Splash!!

Remember the wonder and amazement of being young, free, and behind the wheel of your very own automobile? No stress, no worries, every day was sunny and bright.....well, that's the way I remember it anyway. There was a short window of time when all those things seemed true and real. I hope all of you got to experience that feeling at least once. Oddly, I'm beginning to feel that way again since I'm old, retired, debt free, and my bum leg isn't acting up too much. Now if the morons in Washington will straighten up their collective acts and play fair, maybe we'll all be able to enjoy some "stress/worry free" days.... sorry, I got carried away there for a minute. I was going to tell a story about the past when all those things had fallen into place for me.

It was the summer of 1968. I had graduated from high school ranked in the top 600 of a class of 621. I remember leaving Bell High School for the last time. It was a beautiful late May morning. My graduation tassel was hanging from my rear view mirror, my windows were all down on the shiny Chevy Impala I had bought with my own money, nice breeze, and all those losers still in high school were sweating away the last week of their semester. I had made a trip to the school to pick up my last letter jacket....yes, I was a letter-man.....don't swoon.....nearly everyone in band had lettered at some point or other and I had managed to do it my senior year. I wasn't too sure that jacket would ever be worn since I was now a COLLEGE MAN but I was still proud to finally get it. It was a perfectly beautiful morning. The whole world was ahead for me....Yay!!

I started my new job at Six Flags the next morning. I was free from my grocery store job, which at the time seemed like a wonderful thing. I wound up missing that place as the college years progressed but in that first summer out of school I was free as a bird!!! 

Now that I'm older and the likelihood of being arrested is minimal, I will admit that the cool Chevy I owned made me drive a lot faster than the law allowed....much, much faster. I couldn't help it. I tried to slow it down but no-o, that sucker liked speed. Everywhere I went I was amazed to get there earlier than planned and in some cases I was amazed I got there at all. My route to Six Flags was down the old farm to market road 157 between Euless and Arlington. It was a nice long and straight stretch of highway and I liked it. 

About two weeks into my daily drive along FM 157 a storm front blew in and it rained so hard one of my neighbors told me he actually saw Noah float by in his ark. I'm not too sure he was telling the truth but I could never prove it. Anyway, it rained so hard during this storm, the river flooded the road and it had to be closed down for a while. This meant I would have to get to work by driving through "the river bottoms" which ironically did not flood. That was over fifty years ago and I still haven't figured out that scenario. The river bottom route was winding narrow roads, deep drop-offs, spooky as the dickens at night, and slow. I couldn't wait for 157 to be opened back up. After a week, the water still hadn't receded enough to open it back up so I was looking at another few days of slow driving. Finally, one morning Mark E. Baby, the KFJZ disc jockey informed us the road was now reopened for slow moving traffic only. I was so excited as I grabbed my stuff for work I may have missed the part about "slow moving traffic only"....pretty sure I did miss it. 

I always drove down the old Hwy 183 from Hurst to Euless like the model citizen I was. Hwy 183 was not a good road for fast driving. FM 157 crossed Hwy 183 right in the heart of "downtown Euless"... HAHAHA....sorry. If you didn't live around here back then you probably didn't catch the humor in that. Anyway, I would turn south on 157 in downtown Euless (snicker snicker) and head for Arlington. About a half mile down the road, 157 would drop down considerably to the lower straight route I loved. I couldn't see the road because an overhead train track was located right over the hill on 157. That morning, as I started down the hill, I opened it up looking forward to an adrenaline filled race to Six Flags. I was already up to about 80 mph when I went under the train tracks and spread out before me was an empty road...except for about two dozen guys working pumps as they struggled to get the last of the water off the road. There was about a hundred yards of road still under water and it could be used but only very, very slowly. As the job foreman pointed out to me as I flew past him, I was going a bit too fast. I hit that water creating the most beautiful arched cascade on either side of my car. The waterworks people in Las Vegas would have been so impressed. There wasn't a dry worker left on either side of the road. I knew it wasn't in my best interest to stop at this point even though some of them probably wanted to congratulate me on my performance. I floored that old Chevy and prayed all the way to dry asphalt it wouldn't stall out on me. By the time I got to the end of the water I must have been going close to 100 mph. I didn't slow down until I reached the other side of the straightaway. In my rearview mirror I could see laborers waving and cheering me on. Some were waving shovels, some were waving only one finger, but all were jumping up and down and screaming their approval. 

I didn't use FM 157 to get to work the rest of that summer. The nice, quiet river bottoms seemed a much more relaxed way to travel.

