Westward Ho'.....Lou, Part Three

 Unless you are much better at retaining information than I am, you need a refresher on the life and times of poor old Lou. I'm not going to go back to the first story but I'll copy and paste the last paragraph to the last story. (I had to re-read the whole tale to remember what and who I was writing about......SIGH...)

The next morning, with a vow to not spend another dollar frivolously, Lou packed up his meager collection of clothes, personal items, and one or two memory makers he had taken from his former home, and walked outside. He allowed himself one more Uber trip and chose downtown Fort Worth. He truly did not plan to become homeless but he was sure getting close to it. On the ride west to Fort Worth, Lou made the decision to be dropped off at the Greyhound bus station. He would choose a town that sounded good, buy a ticket, and wait for the bus to load up. Looking over at the bus schedule for something fairly cheap, he chose Graham, Texas. Only $49.00 one way. He walked up to the counter to find the next bus wasn’t leaving until 1 a.m. the next day. He decided to find something else and settled on a town called Alpine. A bus was heading out at 3 in the afternoon. Alpine sounded nice. It sounded almost refreshing. He bought the ticket without even asking which direction he was going. It didn’t really matter. It was a long bus ride away from Arlington and bad memories. He would have some time to really work out a plan as he rode the big bus to his new “home”.

Three o'clock finally arrived at the Fort Worth bus terminal and Lou awoke from a really good, and much needed nap, to the sound of "Final boarding for Alpine, Texas loading at platform two!" He jumped up grabbing his meager possessions and running to the bus. He got there just as the porter was beginning to close the doors on the luggage compartment. Whew! Could have easily missed my ride!

Lou boarded and settled in for the long ride to his new home. The bus wasn't full but there were more people going to Alpine than he thought. This was a good sign he had chosen his destination well. As the bus pulled out of the station and slowly made its way to the interstate Lou was excited to see where he was going. As the bus lumbered onto the interstate and headed west he was a bit confused. For some reason he thought that bus would be heading north. Alpine sounded like a northern town. If he had been thinking he would have known that since the name of the town had "Texas" attached to it, it didn't matter how far north he traveled. He wasn't going anywhere near the mountains. He was feeling kind of stupid but no one knew except him. He would just keep this little bit of information to himself and act like Alpine was just where he thought it was.....wherever that was. Now he felt like he was really on an adventure! "Where are ya headed son?" "Oh, I have no idea..wherever this bus goes I guess."

As the miles rolled along, Lou spent some time reviewing his rocky life since graduating from high school. Man, it seemed so long ago. It was really easy to mess up life by making dumb decisions. And dumb decisions were indeed made. First of all, he fell head over heels in love before even starting his second year of college. He knew then it was dumb but he just couldn't help himself. Next, he allowed Dana to start making decisions for him rather than use his head to reason things out. His grades started falling, his dad stopped paying Lou's tuition, he started to despise his little apartment that he had loved so much....all because Dana made fun of it.

If these mistakes weren't enough, he asked Dana to marry him while he was barely twenty years old! What was he thinking? She readily agreed and started planning a big wedding. Things were getting out of control for Lou but he was in love. Nothing else mattered. Dana was embarrassed her fiance worked at a grocery store so she talked her daddy into giving Lou a job at his car dealership. Lou had loved his job at Kroger but he figured he would enjoy selling cars even more. He felt a little uncomfortable taking the job, knowing he only had it because of Dana being a spoiled little rich girl. Then when Lou's parents started planning the rehearsal dinner at a local franchise style restaurant, Dana was mortified to the point her dad "insisted" on paying for the rehearsal dinner himself. This action, along with lots of little slights toward Lou's parents, caused a distance between Dana and his parents. They didn't feel welcome yet Lou didn't try to fix things. If Dana was happy, Lou was ecstatic. Eventually, after the wedding was over and dust had settled, Lou's parents stopped trying to have a relationship with the new couple....and Lou pretty much lost the family he grew up with. Sad story and Lou felt a huge lump in his throat as he reviewed this part of the past few years. He wondered if his folks would ever welcome him back. He didn't feel like pursuing that prospect quite yet, but someday...

