My New Motorcycle?

201206070035 - My arm was awake when I fell asleep.

 

I awoke in a panic thinking I had made a mistake in buying the motorcycle.  I slowly made my way downstairs and out the front door, blinking back the bright, early morning sun. 

 

There she sat, the motorcycle I had purchased from my neighbor across the street the day before.  A flat, battleship gray with three wheels and an emblem on the gas tank that I couldn't quite make out.  The clutch was a small pedal mounted to the front, left handlebar grip and the foot pegs were mounted on the front tire. The gear shift lever and brake lever were mounted where the foot pegs usually sit.  The front tire was slightly off from the alignment of the bike.  Needless to say, I was apprehensive about riding it.

 

I spotted my neighbor across the street.  He was a tall man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, a long dark coat, with camo pants and boots.  He claimed to be a Viet-Nam veteran but I know he was to young to have been in-country.  He waved and then shouted across the traffic to me that he wanted the bike back.  He started to walk towards me.  I panicked and jumped on the bike.  I started it up and put it into first gear.  I eased out of my front yard and turned left into oncoming traffic.  I was afraid I would tump the bike over, so I kept my feet just barely off the ground.  (dear reader:  "tump" is a word.  It is used in the dialect of the Southern parts of The United States.  It means: to tip something over accidentally and dump the contents on the ground.)  My neighbor started to run after me yelling incoherently.  I turned left onto Pennsylvania Avenue and thought, "If I go straight, he'll catch me at the first stop sign."  So, I turned left onto Racine Street.  The huge Magnolias, Oaks, and Pecan trees in the well established Robertsdale neighborhood blotted out the sun giving a feeling of dusk in the mid morning.  I looked behind me and my neighbor was nowhere in sight.  

 

I decided to go the the VA office downtown to ask the councilor her opinion.  She was ex-military and a wannabe fashion designer.  As I sat in her office, she railed on and on about how it wasn't a real motorcycle; however, I could not focus on what she was saying because there was a huge display case mounted on the wall over her desk with a full-length, dark navy, wool, poncho with silver piping and silver letters embroidered on the collar.  I wanted to ask her if she really thought the VA was going to invest in her design, but decided it was best if I just said nothing.  Sometimes it's better that way.  She didn't like the idea of the motorcycle, but what does she know?  She's fashion designer working at the VA.  I just went home, hoping that my neighbor wasn't there. 

 

I woke slowly, realizing that I had just had the most incredible dream and thinking, "I have got to write this in my blog and send it to people."  The computer is right next to the bed and if I start typing, I will wake up Karen.  I decided to take my motorcycle across the bay to my Dad's house and use his computer.

I quietly crept down the stairs, out onto the front lawn, straddled my new motorcycle and pushed it out of the yard.  I turned right and into the Wallace Tunnel, but it didn't look like the tunnel.  It looked more like a dimly lit warehouse, so I turned the headlight on.  It didn't help.  I remembered the headlight wouldn't work unless the engine was running, so I crunk up the bike.  (dear reader:  "crunk" is a word and will soon be accepted by Merriam and Webster - if they're cool).  I eased up the hill in the tunnel and out onto the Bay-Way but I still couldn't see very well even with my headlight on high-beam.  I was surrounded by an immense white light but for some reason still couldn't see the road.  It was then that I realized there was car behind me with the high-beams on and I was still in first gear.  I pulled to the shoulder of the bridge, still in first gear, to allow the car to pass.  I didn't stop because I had to make it across the bay to tell my story.

My arm fell asleep and I fell awake at 12:35 AM CDT

Am I My Job?

My arm was awake when I fell asleep thinking a great deal about jobs, employment, career, and fulfillment.  You see I'm in a job environment that is not conducive to my free spirit and optimistic attitude.

