I don’t drive this kind of mail vehicle…..and I’m sure that somewhere in New Jersey, this guy’s office had a good long safety talk about not driving into icy rivers.
“Not driving into icy rivers”!? Hah! That’s crazy. Who would do that?
It’s pouring down rain here….but early enough in the season that I don’t suspect that I’ll encounter any icy rivers.
It’s funny how YouTube goes….if you let it run in the background while you’re typing your blog, it plays all the postman videos that you didn’t know you’d cued up.
How about this one:
People who have the time to stand in their house and film somebody having a problem because somebody else was too lazy to put the trash cans back on the curb….should be….should be….should be….well, something should be done.
And all the trash cans are in the road.
And the mailman comes off as the villain.
I’ll bet that this guy put all the cans in the mailman’s way!!! IT WAS A SETUP!!
Craziness.
Or, and then I’ll stop, because posting a bunch of videos isn’t blogging….it’s just “posting a bunch of videos”.
Here’s a woman complaining about all the bad treatment she’s gotten for years from her mailman.
WHAT?!!
I’ll bet that the guy delivering the mail would really rather just “go along to get along”….but things are bad all the time with some customers…so what do you do?
Put the package on the porch and get chomped on by the giant Rottweiler….that’s what you do.
Don’t throw the package on the ground, dude.
She’s filming you!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUvHUsOWxOw
“What she went through everyday”.
Mannnnnnnn.
It was good that the book didn’t tear her disability check, though.
That was a bonus.
“All I did was spend my time filing complaints”.
Maaaaaannnnnnnnn.
It’s raining today….and I’ll wear my raincoat….and do everything I can to protect people’s mail.
That’s how I roll.
Who needs any complaints, anyway?
There’s a million or so of these videos about bad mailman.
I don’t want to end up on YouTube.
I better start wearing a disguise….or….just continue to mind my P’s and Q’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqjO6QG0oS8
(We get “safety talks” at work where they run down any accidents that have happened and tell us that we’ll be fired if it happens to us. Most of them seem to involve these LLVs. Crazy. The mailman probably lost his job over this one….)
Now, a story that kind of relates to what she was saying is the one where a car journey is described….a car journey that happens at night, when you have to use your headlights to see the way ahead.
The author describes how you can only see ahead a couple of hundred yards in the light your headlights provide….how, for the whole journey, you can only see ahead a small portion of the trip.
No matter how far you have to go, you only see what your light illuminates.
Now, it could be a total freakout.
You could think, “My gosh, I can’t see ahead of me!! I don’t have any faith in this trip….I can’t see the whole distance…”
But, usually, what happens…probably because of past experiences turning out alright….is that we trust that a big journey, taken in small increments, usually turns out OK….and we keep driving….even if the GPS is programmed wrong….even if we end up in what seems like the wrong place.
It’s something about faith, I guess. We keep trying to hit our mark. We trust the headlights.
As far as railroad tracks go, I suppose my own track would be a meandering spaghetti melange of twists and turns, looping and splitting and coming back in on itself…..veering and bouncing….and, probably, sometimes rusting from inactivity.
You can’t drive a train like that….all twisty and turny.
You’ll have a derailment eventually if you try and drive a train like that.
And then, you have a family and the train tracks seem to straighten out….and new passengers get on and get off….but each has a “lifetime pass” with unlimited mileage and…so….sometimes they come and sometimes they go….welcomed at the return.
It’s a blessing …maybe…when the function at the junction becomes “getting the passengers to their destination”. If you can’t figure out where you’re going, then it’s a blessing when the goal becomes, in part, at least, to help somebody else get to where they need to go.
Irregardless, people ride.
If it’s not your train, then it’s probably a train of their own….maybe running on a parallel track….maybe heading off for parts unknown.
Reading Zoe’s post again, and reading her resume of developing aspirations, made me think (JUST NOW!!) that maybe it’s not so much arriving at every destination we set for ourselves….maybe it’s wanting to take the journey in the first place that’s the important part of living.
Anyway, we’re all really on the same train.
We could be going the same direction….to the same destination…and still be taking a different trip.
And the trip never really ends.
You just have to be ready to jump on the train when the conductor calls out, “All aboard!”
Nate and I went to the sawmill yesterday to pick up some lumber that they’d cut for me.
It’s interesting to buy rough-sawn lumber.
It’s cheap….compared to the stuff that I buy at the lumberyard.
Of course, it’s always interesting to go anywhere with Nate. He can make the mundane exciting.
After we got the lumber loaded in the truck, Nate went up into the sawmill’s “control room” so he could see how the big circular blade cut through the logs.
I think that he was impressed.
Then we drove back to town….and met Jenny so we could look at a car that we were thinking about buying for my daughter.
It’s amazing how heavy a relatively small load of green oak is….the truck felt like it was really loaded down.
The car that we looked at was probably the nicest car that I’ve ever driven….and, in the end, we decided that it was a little bit too nice for what Zoe needed.
There is a difference between an old Jeep Cherokee and a really nice Mercedes.
I can see why people like Mercedes.
It was luxurious.
Jenny said that I was a sight in my dusty John Deere hat and my young and still scruffy beard driving that fancy Mercedes.
I suppose that I must have been.
Nate took the short test drive with me….so he and I really got to do some driving together yesterday.
Our friend who was selling the car was going to sell it to her mechanic if we didn’t buy it.
That’s a good sign that the car is pretty nice if your mechanic wants to buy it.
None of my mechanics have wanted any of my vehicles.
Go figure.
Anyway…back to this rough-sawn oak that I bought yesterday.
55 cents a board foot….
Cheap.
A board foot is calculated as being a board that’s an inch thick….twelve inches wide…..and a foot long….so 55 cents buys a square foot of pretty stout oak.