Poor, Poor, Pitiful Lou...

Lou sat on the front porch of his parents home in Ann Arbor loving the beautiful weather but brooding about his lot in life. After two years of intense physical therapy his doctor had declared him as well as he was ever going to be. If he had been in Texas the doc would probably have said he was "fit as a fiddle". TWO YEARS! How could two years have gone by without even one step in the positive direction of getting his life going again. He thought his life was half used up at twenty-five and he was leaving Fort Worth on the ill-fated bus ride to Alpine. He thought at that time he had used up all his allotted stupid ideas and he could jump start a new life. Now he gloomily considered his current state: Twenty-seven, still no education, still no job, and worst of all, still living with and depending on his parents. Something has to happen.....NOW!!

Taking an inventory of his newest bad decisions he realized his biggest mistake since being carted home from Abilene in the back of his parents' rented van was in not starting back to school when his dad offered to pay for it. If he had he would be well on his way to a four year bachelors degree in....what?! What would he have majored in since his aeronautical engineering path bit the dust at UTA? As he lay in the hospital in Abilene after surgery, Lou was sure he knew what he wanted to do with his life. The emergency response team in Fort Davis had taken such good care of him he had decided to pursue a career as a paramedic. It seemed so far back in time though, he didn't have the same burning desire to do it. Maybe being a super hero wasn't in the cards for Lou. But Lou, old boy, you better come up with an idea soon. The money he received from Greyhound Bus Lines after the accident wasn't going to last forever. His good graces with his parents would fade as well now that he was declared healthy. They wanted to retire and travel and he understood. He didn't want to stay in Michigan. Texas was home and he ached to be back where it was scorching hot most of year, except for the two or three days in late March called "spring". Maybe he should widen his view of available options.....no, Texas it was to be even if he couldn't explain it to his own satisfaction.

A few days later, Lou finished packing up his few personal possessions into the back of the 2007 Kia Sportage his dad had given him, obviously out of pity. The car had been Lou's mom's car and rather than use it as a valueless trade-in, his dad opted to let poor old Lou have it before taking delivery of the new Chevrolet Suburban they had bought for their travels. After all the good-byes, hugs, tears, and uncontrolled gleeful jumping around by his parents, Lou fired up the old Kia and headed for....."home".

Lou decided he wanted to try west Texas again so he set his sights, and GPS of course, on Fort Davis. Maybe this time his luck would be better. Since his window of opportunity for a college education had closed, in his own mind anyway, he thought he might enjoy working at a hardware store. That's where he would start anyway if, and this was a big IF, the old Kia made it that far. It did. He had a few worries along the way and had to buy new front tires in St. Louis, replace a worn strut in Memphis, and worry about overheating all the way from Big Spring to Pecos. He did make it though and the old car was still chugging along as he pulled into the little motel in Fort Davis he would call home until he found a cheap apartment.

After a couple days rest and stretching exercises for his mended leg, Lou headed to the largest hardware store in town in hopes of snagging a job of some sort. He was told by the pretty girl at the cash register that the manager was gone for the day but it didn't matter because they weren't doing any hiring at the moment. Well, so much for improved luck! She did say a few customers posted job openings on the bulletin board next to the entrance if he wanted to take a look on his way out. There wasn't much there. He didn't like the idea of digging fence post holes for the two ranches needing help and mowing Miss Ethyl's yard for the summer wasn't going to cover expenses. He did stop at one listing though. There was a guy in town building a new garage with overhead apartment in the back of his house. The job only paid $20/hour when working, which meant he might go days without any pay. The interesting part of the listing though said, "owner will provide room and board for single man, or young married couple, no kids or pets please!" Lou had none of the above. He also had absolutely no experience in carpentry either but how hard could it possibly be to learn. He decided to apply for the job! He wrote down the information, "for inquiries, call Bert at 555-1212".

Alarming News!!

I was watching one of Debbie's favorite Vlogs on YouTube yesterday. Oh, no I wasn't watching it by myself. Had it been me turning on the TV, we would have been watching "Gunsmoke". However, Debbie got to the remote first so there we sat, watching another episode of "Let's Bore Russell To Tears". 

During this informative Vlog, it was mentioned with an embarrassed chuckle that this Vlogger used to be a Blogger! Can you imagine?! She informed us no one ever Blogs anymore....what a waste of effort on a primitive way to tell a story! I had no idea.....I sincerely apologize for my antiquated method of story-telling and I appreciate each of you who have continued to read this appalling site. Oh well, I couldn't figure out how to create a second blog a few months ago so it's a pretty good bet I'll never figure out Vlogging. If you'll stick with me maybe we can muddle through together.