In the last 40 or so years I have wanted, desired and/or attempted without success to be a radio DJ, a hero, a teacher, a writer, a counselor, a business leader, a writer, a voice-over announcer, an inventor, a builder, a screenwriter, a traveller, a secret agent, a mobster, a lawyer, a senator, a congressman, a speech writer, Braveheart, a survivalist, a cowboy, a reporter, an advisor, a case-manager, a technical writer, an interpreter, a graphic artist, a rock singer, a professional organizer, a motivational speaker, a playwright, a travel guide, a truck driver, a boat captain, a writer, an inspector, and a domestic engineer. 

However, what I ended up doing after high school is a soldier, a cashier, an accounting clerk, a systems operator, a fisherman, deck-hand and first mate on a shrimp boat, ditch digger (yes, literally), temp at Hughes Aircraft, work-study for Department of Veterans Affairs Vocational Rehab., tutor, sheet metal worker, laminator, fork-lift operator, air filtration installer, entrepreneur (owned part of a business for awhile), night auditor, credit manager, collector, janitor, and warehouse supervisor.  I have volunteered as a chaperon, rodeo announcer, and PSA announcer.

I almost said "what I ended up being after high school", but that would have been incorrect.  What I ended up "being" was a husband and a father.  Two jobs that I take very seriously and for which I take great pride.  Also, probably the two hardest jobs I've ever had.  The hours are long, the pay is Nil, the politics are sometimes unbearable, and the training and retraining is never-ending (the girls have me pretty well trained by now though); but, the benefits are priceless, the rewards many, and the job satisfaction is second-to-none.  So they are not jobs really, but vocations. 

Jobs are just a means to end.  It helps to provide the things required to be a husband and father.  Jobs are temporary at best.  For those of you blessed enough to be fulfilled mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and economically by your jobs; be thankful.  For those of you who are not, be thankful that your job is not your being.

For many of us, our title is our being - it is who we are.  Daddy, husband, lover, brother, son, uncle, nephew, cousin, various in-law, friend, best friend, neighbor, employee, adversary, supervisor, co-worker, church member, Knight, Mr. Steve, Mr. Kingsmore, "Steve Second Floor!", "Number 413! Your food is ready!"  the jerk who cut you off in traffic, the nice guy who always smiles, the kid who sits in the last pew at church, the nice old man who gave me pancakes, that bum who thinks he can write a blog, or that one guy.  Whatever title is pinned on me, I try to wear with pride; however, I can not be all things at all times.  It is not who I AM.  Going forward I am going to work on being who I am as a being.

My arm is falling asleep and I am waking up.  Time to get to the business of Being.

To Blog or Not To Blog

To blog or not to blog? That is the question.  Whether 'tis blogglier in the blog to blog the blogs and bloggers of outrageous blogs, or to take blogs against a sea of blogs, and by blogging end them?  To blog, to let my arm fall asleep as I fall awake; no more; and by a blog to say we blog.  

Okay, obviously I decided to blog, but Shakespeare I ain't.  I have felt an overwhelming urge to write.  If you, dear reader, follow my blog; here is what to expect  - everything from politics, to religion, to rants, to raves, to questions without answers, to answers without question, to unconscious ramblings of a conscious mind, to conscious ramblings of an unconscious mind, to humor, to sorrow, to plagiarism, to original ideas, to... two... too.  You get the idea. 

There are a lot of posters (old fashioned kind that get pinned to the wall of dorm rooms, not people who post their opinions), posters (people who post their opinions, not the old fashioned kind), E-mails and what-not about friends coming in and out of your life.  I will not elaborate on them all except to say that God put people in our lives at certain times for certain reasons.  Recently I was reunited and reacquainted with a person and people that had an influence in my teen-age years.  This has sparked my desire to blog.  I have always had a desire to write.  In fact, I have never stopped writing.  There are 5 1/4 floppies, 3.5 floppies, flash drives, and notebooks filled with my writings; however, I have never considered blogging as an outlet for my writing, until now.

So dear reader, if you grace this blog with your time, I will do my best to write something worth thinking about.