Dinner in the Field and other stories
I find you can discover your strengths at any age. For example, I find I’m a better writer than I am an editor. I have a full-length draft of a memoir that I’ve devoted countless hours to, and it’s finally finished. I’m anxious to move on to new material. But finishing the book is not the same as completing the project. Doing it right, I’m told, entails a less than...
June is Three
We spent a long weekend in Chicago celebrating our granddaughter June’s birthday. It was a doozy. She can make the “b” sound but somehow has not connected it to the beginning of birthday. When I walked into her house on Friday, she ran to me busting to talk. “Papa, it’s my ‘irthday! And I’m three!” “You’re not a baby anymore June.” “No. I’m big!” June grows and changes every day. ...
Back to the Farm
Let’s go back to that Midwest farm kid who went to Europe, dashed around the continent, quit his school teaching job, and stayed there to finance more travel. So far, he has gotten turned down by the oil rigs in Aberdeen Scotland, landed a job on a gas pipeline, quit for a job that didn’t exist, and got screwed out of $100 US. He went back to his roots and started...
Santa Comforts a Friend by the Fox
This was published in the local papers. If you don’t read me on Face Book you would have missed it. Thought you might need one more Christmas message. Sometimes I go to “the flats” on the Fox River after swimming laps at the Ottawa YMCA. The area along the walking trail between the Y and the aqueduct is a ribbon of nature running through town. Sometimes you see a heron,...
After Being Fooled
In the fall of 1974 in Aberdeen Scotland, after being fooled, quitting a perfectly good job, getting cheated out a hundred bucks, and losing out on a job that never existed I retreated a bit. It’s instinct, I think. I slowed down, slept in, withdrew from most conversations, and stayed to myself. The old guys at the YMCA hostel, who by their age or infirmity had been granted the privilege...
Glad That Didn't Happen to Me
As the pipeline job outside Aberdeen went on the weather and working conditions worsened. More and more the talk among the workers turned to when the job would shut down. “Why don’t they tell us the plan?” I asked. “They don’t want us to quit,” the old man who loved rainbows and watched out for me explained. “They tell us now the job is over Friday, and they won’t have...
Finding Work in Aberdeen
Hitchhiking from London, England to Aberdeen, Scotland was easy. But my employment there didn’t turn out as expected. How often do plans match outcomes? I went to Aberdeen to work on an offshore oil rig in the North Sea. At my first oil company interview, I was told the lack of Scots employed in the industry, and the multitude of Americans hired, had become a political issue. Better luck next...
The Old Man in the TR 2
It was the fall of 1974. I entered the UK for the first time early one morning at Dover, England as a foot passenger on a car ferry. I was a little alarmed at the cost of the fare. After paying it, I had less than $100 USD. I would need a job quickly, maybe instantly, in Aberdeen, and until then, I would have to travel on the cheap. The...
The Autobahn
At the end of the summer of 1974, with my Eurail pass expired, I took to the highways. It had been a great summer, but my money was running low, and I needed to reload. I heard good things about Aberdeen, Scotland. The North Sea oil boom was in full swing, American companies were hiring for their offshore platforms, and they spoke my language. Good money, they said. I left...
The End of Hitchhiking
Have you ever made a flip comment, meant to be humorous, then remembered it later and thought “That might actually be true.” I responded to one of those pointless FaceBook posts that posed the question “What is the one thing that is destroying the world as we know it?” The real answer is no doubt climate change, which barely showed up. The most numerous comment, of the thousands generated, was...
Marvel in the Moment
In my last blog post, I was getting out of Memphis, heading to Mississippi, and looking for a Waffle House. But sometimes life interrupts those road trip sagas. I have a note on my desk that reminds me why that happens. Hard to follow that advice when you’re writing in late June about events that took place in early March and then relating them to American history fifty years ago...