Grandpa’s Bus, Part 3
A Summer On The Little Dry Fork
If you are just joining us, please read the first two articles in this series to make any sense of what follows. You wouldn’t start reading a novel at Chapter Three, would you?
May 27:
Al said, “Maybe I’m getting old. Maybe I’m not old enough.” Raise your hand, Incorrigibles, if you can relate. Then listen to my tale of woe and redemption.
In When The White-Throats Sing, Mac introduces a character who remained nameless but, in a few paragraphs, Mac made him a very real person, someone we can identify with.
I am referring to the passage beginning, “Once I knew a man beset with business cares who came to the little turn-around at the end of this road and camped for three months in a trailer.” This guy – I will call him Joe since Mac never gave him a name – had a nervous breakdown when he arrived in the spring (presumably at the start of trout season) and “… had the color and zest of a wild Indian when he left in September.” That summer of living in his trailer on the banks of the Brule would have been about one hundred years ago but the inciting incident is happening to me today.
No, not a nervous breakdown. Nothing that dramatic. I am not “beset with business cares”, either. But a lingering yet devastating computer problem is damn near as bad for someone whose productivity depends on the computer. This problem is the kind that shuts down the computer at any given moment for no apparent reason. Then, when it restarts, it may run perfectly for days before the next incident. Or it may run for two minutes and shut down again. No pattern, no discernable trigger. The intermittent pattern of occurrences makes it very hard to identify the problem. But it is extremely stressful to be working away at something and have the screen suddenly go black. (Of course, you always worry about stuff getting lost during the shutdowns but, so far, nothing has been.) I haven’t cussed this much since I gave up golf. Yes, I am seeking professional help but, so far, the problem has eluded even the IT guys.
So, if it isn’t Joe’s nervous breakdown, the effect is the same. And, I have the same realization: It’s not the end of the world. Stay calm and carry on. Do what you can with the other activities and tasks. But, boys, it has been tough.
Then I remembered Mac’s story about Joe and how his summer on the Brule cured what ailed him. That is the solution I am pursuing also.
Back in the late 1960s, my grandfather purchased a retired city bus and had it towed to the banks of the Little Dry Fork Creek where he mounted it on railroad ties and concrete blocks, took out the seats, and installed a gas stove, gas refrigerator, and gas lanterns. (No running water, no electricity but it was enough.) Thus Grandpa created his permanent fishing cabin which would be, in many ways, comparable to Joe’s trailer that summer on the Brule.
This afternoon, after a brief but spirited discussion with the digital gods, I realized that Joe had the right idea. Indeed, he spoke to me, saying, “If you had a house with ten rooms and one room was messed up, you would deal with the mess but you would also appreciate the nine rooms where everything is fine. Your life is like that. Don’t let one problem in one room keep you from enjoying all the good things in the other rooms.”
Wise words, even if I have to say them myself.
So, Incorrigibles, this note is to announce that I, too, am going to take some time off. Like Joe, I will escape from my sedentary, computer-based lifestyle and seek a better balance in my life for the next couple of months. I will be spending my summer in Grandpa’s bus, revisiting the best aspects of that life from an era now past.
My wife and son won’t see much difference. I’m not moving out, although there may be less cussing after I get settled into Grandpa’s bus and begin to live a quieter, simpler, less computer-centered life.
I will not be able to get up in the early morning and go out in Grandpa’s jon boat, throwing topwaters as soon as it was light enough to see. I will not be able to enjoy Grandpa’s version of hash brown potatoes – called Hash Greys in our family. My uncle once said, “Any other place in the world, we wouldn’t touch this glop but, here, we eat every last shred.” Even if I could reproduce Grandpa’s culinary original sin, at my age, my stomach probably couldn’t handle it.
But, Incorrigibles, if you have ever had the pleasure of waking up in a place where you want to be, doing the things you want to do, around people you want to be with, you will know the feeling I am trying to recapture. Down on the Little Dry Fork, life was simple and quiet. Not as comfortable as my life on the 18th Floor Homestead, not as convenient as all the little goodies filling my kitchen and office. (Yes, including my computer when the damn thing is working right.) Definitely not the good cooking my wife provides three times a day.
But.. when was the last time you woke up knowing that there was no place on Earth that you would rather be? How much is that worth? In my mind, I’m already typing at the rickety old card table in Grandpa’s bus. My wife is busy fixing tonight’s dinner but my spirit is listening to the river music.
A summer on the Brule worked for Joe. Let’s see what a few weeks on the Little Dry Fork can do for me.
And, if any part of this lament has touched a nerve in you, please consider touching your financial nerve and making a small contribution to support my caffeine habit, the literary fluid which powers this soul-baring outpouring. This is the only support I receive; my readers read for free.
And tune in each week for the succeeding installments as my free fall continues.