The File Cabinet

The view from the mountainous seat came with a small price to pay bouncing  and jiggling guts all over the place.  It was a place of honor riding next to my dad.  Queen for a day on the way to the grain elevator.  I have no recollection of the reason he was working for this particular person and franky I didn’t care because it was a special day.  I know we got up really early to ride across areas I hadn’t ever seen before and he pointed and told me of this and that and I shook my head and laughed.  I’m sure I also was wide eyed from the visual  heighth alone.  We arrived at the destination to either leave or fill the trailer with the golden nuggets to be either left or taken to destination unknown as well.  I’m sure this was also a smokin’ moment but being able to be alone with my dad in his place of employment to see parts unknown across the miles, it didn’t matter how long I waited,  because this was  his file cabinet so to speak.   One of many offices with endless windows across the miles.   I’m sure you can only imagine what this created in the life and mind of bustersdaughter, jiggled guts and all.

Time has passed and people are gone now that I could have asked to fill in the details to enlighten one and all of this special journey, if I embellish, it just means how extra special it became in my life like the extra lick from the frosting bowl.    But even that didn’t measure up to the delightful day in the Mac truck at the Grain elevator.

A Breath Away

It was cold out there, standing and looking out the window even brought my breath visibly to my sight and I couldn’t believe he had to lay down on the ground under the truck.   The light was hanging from some part of the undercarriage  and LL Bean,  wasn’t a part of his wardrobe.  I can see right now the black boots he had on, the green work jacket with probably a flannel shirt underneath , the green workpants with the wire crease inbedded permantly down the length of his leg,  must have been ice to the touch.  In the big picture of life he made these huge sacrifices for us, his family.   A truck was a freedom and again it was a albatross, an anchor.  Lift up the anchor, get things running again, and the freedom would flap in the wind on the way down the road.  A sputter and an unplanned puff of the smokestack at the wrong time and the anchor was back. 

I know it was dark out, the hanging light was shining under the truck along with the glare of the porch light, it shone in my room.     The gravel in the driveway made a rough surface to lay down on and bustersdaughter was writing in the fog on the window,  and the coffee was black in the old restaraunt style mug, it was going to be a long cold night. 

Smoke ‘in

Let’s mosey over there, it won’t take long.  He pulled his Pall Malls out of his shirt pocket by shaking the pack and putting it on his lips.  His  matches came from the same pocket and struck a blow for future problems.  He inhaled deeply and let the smoke come out his nose and mouth like a human smoke signal.   It was always a beginning for a conversation and hopefully the pack would be almost empty, if it was full we were in for a long wait.  Sitting in the backseat of the Ford or whatever car we had at the time we were to patiently wait for him while he “had to check on something”.  It wouldn’t take long, now sit still, was an impatient command because he had other things on his mind and kids weren’t one of them.  Business was being conducted and in that time and others very much like it I learned how to be patient.  Didn’t mean I liked it, just meant it was the way it was and time stood still.  Our only longing and hope would be for him to take us to get ice cream after the long incarceration.  Sometimes this happened and sometimes it didn’t.  Generally on a Sunday drive it was more hopeful and this made it tolerable.  

The trucks were coming and going in and out of the small stone gravel parking lot with it’s ruts and puddles from a previous rain.  The small white stone building that conducted a manly business was fading  and I can see him standing  with his hand on the door knob and can feel the anxiousness for him  to open it up and say good bye. ……………….. Bustersdaughter………….

Gravy

From a kneecap point of view the visions of peeled potatoes, loaves of bread being torn apart for mounds of dressing and a huge ugly turkey baking was pure heaven in the mind of bustersdaughter.   The Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade always was on the television and the air was filled with the smell and feel of a holiday. 

I still live with the aroma in the air and the phantom taste in my mouth of the festive trimmings and yearn for the past, but would be very satisfied if all I had was my family around a table and the taste of gravy.   

  I ask myself what is gravy, isn’t it like the icing on the cake.  The ending after the beginning.  The ala on the mode of your favorite pie.   I like to think life is alot like gravy, it is the finishing touch an ending or the beginning of the special and the care and desire for him  to please his family.

 Love and simplicity comes in many forms.

This time it came in the simpleness of a gravy boat.

Happy Thanksgiving

and

Pass

the

gravy.