Lou knew he had to take control of his life. He decided his first assignment to himself was to find a job. Well, actually he had to find a place to sleep and then he would find a job. He would take the first thing that came along even if it was digging ditches. When he knew he had a home, an income, and a sense of creating new roots, he would find a church. He hadn't been to church since his parents moved to Detroit. It didn't seem as important to Lou as it did to his mom but now he was beginning to think church might help. As these thoughts turned more spiritual, Lou discovered he missed the old comfort of church, singing the songs even though his voice was terrible, and praying....how did he get so far off track? Right then he stopped, lowered his head, and reintroduced himself to God. He confessed his wrongs, his stupidity, gullibility, and all the other "ity's" he could think of. He even teared up but he kept his face turned to the window so no one would see. After his "Amen", which included a promise to find a church even before he found a job, he felt a peace he hadn't had in several years. "Yep", Lou thought to himself, "You're finally getting this messed up life about as straight as this Interstate 20 we've been riding on for like...forever.

Lou started to enjoy his trip and the view outside after their last stop in Pecos. Leaving Pecos and the interstate, the bus driver took the exit for Highway 17 to the next stop, Fort Davis. "Low and behold, we are going to the mountains," Lou thought to himself. "They sure aren't the Rockies but man oh man, they are beautiful!" (Do you need quotation marks around thoughts? Just asking for a friend.) They were entering the Barrilla mountains after miles and miles of flat old Texas. They passed what was kindly posted as "Casket Mountain, elev. 6183 feet" just before a weird sound came from under the bus. More metallic sounds grew louder as the bus began to weave on the road. The driver was trying to make it to a wide spot in the road when a front suspension gave and the bus lurched to the right. Dropping off the paved road to soft sand on the shoulder caused the bus to teeter over a drop off before finally rolling over on the right side and sliding down the ridge. Luckily, a stand of mesquite trees stopped the slide and the bus came to rest on it's side, on the side of a small "mountain", in the bushes and mesquite trees... and a lot of dust.

Total silence was heard for a few moments, then the screaming and hollering started. No, it wasn't the little old ladies making the noise. It was Lou who had been sitting on the left side of the bus and fell into the seats and windows of the right side, hitting his head on glass and breaking his right femur. There were other injuries of course and passengers were struggling to get out of the wreckage, but no one seemed as damaged as Lou sounded. He had never experienced such pain. As the bus driver worked his way through the wreck giving aid and instructions, he was trying to get to Lou who evidently had a bad injury and wasn't moving...just screaming. Everyone who had already made it out of the bus was dialing 9-1-1, inundating the normally bored operator to near hysterics as she fielded calls while trying to contact emergency crews in Fort Davis. Fire trucks and ambulances arrived shortly and the passengers still in the bus were helped out. Bandages were applied, comforting words were said, and arrangements for hotel rooms were made all while the firemen tried to find a way to extract Lou from the bus without hurting that broken leg more. The fire chief, a man named Ken according to the name tag, got to Lou first and started to calm him down. With soothing words and gentle movements Lou was untangled and carried out of the bus and to a waiting ambulance. Fire chief Ken rode in the back of the ambulance because he had comforted Lou and calmed him down. His calm and quiet demeanor, along with a dry humor that kept Lou from more screaming, was more helpful than the knowledge he would soon be in a fully equipped emergency room....with real doctors!

A short time in the ER left the doctors knowing Lou needed to be taken by Care Flight back up to Abilene. Surgery was needed and Fort Davis didn't host an orthopedic surgeon. The helicopter ride was painless for a drugged up Lou. Unfortunately he didn't get to enjoy his first helicopter experience because he was so drugged up and he doesn't remember it to this day. Lou's parents had been notified of the accident and flew in to Abilene from Detroit as soon as they could get a flight. With a repaired femur, lots of painkillers, and the parents he had missed so much, Lou was feeling pretty good laying in his hospital bed. There was time for healing, physically and emotionally. His parents let him know how much he had been missed and how much love they had for him. All in all, this accident was turning into a blessing....oh, you know it wasn't. Accidents are never blessings. They are wake up calls occasionally and this one certainly turned out to be for Lou and his family. A mended relationship healed faster than a mended femur but Lou got the care and physical therapy he needed while still in Abilene.

During this time of healing, Lou discovered what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He was going to.......haha! Wait til the next episode to find out!

Grease Monkey......NOT!!

