction and creation of parts of a golf course appeased me.

Not to mention the massive amount of learning I was doing.


ZEN AND THE ANT OF GOLF COURSE MANAGEMENT


After reading Zen and the ant of Motorcycle Maintenance I decided to start a journey of understanding the world around me. I found that was the lest I could do. Not afraid of technology but only ignorant of how it works. Heading a course of my life to understanding and self sufficiency. This is how working of golf courses came to be my profession. A gust for the unknown coupled with a desire to work the land. It seemed like my entire family was dependent on others to maintain and repair their technology. This ignorance was unacceptable for me. The goal is to learn all aspects of life and technology so that when confronted with problems I would have the ability to fix it or at least understand what was wrong. Even though I spent more hours working on Volkswagens than reading books of spirituality I found a balance. The old adage of all things in moderation has always been important to me though sometimes failing. Not to say there is not a lot of spirituality be found while working on a Volkswagen.

If you are looking for a Sage a mechanic is a good place to start. While mostly bitter about the mistakes of others, which gives them a great amount of work, or upset at engineers who made it nearly impossible to replace a simple part. This bitterness gives them great insight to the workings of the world. Don’t mention this to them for their knowledge comes from not knowing they have the ability to be sages , plus mechanics don’t like to be told they do or do not know something. Part of their magic comes from the power of confusion they must bestow on you. This can come in many forms, talking in uncomplete disoriented sentences to numbing and good old fashioned skepticism, which can be blamed on the engineers. Not all mechanics are sages and not all sages are mechanics so don’t ask the next enlighten person you see to give you a tune-up or the guy at Jiffy Lube what is the meaning of life. When you encounter the real thing don’t expect direct answers and don’t give direct questions. Mostly in life you receive the right answer but are asking the wrong question.
“I seem to be having trouble with my car” you say.
“What seems to be the problem?” replies the mechanic.
“Like I said I am having trouble with it.”
“So that is all I get huh ?” says the mechanic.
“Well you know it doesn’t run right” you say.
“There are a great many things in this world that don’t run right but everybody just doesn’t step and pop in here for a quick fix do they” he shot out.

Upon further inspection he was right. It was rather quiet at the mechanics station. Apparently this was disrupting his normal flow of things and was causing great irritability. It must be noted that great irritability is what keeps mechanics going plus the daily ingestion of grease from special intestines located under their fingernails.

“Yeah I guess so sould I tell you about the popping sound or just be off then?” Hooking up from something that apparently required a lot of staring at he continued the stare at me. “Was that so hard – a popping noise hugh, does it have a location or is that all I get.”

“The front right” you wimper trying to stare intently at anything. He pondered and replied “I believe you already know what caused the problem don’t cha.”
Unfortunately you did. You were cornered. The trick now was to find an alternate plausible excuse. Denial that would work but you have already paused too long for that to be believable. Something else.
“When I parallel park I have a tendency to pop up onto the curb a little bit,” you mumbled out half the truth. “Hump” replied the sage and starts to disappear under the car.
The truth be all told you usually run plum over them and usually at a good clip too. Then you bounce down back onto the street finally settling into a parking spot. It really only resembles parallel parking in the sense that when it is all over the car is left somewhat parallel to the street. If a person was to witness this from the sidewalk or even more amazing would be from inside the car the whole operation would appear wildy out of control as the car races landing strip long enough to accommodate present speed and relatively to the destination jerk hard to the right jump the curb careen back to the left then jerk to a halt behind the next car parked along the street. In your defense I must add that the curbing is quite low and extremely low and merly appears to be a curb because that is where curbs should be. In all actuality it is more like a speed bump that’s sole intention is to stop you from doing exactly what you are doing.
“Your ankle is broken” comes from underneath your car.
Under further inspection you determine this is not the case and smartly reply “Huh?” “Your axle is broken where the shock attaches,” comes from the mechanic as he reappears. “Oh this seems like the best reply as you blurt it out.
“You must be quite the parallel parker. It would be my assumption that a new technique might be in order. Think about taking care of your car in the same way it takes care of you. The two of you together.”
Missing the point entirely you pose the question “How much?”
“Hump” is uttered again from the sage as you wonder if there is a medical condition that does along with that sound. Missing the point entirely and he continues with “about 800.”
“Oh” you say with confidence as the mechanic wonders if English is your first language.

I drove Volkswagen on and off from age 16 to 28. When you drive an old air cooled bug bus or whatever you have to be more aware of what is going on compared to driving a modern car. The relationship you must forge between your self, the car, and the road must be strong if you desire to arrive at your destination. Total concentration is needed on the task at hand. Since the Volkswagen is a much simpler and lighter car it does not have as many buffers to the environment as a regular car.
The air cooled engine will cut different ways due to weather conditions. Wind can push the car making you extremely aware of the task of steering the car. My first Volkswagen was a ’74 bug and I was constantly looking for something to happen

Westward Ho!