Back when the earth was still cooling and dinosaurs roamed the area, I was a skinny, invisible student at West Hurst Elementary. I loved West Hurst Elementary. I was moved there from South Hurst Elementary as soon as the doors to the new school swung open. What a treat! The best part of the whole thing was this new school backed up to "the woods". The woods designated the end of the world to those of us brought up in the fairly new suburb of Hurst. We had never been allowed to venture past the open pasture into the woods for fear we would fall off the edge of the world. We played baseball and fought native Americans, which we callously called "Indians", in our beloved field. We were a bit upset when bulldozers began clearing a large part of that field to build a stupid school. Our anger was quelled when we saw the new ball diamond with a real backstop included with the new school campus. Also, tether ball courts were installed. If you don't know about tether ball you are probably a lonely, sad, and empty sort of soul. The best part of the whole thing was most of the pasture and all of the woods were left intact. The fine elected officials serving on the school board still used good sense back then.

The second best part of moving to the new school was the kindness of the builder to leave ALL the big boxes the furnaces came in. I almost said 'the boxes the air conditioners came in' but remembered the era. Schools weren't air conditioned back then...silly writer. Those had to be furnace boxes. They were way too big to hold anything else. Anyway, whatever they were soon became the favorite attraction of every boy and some of the girls newly enrolled. Our recess time became "jump in a box and roll down the hill", over and over again. To clarify, the school was situated fairly close to the road and the field sloped down pretty drastically before leveling off at the new ball park. A worthy student could get up to a good, albeit dangerous, roll before banging into the backstop at the bottom. It was a wonderful way to spend a recess....good exercise, excitement, sweat, dirt....I still miss it!

One day one of my classmates, Rodney something, decided it was time to take a turn in a box roll. Rodney had started the school year out on crutches from a broken leg and although he still had the crutches he felt confident he could do it. I was dragging my box back up the hill when I saw Rodney climb into his box for his first trip down the hill. The launch was courtesy of a couple of sixth graders with less than honorable intentions. Rodney came down that hill over and over at a speed unknown to us experienced box rollers. His first crutch flew from the box after the first tumble. His second made it to the third roll. After that it was just Rodney, a broken leg, and intense screaming left in the box. Poor guy. He really shouldn't have done that. He got carried off to the hospital to have that leg reset and we were banned from all future box rolls down the hill. Someone on the school staff carted the boxes off to the dump that night and they were never seen again. So sad....oh sure, we were sorry for Rodney too but doggone it, he should have known better.

After the Rodney incident our recesses were limited to softball...not even real ball but SOFTball of all things. We could opt for tether ball but since none of us knew what that was we stuck to softball. A lot of the girls decided to let an ambitious, and obviously newly graduated teacher, coach them on how to play tether ball. Within just a few days all the tether ball posts were in use and lines formed for a turn at what was undoubtedly one of the best games ever! Soon, even the guys were wandering away from the ball field to get a turn at tether ball. I eventually caved and got in line myself after watching all the glee coming from those six tether ball posts for a week or so. Oh my goodness! I had never played anything as much fun as tether ball. It became an obsession for all of us and fights eventually broke out as newcomers tried to "buck the line". If you don't understand the phrase 'buck the line', you have led a deprived and lonely life I'm sorry to say.

Some days it was too rainy for tether ball. The courts were just too muddy to allow us to play. The cold days however were perfect for the game because it hurt like the dickens to punch that ball with frigid hands. Most girls and some of the sissy boys chose to stay indoors on cold days. I, and most of my really manly friends would be out there for a good tether ball workout regardless of the cold...and we didn't have to let anyone else play....no lines....silly girls. By spring, we were tether ball masters. We could not be beaten. My dad installed a tether ball post in our backyard and the only way I could be beaten was if one of my sibs complained I was hogging the post...or if my next door neighbor Sandy came over to play. She could put me in my place real fast. Thinking back on it, I'm not real sure Sandy was really a girl. She may have been a guy who always wore dresses and beat me at everything we attempted. She even hit me with a left hand hook one day causing me to see stars and hear little birds chirping around my head. I loved that girl but I kept it a secret for fear she might just be a guy. The last I heard, Sandy was a full professor of math at the university, married, with three very mean and tough little girls. She probably still plays tether ball and beats up neighbors. You just never know for sure....