As I was growing up at 656 Elm Street in Hurst, Texas, I lived through many stressful situations. Take for example the distribution of dessert at a table of seven with eight servings of cherry pie. Will that last slice belong to me or will my dad insist on saving it for his lunch the following day? Looking back, I realize that was always a silly question. There was also the stress of maintaining my solid C- grade average over the long haul. Hard times indeed.....but the worst stress I ever suffered was that of helping my dad work on the car. Oh I wanted to help! Every time daddy raised the hood of whichever old car was sitting in the driveway, I was right there offering to help. Little did I know I should have made myself scarce when those opportunities arose. 

I was rocking along just fine in life with only the stress of not getting enough dessert or watching my grade point average drop another point or two. Why did I have to offer to help work on any of those old cars? Luckily for me, I was well-known as a klutz and possible slow learner....I know, it surprises me too. For a long time during those carefree days, my offers to help were answered with, "If you really want to help, stay out of the way!" A whole new level of stress began for me when the answer became, "Yeah, you can help. Hand me a three eighths box end." Whut? Let me ask you, if you were a ten year old who had never even peeked in a toolbox, would you know what a three eighths box end might be? My first stabs at grabbing the right tool were chuckled at because working on old cars was my dad's happy place. After a few failed attempts at choosing the right tool though, the comedy was over and I was told to go away. It took a long time to get another shot at helping with the mechanical work, which looked really fun and made my dad happy. Little did I know....

Being the inquisitive sort who was always searching for knowledge.....HAHAHA, please stop it! Okay, being the sort who desperately wanted to please his dad, I researched tools, their use, and their nomenclature. Naturally I approached my cousin, Mike. Mike's dad also loved working on old cars and surely Mike had already gone through this trial by fire of learning everything there was to know about tools. I called him and explained my situation. He did indeed know what a three eighths box end tool was and told me important details. It seems a three eighths box end was not a three eighths open end. He went on to tell me it was also not an adjustable (better known as a monkey wrench for some reason). WHAT is it? "Oh", Mike replied. "It's a wrench". Did everyone follow that? I didn't either. Mike admitted he too went into a major panic whenever his dad asked him to hand over a tool of any kind. He had learned the simple things like box end, open end, monkey, and channel locks but his dad started throwing things at him like, "Hand me that fifteen sixteen whoopydoo". No, there is no tool known as a whoopydoo but there may as well have been. Some of the things both Mike and I were asked to hand over were just as bizarre. If the request for that 'big monkey' came along for the first time would you have known what to grab? I didn't think so....but I knew for a lifetime after getting it wrong once.

I finally got to where I understood the odd names shade tree mechanics had for their tools but I still struggled with sizes. A request for a three eighths box end went from "what is he talking about?" to "good grief, which box end is it?" In my own defense we had not covered fractions in school yet....or maybe we had and I spent the time watching the pretty little birds playing in the trees. Once I did know fractions I still had trouble figuring out the specific box end or open end daddy wanted. I was just as apt to hand him a 5/8ths rather than a 3/8th...(notice how I switched over to fractions? I'm not that slow!). This lack of ability to judge sizes still haunts me today. I never could look at a nut or bolt and say with any certainty "that there is a 5/8ths hex nut....for sure". It got to where whenever I had to hand over a tool, I would have three or four more options in my other hand, just in case.

I treasure those memories of "helping" my dad work on things. I didn't learn much but some of the lessons stuck. I've managed to keep all my family's old wrecks running longer than they should. My brother Glenn soaked it up like a sponge. Even today he has several old and classic cars he maintains. He's also teaching his two grandsons everything he knows. He suspects the older one is actually learning while the younger one is dreaming of being a rock star but he hopes he can teach the blooming rock star how to at least keep the oil changed in his car. As for me, I tried to teach both of my sons everything I knew about keeping the old car in good shape. It didn't take long of course. I didn't have that much to tell them but neither of them seemed interested anyway. My oldest son Jamie even told me all he needed to have in his toolbox was a roll of quarters and a list of good mechanics. Fortunately they took their school work seriously and now each enjoy a successful career....AND a list of good mechanics. 

I still think of myself as a good shade tree mechanic. That's how I think, but I know I'm not. I still can't figure out what size tool I need to loosen or tighten a bolt or nut. When the leaders of the free world decided we should all convert to the metric system my problem was doubled. Fortunately, I've been successful enough that I bought myself a spiffy new toolbox called a roll-away. Whenever I decide to do something stupid, like my own repair to an ailing car, I can roll that shiny red toolbox right out there in the driveway and pick the wrong sized wrench to my hearts delight!