That is a bargain….at least, for my use value, it seems like a pretty darn good deal.
Our neighbor down the road from the new property cut down a couple of pretty good size oaks on his land, and another neighbor who has a band saw mill cut it to size for flooring.
He’s going to have another neighbor who runs a cabinet shop mill it down and turn it into tongue and groove flooring when it’s dry enough.
I’ve heard that it takes a year per inch of thickness for a board to dry enough to use….so he has it stickered and covered out close to his house.
A year seems to go by pretty fast….so he should have some nice floors in his house when he’s done.
I like going to the sawmill.
I’m glad that Nate has a chance to see something like that.
(This isn’t a picture of the sawmill that we use. The one we use is called Woodpecker Sawmill in Mills River, NC. Good, good folks. I just thought this picture was kind of nice….)
I keep seeing all these squashed copperheads on our road.
Dead.
That goes without saying, I suppose. If these snakes are “squashed”, they’re probably dead.
When I’m running….and I’m not, right now….I’m taking a break from the running….I run in the dark.
Early morning runs….in the dark.
That’s when I run….when I can’t see….and no one can see me.
I thought about those snakes….and thought of an “early morning, in the dark, I can’t see” run….on a road covered with poisonous snakes….like a perverse form of russian roulette….played on a three-mile stretch of long black gun.
I don’t have a death wish.
I like to maintain a positive outlook.
But….I don’t know if believing that I’m safe is always enough.
Those are some pretty big copperheads that I’m seeing lately….squashed on the road.
A car tire makes a more lasting impression than a size 9 running shoe.
Or, I should say, a car tire makes a more lasting impression on a viper than a viper might make on a man wearing a size 9 running shoe.
It might be part of the thrill….to survive something that really isn’t all that big a deal.
What in life isn’t like that, though? Reality is easy if I don’t conjure up potential failings.
I’m more afraid the more I know.
Where’d all these snakes come from?
If I’ve seen 3 of them squashed, then how many of them are waiting in the darkness to leave a lasting impression on my sweaty calf?
Stick around for Dustin Yellin’s description of the creative space, Pioneer Works, where he describes a community of creative people who interact with each other and create something good.
Good gosh, I’d like an environment like that.
Not that everywhere you go can’t be somewhere creative.
Not that everyone you meet isn’t creative in some way.
But….to be in an environment where people were aware that what they were doing might be trying to find a creative solution to a problem….or might be somewhat “creative”….whatever that word means…would be pretty wonderful.
Who am I kidding? It’s pretty wonderful to drive a mail jeep around every day.
It’s all creative in it’s own way.
Really. It must be “something”…..right?
You have to be creative to figure out how to live in a world that doesn’t value creativity if you can’t put a monetary figure on the outcome.
Anyway….I think that your environment is kind of malleable…. sort of.
We want to survive….and part of that is making your environment “bearable”.
And “bearable” is kind of subjective.
All we really have is our perspective.
I am way more tired than I should be…..and….
it’s all creative.
I know that already….I’m just tired.
You shouldn’t put a keyboard in front of a tired man who’s looking for something.
“one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor” Paul Simon
I’ve been listening to “Walden” on my drive-a-round lately.
Man.
What a great book.
I’d read it before…but must have read it in the “this is an important book…..I should finish this one….I’m supposed to learn from this one…I better pay attention to this one…” mode.
I never really take it all in when I’m trying like that.
This time, I’m just enjoying it.
(I downloaded the audiobook from a site called librivox.org …..excellent site. Free audiobooks in the public domain….excellent quality readers….great, great, great.)
This book….Walden…is one big love song!
Thoreau’s in love with this pond, Walden.
From what I remember hearing, Walden Pond isn’t really all that impressive.
It wouldn’t make a Reader’s Digest picture book of impressive natural wonders.
It’s not even that remote….people came to visit him all the time.
But, he built a little cabin and stayed there for a couple of years….and wrote this amazing book….a book that’s about a lot more than just this “little pond” that he lived by.
Maybe the love goes bigger than “just a little pond”?
I like to write about things that I wonder about.
I haul myself up to look over the fence….checking out all the grass….and think about what it would be like to be somewhere else.
Never seriously….I like where I am….but to choose to “love where I am”….that’s something that I don’t concentrate on all the time.
I need to start concentrating on what I have right now.
Looking around is just a weird “cop-out”, anyway.
I’m too lazy to make my current place in the world amazing (or notice that it’s already amazing)….so I try to conjure up a situation where things might be better…somewhere “over the rainbow”.
Goofy.
Happiness isn’t necessarily a place or a perceived situation.
That’s down the road from two places where we live….two places….but I drive by it all the time so I forget to write my love song when I need to.
That’s a place….and that’s my family in the place. What could be better than that?
Love is such an action-packed activity.
Love is such a choice.
Anyway, maybe it’s not a place that we fall in love with…..maybe it’s a love that we bring with us…and give to the place we find ourselves in?
I’m just drinking coffee.
Before anyone else gets up on a Sunday morning, I’m drinking coffee and thinking about this guy, Thoreau, who built a little cabin and thought about his place by a pond close to town….and about his place in the world.
“Never believe a prediction that does not empower you.”
Oh, man.
This guy is so great.
Giving a TedTalk at Ironwood State Prison.
How different would things be if more people got a chance to listen to positive people like this?
I do a blog post every day.
Some days are hard….because I get tired….or lack imagination….or don’t have enough creativity to figure out how to fill the page with “whatever”.
It’s hard because of who and what I think that I am in that moment.
But….some days a gift gets dropped in my lap and the writing comes easy….because a man like this gives a talk that resonates like this one did with me.