After leaving Phoenix and arriving in Greensboro, North Carolina both my wife, Shannon and I thought we had made the worst mistake. Our son kelso was almost two and our second child was on the way. We couldn't figure our what was wrong with us. At the time both of us was reluctant to admit anything but slowly it crept out. Frustrated at our new surroundings we didn't know what we had gotten our selves into. This was not the first move for either of us but it was one of the most difficult we had ever faced. When we moved to Phoenix together we both had a purpose and no kids to mind. I was starting a new job, and she was going to start grad school. We all ready had a friend from Kentucky there with a house waiting for us. That was a easy one, we had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Fresh out of school we were both ready for a new start and phoenix was full of them. My new job turned out to be a awesome opportunity, I was promoted only two weeks after starting. The new country club where I started working turned out to be an amazing place. I had never worked at a golf course this nice before. During my first week I couldn't believe how beautiful it was, it was this beauty that shaped my new career path taking me away from the mediocre courses that had filled my previous work history. The place was just so clean, not like Mr. Clean clean but every where you looked was perfect turf. No weeks poked their ugly heads through the grass, no bare spots plagued worn out areas from cart traffic, every inch of the golf course was like a lush green carpet professionally installed with no seams visible. I could only think that I was not worthy of such perfect conditions. There was so much that was new to me I couldn't wait to get to work because everyday solved a riddle of how to achieve such awesome conditions. I often said to my boss and one of my greatest mentors, " I get dumber every day I come to work." He really didn't like the sound of that but I just had to explain. When I moved to Phoenix I thought I was at the top of my game, I had just completed an irrigation project coupled with an irrigation project bringing our course back from death. I thought I had everything down and I was one of the best. It took me about five minutes in phoenix to realise that I wasn't even out of kindergarten. Each time i learned something new I new that I was a little wiser but that only let me know how much more there was to learn. It was my second education of real life work experience that opened my eyes to what it was to be a superintendent and i liked what I saw. So for ever day that I got smarter I realised how dumb I was the day before and hoe dumb I was going to remain, it was just that great of an experience for me. After five years I had grown restless, the position I was in was not a perminant spot all of my predecessors had moved on in a year of two taking head jobs at great golf courses. I felt like there was something wrong with me, why couldn't I get the big job, what was wrong with me. It turned out that it was not me just the market that changed but I didn't know that till much later. Several other things started eating away at me as well. I really didn't like using all of the water that we needed to keep up these pristine conditions, while the other courses I had worked at did not have the same quality conditions I felt like there were in more of a balance with nature. Yes they had irrigation systems but we didn't have to use them all the time. The natural rain kept things going and irrigation was supplemental. Secondly i had a family now, Shannon and I had gotten married and had our first child Kelso. I started to view the world as a different place after that just like any parent. The one thing that I thought of was my family being a part of out larger combined family. My parents and sister and Shannon's large and loving family. I wanted our children to enjoy the same things I enjoyed growing up and that was the large family experience. This is hard to do when most of the family is over 1600 miles away. Everything was different to me now and I wanted everything to be different as well. I wasn't the same person who moved out west 5 years ago and i had the itch to get moving. Most of our friends were moving away as well and I didn't want to be the last person left at the party. I wanted something to fit my new self and family so that it all matched up and fit nice and neat, boy was I ever wrong about that.

Who is Driving

On my way to work one dark morning I was nearing my exit. It was dark because I go to work before the sun comes up which is a plus because I don't have to deal with traffic. This luxury allows me the opportunity to experiment with routes, carefully measuring my time, distance, counting lights etc. Like so many of us when we find our route it becomes embedded within us like a slot car working itself around a track. So much that even sometimes when we are not going to work we find our selves going that way with out any awareness. After seeing the man on the tracks so many times I kept my route going over those tracks. I just had to drive past the cotton square mall. Until it was torn down.

Then it was gone, a route that I had deemed the quickest and with the fewest lights suddenly became a mile longer, and took longer to navigate and was not a good route at all. So here I am sitting in the White Pony, the name of my truck, getting ready to exit onto my new route. Until this point both were the same, this is the point of deviation. Oddly enough the exit is on the left hand side of the road which at this point is more like a parkway. Then I am hit with the urge to regress to my old route. Something is calling me there, well actually I have a name for it. I know it is best if I just listen. So just before the road drops away I veer right and cross over three lanes of traffic. It is all effortless because it is right. There is no kick up of dust or erratic driving just a little white pickup merging all the away across the parkway, like a lost tourist who can't decide what exit to take. It all goes unnoticed because nobody is there to see it. In my minds eye I see the taillights of my car tracing to the right and picking up speed for my course rings true.

Driving on my old route I start to think about the old factory that was recycled into the cotton square mall ant then recycled again into building material and crushed brick. Sometimes I wonder why I think about this building so much but I keep trying to figure it out. All that is left is a several acres or red mud. It is that red clay soil that once you walk into it is starts to stack up onto your shoes and pretty soon you have four or five mud pancakes and you walk changes more into a skate. Every step releases a pancake or mud only to be replaced by another. You cringe at the thought of this goo creeping up the side of your shoes knowing it will stain them for weeks at a time. I wonder if I will See the man in the tracks. I haven't seen him since they tore the old factory down. That was a divergence for us as well, just like I changed lanes earlier so did the cotton square mall. It is not there but it is, just like the man. I have come to believe that in his world the mall is still there, and it is waiting for me.

Pulling up towards the light all of this dances inside my head plus so many other strings that dangle around way in the back wanting to be explored and tied together. That is when I see him but he is not under the steel framework like usual he is running across the street. At first I take it for a apparition because I can not make anything out and I keep driving towards it, with the chance to run into or would it be through it. Socks, I see socks running across the street, it is not him at all it is just some dude dressed all in black crossing the street after stopping in at the convince store. Luckily for him I see the socks because that is all I can really make out, socks tells me that this is a person that is here and now. I brake so I don't hit him, I brake just a little to hard as I am snapped from my trace over the man and the mall. My brakes slow me down and there is no note that I was a little panicked. My tires don't lock up, I don't brace myself or even through my lunch in the seat next to me onto the floor but it does roll forward a little. The man with the white socks that saved his life takes one hop up in a effort to pick up his pace and then steps onto the curb. What a dufus I think, wearing all black like that. I quickly check my review mirror to see if any other cars are close behind. It is all clear, I didn't feel like taking on in the tail over that guy.

Later that day as I keep thinking over and over about how it all played out there is only one think of again and again. It is going to happen again, but it is not going to be as nice.