***Bustersdaughter***

 

The Garage

I remember walking into the garage out back on Wallace Street.  It smelled of oil and  grease.  The garage had seen better days. Calendars dating a few years back hung crooked on the wall next to the license plates. The oil and grease stood thick on the work table strewn with tools of all sorts.  The old tool box was open and wrenches, socket and otherwise were flowing out and onto the table like a cornucopia overflowing on a Thanksgiving table.    Below were all kinds of oil cans, rags in containers for  wiping spills up.   Tires leaning up against the cement block wall and a couple of mowers with their guts laying all over the floor.  Days of mowing have ceased, at least until the miracle of  the resurection of  putting it all together again happens. 

Do you remember, your dad, my grandpa with his crunched up faced, hands on his hips, he always seemed as if he was smiling but that’s just what he did with his face.   Then about five minutes later he’d pull out his can of Prince Albert and his rolling papers and roll a cigarette,  light it and continue talking.  He also cussed like a sailor on leave.  Both of you could have been an ad in a magazine for how joyous tobacco made you feel and look.  Hindsight hated those cigarettes because for every conversation you couldn’t seem to converse without them. Unfortuneately cigarettes, with the  grease, cars, trucks,  went hand in hand.   

There aren’t many times when I get to pass through a garage and smell in the memories of grease and oil, get to see the motors and spark plugs waiting to be placed in their rightful places.  Who would have thought a woman would even want to.  But when I get the chance I breathe it in as if a rare flowers essence is in the air, and I relive the memories of my dad and grandpa as if they were doctors working on their patients.  There was a seriousness that went along with it, an occasional laugh, a cough from the smoke, and Roger Miller on the radio. 

  Bustersdaughter and Quaker State miss you both.

The Aisle

I don’t know if you ever had hopes of walking me down the aisle, I never really thought about it before.  I never knew what you really thought as my fiance and I were on our way to get married.  You wished us well, and had him promise you, to take care of me always.  I never thought about what your dreams were for me.  I was a selfish kid, like all the rest and I was madly in love, as much as you can be at that age, when we drove off to say our I do’s.   We thought we were saving everyone from alot of hassle and family connections that probably would have started another war.  I never once considered maybe you would have wanted to put my arm in yours and look me in the eye and wish me well.  Tell me you love me and send me on my way to happy life with a man/boy I wanted to be with.  I am hoping in your comfy room of heaven you are reading this and knowing I am truly sorry for what you may have missed because of my youthful desires and inconsiderations.  So in my mind we have walked down that aisle together arm in arm and you did wish me well and I said I love you dad and thank you.  And even though this picturebook of marriage didn’t last he has fulfilled his promise to you.   I think you knew that.  ……..Bustersdaughter…………

Don’t dink with that!

My dad was always busy, would be busy tinkering with something in the garage and then doting on the orange trees out back.  His look on his face spoke volumes,  it said, don’t mess with me I am busy.  He would come into the kitchen and sit at the table with his “work” and still  looking and tinkering intently to finish fixing whatever was wrong with it so he could  use it  whereever it belonged. 

 One occasion, his granddaughter sat down on the chair across from him and curious as she was, started to touch the work in progress.  My dad had a very effective way of saying no!…He’d say. don’t dink with that!  And  he’d use his very strong index finger , and I’m sure he thought he was lightly tapping on the back of her hand but he wasn’t.  Now some might think that was a tad strong, that he shouldn’t have done that.  He should have talked to her and politely told her no.  What planet are those thoughts from? My dad was from a generation of cut the apple switch off the tree so I can spank you with it.  If there is any question,  I’m still fine, my posterior is minus any apple marks, and I have no other permament scars as well, so you see the spanking didn’t kill or maime me, it did set a presadence that  I never did said problem ever again.  So don’t dink with that with an index finger was gentle compared to the apple tree. 

Years later after his passing we laugh about how funny it sounded for him to say that and imitate his intense index finger smack.  There is a lesson here, don’t dink with that and that  too was in the life of bustersgrandaughter.