Leaving West Hurst Elementary to go to Hurst Jr. High was tough. I did miss recess but before too much time had passed I discovered a new interest....girls. And so the story continued....

Time to catch up with Bert....

 Hello Frank,

I hope this finds you and Irma doing well. I sure did enjoy y'alls visit earlier this month and I hope you guys enjoyed it too. I'm grateful for you figuring out what was wrong with my old truck and getting it going again. Electrical problems have never been my favorite things to figure out. I would have never thought to check out the wiring on the firewall. I nearly sold my beloved truck for scrap before you got here. I doubt I'll ever trust it again so I think I'll probably go on and buy a low mileage Jeep Wrangler, but I'll keep the truck....just to have a truck. This is Texas after all!

So what did you guys think of Jo? I feel bad for judging her the first time I met her in the parking lot at the store. I would have sworn she was just an old widow lady spending her husband's inheritance while searching for another man. I kept that opinion of her until she gave me that ride into town after my old truck broke down. I felt kind of bad being so cold and distant to the point where she had stopped calling so I asked her out to dinner....just to be nice and to pay her back for that ride. Did I tell you how she responded when I called her for the dinner invitation? She said, "Yeah, I'll go but I won't be seen riding around in the piece of junk you call a truck! I'll drive." I never told her I loved that old piece of junk and just agreed for her to pick me up in that big old black Cadillac of hers.

I'll also tell you I found out a lot more about Jo over the last few weeks. She isn't the fancy dressed widow lady I thought. I asked her why she always wore jeans and boots when the first time I saw her at the grocery store she was all gussied up in a fancy black dress and dripping diamonds. First of all she said she wasn't dripping diamonds. She wore one small diamond ring her husband had given her for their twenty-fifth anniversary and a nice black dress because she was on her way home from a funeral. I apologized....she is about as down to earth as me. We have hit it off pretty well BUT, I assure you, we are just friends! She won't let me drive anywhere when we go out wandering the countryside. She says it's because she knows where everything is and I drive like an old woman! I think she just doesn't want to ride in my truck. I've had to talk to her about her profanity. You know I don't use bad language and I really hate hearing it from other people. Since we were running around so much I figured I should say something to her. Her response was, "Well hay-ull Bert! Why didn't you say something sooner?" Except for a well-worn "hay-ull" at times (which is always followed by, "hay-ull, I'm sorry!"), she has kept her cussing to herself. I like that about her. I'm going to invite her to go to church with me as soon I'm comfortable she won't agree with the preacher by yelling, "Hay-ull yeah! Amen!"

Just one more thing about Jo and I'll stop. I know I'm going on like a love sick teenager. It's not anything like that at all. We've talked about a lot of things and both of us agree this is nothing but a couple of friends hanging out together. She says she would never marry again because of her love and respect for her late husband, and you know I feel the same about Velma. It's just good to have someone to pal around with.....someone rich....with a nice car....and a personality! Jo didn't get her wealth from an inheritance. She owns a car dealership in Alpine! Can you believe that? All this time and she never mentioned it. I had to ask what she did with her free time. Her response was, "You mean when I'm not wasting my time hanging out with you? Well hay-ull Bert, I own a used car lot. I thought you knew that. How do you think I'm able to drive around in a clean black Caddy without having a staff to take care of it for me?" You could have knocked me over with a feather.....or maybe a tumbleweed! I don't want to infringe on a friendship by asking about a good deal on a new Jeep but it would sure be nice if she would offer. I guess time will tell.

I'm sorry I spent this whole time talking about Jo. It kind of makes me ashamed of myself. I'm sure Velma would have liked Jo too but I'm not sure she would approve of me going on and on about her like I have. It's hard to not think about things like that.

Oh, by the way, I'm going to learn how to dance!! There's a program available down at the civic center offering free "two-step" lessons to residents. I checked and I'm now considered an official resident of Fort Davis! Yay!!

Y'all take care, Bert

Rant and Rave....

 Every day I scan through our neighborhood newsletter and every day without fail, someone has posted asking for help. I promise I'm a good Christian boy, born and raised in the Church and taught about helping the poor 'amen'...and I do. But, and this is a big BUT, these guys in the newsletter are "repeat performers". The same names, the same stories, over and over. It's like the guys who drive their new pickups and Lexus' to their respective street corners to hold their "Will work for food" signs. Have you ever rolled down your window and offered work to any of these guys? They don't want to work. If they did, they would be working. I have a boatload of work any of them could be doing for me around our house and yard but getting someone out to actually do the work is pretty darn difficult. 