Goo Goo Eyes

 

My dad didn’t dance very often , unlike my mother she would dance at the drop of a hat.    But when there was some music playing on the old radio or record player,  the mood just  right  he would grab mom around the waist and off they’d go.  He had a most unique way of dancing, he’d rock back and forth, this was his way of keeping time.  Every now and then I’d catch a glimpse of dad moving his eyes all funny with his eyebrows up and down.  Mom would have the biggest grin on her face and be giggling like a school girl, the words that would escape her would be Oh Bus’. Giggle giggle.  I was a teenager the last time I remember him dancing, he danced with me at a wedding of some friends and for bustersdaughter that was fun and special, but remembering my parents and the goo goo eyes was priceless.

The Bar b que Table

My brother was in high school when my dad started making the picnic table.  With all the wood he used you would think he cut down a forest to make it.  Our picnic table could seat at least ten and it would take almost that many to move it.   My dad never made anything small and simple,  whatever it was, it seemed to be large and heavy and could probably withstand hurricane force winds. 

 The barbecue pit was a hole dug in the ground with some bricks and the rack from an old refrigerator as the grill top.  Many chickens, burgers, and hotdogs were grilled to perfection.  Hickory was the preference over charcoal, but no matter, the care was there with every detail and each morsel would melt in your mouth.   This was done for graduations and other festive times or for just the urge for a good ole barbecue.

I cannot remember when this ended or what happened to the table, but when I do see a picnic table I have thoughts of pity on how pathetically small they are, then I remember with fondness the hard work once again invested in not only the food prepared, but the thought in including as many as can possibly sit  around a table under the blue sky.   This was a time and a place of family, protection, and the life of bustersdaughter.

Steele Blue moments

As I grew older there was less and less time spent with my dad.  We spoke on the phone at least every other week.  We lived in the same state but trips seemed to be harder because of commitments,things that seemed to take precedence when in reality it should have been the reverse.  I try not to look back on the shadows that are cast on my heart because of distance and priorities.  It only makes for a gloomy day if I do instead I forge on with some hilarity that happened or some moments almost forgotten.

On a rare weekend trip over to Holiday I arrived,  I can’t remember the particulars on how dad and I decided to take a trip to Homasassa Springs or where mom was, but  I was looking forward to spending time with him, hearing his stories, and seeing what all the fuss about the manatees was.

We headed out in his van, it looked like a throwback from the 70’s and probably was.   It was Steele blue, definitely dated, with carpeting everywhere and all of his necessities like tools and tools and did I say tools, and his 8 tracks, they came with the van. (Anyone younger than 20 will probably have to research this phenomenon)  This particular model was stingy on windows, so because it was warm he turned the air on.  A very rare occurance, but since his move to the Sunshine state he was using it alot more than usual.  

We finally made it to the springs, and it was nice as springs  go.  People in all shapes and sizes were  hovering around the spot where the manatees were feeding.  Eat and swim and swim and eat.  What a schedule.  I’d look like that too if that’s all I did.  Talk about mass descruction, they were creating loads of it.

I  was just so glad to go somewhere with my dad.  I felt special.   From the time we left the van to the entrance there was always a difference in the way my dad did things, I see how evident it is in my own life.  I can tell the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  We started  walking  around and saw the manatees.  They are definately large and float so easily.  But after a few minutes of watching them it was a little tedious.    We started  walking on a cement pathway, a nature trail with many plants and signs of identification for spotting them, and some of the birds native to the area as well.   

I noticed a lady and her stroller with one child in it and another was walking beside her.  We let her pass, and dad was telling me one of his many stories, I only wish I could remember which one, when all of a sudden, out of the blue the nasties, vilest smelling crap, landed literally all over my hair and shirt.  They say in some countries this is a sign of good luck and if that’s the case my luck shouldn’t be over until I’m about 60.  It was huge.  I can’t even remember what my dad said I know we laughed, there isn’t much else you can do.  The lady with her children was nice enough to give us some baby wipes, but that was  like trying to mop up a spilled ocean.  This wasn’t a small bird it was a crane or a family of them.  ..I smelled so bad.   I bought a t shirt in the gift shop and went into the ladies room to mop myself up, there just wasn’t enough papertowels or soap to get rid of the smell.

I came out smelling as bad as I did when I went in, it was getting late, and I was getting riper by the moment, it was time to head home.  Only we never just head home when you would ride with my dad.  He was taking me to places I could never begin to find again and telling me stories of Lord only knows what.  One thing is for sure I smelled, and stories were at a premium, the air conditioning wasn’t cold enough and the breeze wasn’t blowing hard enough, but there was never a better day to be bustersdaughter than today.