I know this doesn't sound real compassionate but that's just not the way our generation was raised. There were times growing up when I wouldn't see my dad for a week at a time because he was "at work". He volunteered for every hour of overtime he could get, he worked another job as a stock clerk at a local grocery store, and for a time, when college costs were looming over him, he got a third job as a janitor at a local hospital. He would never in his life consider asking for a handout. The sad tidbit of this last information was, both my older sister and I were embarrassed about our dad working as a janitor. He was doing it for us and we were embarrassed.

I know my lofty pillar has been shaken in the eyes of loyal readers. I don't sound like a very nice person right now....but I am. Really! Trust me.... All of my sibs and I worked at our jobs like the dickens...that's a phrase used by my mom. We all worked part time jobs while in school to cover our personal costs, some of our clothes, and even a bill or two if we knew things were tight. My dad didn't know about Cindy and I paying some of the family bills for a long time because he wouldn't have allowed it. It was tough growing up in the Mihills' herd. And, none of us would change a single moment of it. We didn't think of ourselves as poor. 

I remember visiting with a friend I grew up with one night. We started talking about our years at West Hurst Elementary. We had a snow day and the school was closed but there was a pristine lawn in front of the school and someone had to destroy the picturesque scene. My brother, Glenn and I walked the two blocks to the school and met Steve and his brother, who had come up with the same plan. We built snowmen, dueled out snowball fights, and generally acted like the idiots we were. The school was located on Precinct Line Road, a main artery through town at the time, so we had lots of onlookers pass on their dreary ways to work. One car stopped and the driver got out of his car. He came over to us and told us he worked for the paper. Would it be okay if he took our picture? Well of course it would be okay. We were going to be famous for sure. I remember waiting for our picture to show up and sure enough, within a couple of days there it was. Four clowns standing in the snow, soaked from rolling around, red cheeks, and silly grins on our faces. I was so proud! Now, this friend I mentioned earlier was Steve. While we reminisced, Steve pulled out from a drawer a copy of that picture. I hadn't seen it in decades. I remember feeling pretty doggone rich most of the time growing up and I'm sure most of my friends and classmates felt the same but when I looked at that picture, the shock of how poverty stricken we looked hit me like a truck. All of us were wearing wornout clothes. Steve and I, being the oldest were the hardest hit by the lack of funds because we were older. Our younger brothers got the hand-me-downs which were sometimes not great but at least everything fit. Steve and I both wore coats too small for us. Our jeans came up over our ankles and had patches on the knees. Our shoes were the official shoe of that era, "Tennis shoes". If the holes in the toes weren't obvious in the picture they certainly were to us. I also noticed and then remembered, my brother didn't have any gloves so I gave him one of mine. Each of us wore one glove and just let the other hand freeze. It was worth it to play in the snow. 

That photo brought into focus how hard my dad had to work just to keep five kids fed, clothed, and educated. And he did it. He took care of all of us without asking anyone for a single penny. He also managed to provide Christmas for other families who were worse off, never let a Christmas go by without presents for us stacked to the ceiling, never let an Easter go by without something unique for each of us, took in his mom and sister for a short time when the sister developed MS, sent funds to re-carpet a church in South Dakota he had visited, and the list goes on and on. 

The one thing that sticks in my mind the most happened when I was a junior in high school. I was going to a band banquet and wanted a white sports coat so bad I could taste it. I didn't say a word about it to anyone but my mom so I was surprised when my dad came home from work early the day before the banquet and told me to jump in the car. He took me to every department store around trying to find that white sports coat with no success. Just before the stores were closing he spotted one more store which just might have something. We pulled in and convinced them to stay open a bit longer because there was a fine looking coat on the store dummy (we never called them mannequins because dummy sounded funnier) in the window. My dad told them we needed to see that coat. They said they couldn't because it would mess up their display. He insisted on speaking to the manager who quickly got the coat down for me to try on. It was a perfect fit! My dad didn't even ask the price and I had the sports coat I had dreamed about. Now, this is the bad part. I wore that coat to the banquet and boy oh boy, did I ever look cool. No one else wore a white sports coat.....just me....all alone. When I got home I hung the coat in the closet and never wore it again.

I guess looking back I wasn't such a nice person. I thought I was. I try to be now but those lazy free-loaders out there really get to me.

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!