Pounding

“...hammering on a nail that just won't go in."

Kings X

I rode my bike back up to South Carolina to fetch my car and to run a couple of trailer loads of trash left at my friend's barn to the dump, thus finishing out the last chore left for me to take care of here. It was supposed to take just a few days. That was eight days ago. A little mistake my daughter made putting up the top of my convertible turned into one of those “for want of a nail the shoe was lost...” situations that compounded into my car sitting in the shop for five days. The monetary damage wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been and it's on the road again, but there won't be any music in my car for a while. Nobody else here has a car with a trailer hitch so the dump runs had to wait. Finally, today I could get at it. The dump is about a 45 minute drive from where the trash is. The first run went well and they didn't even charge me. The nice lady there accepted my story that I used to be a resident of the county and that was good enough for her. So, back for the second load. It was going to be close to get all the way back there before they closed. A couple of miles from the barn with the next load one of the tires on the old trailer blew out. It was completely shredded. The sidewalls looked like they had shattered all the way around. So, I made a call to my Monday afternoon gig guy telling him I was going to still be stuck here a few more days. I spent the next several hours dealing with it. I won't bore you with the details but my friend Sam who owns the barn and I were able to get it off the road and back to his place. Monday I'll have to get some tires for that trailer, make the run, then maybe I can finally get back to Orlando. By the way, the trailer I'm referring to isn't mine. It's another one that lives at the barn that will hold about twice as much trash as mine.

I have never in my life had to spend so much time and money or drive so many miles to try to throw some junk away. And I just realized there's a metaphor there but I really don't feel like going into that. I did as much as I could this evening before starting into my wait until Monday morning. I was tired, hot, hungry, and my tooth that needs pulling was sending searing pain through my jaw. I finally stopped and got some pills to try to take the edge off it. A few nights ago, while sleeping on the floor in front of my friend's fireplace, I had one of those dreams that makes you move in your sleep. I made a lunge that plowed my forehead at the edge of my right orbit into the edge of the raised brick hearth. I woke up very quickly to my head feeling like a cracked egg shell. That was hurting me tonight as well. Once the drugs finally started to kick in, I felt like I could do something about the hunger. I stopped and consumed yet another hamburger by myself. Eating alone is so depressing. That's probably why I've dropped to 182 pounds. Anyway, I was feeling crappy and frustrated and like I'd been beating my head against a brick wall. Wait a minute... yeah. My friend's kids were playing video games where I have been sleeping, so I found a quiet corner in another room and just lay down on the floor in misery.

I had dozed off when my phone rang. It was my former student, riding buddy, and good friend Keith. His wife just had a little girl about an hour ago. They named her Lily; the first child of her generation. Made a grandpa and grandma out of his parents. I smiled a deep down smile thinking about the experiences he has ahead of him. There is nothing quite like the relationship between a daddy and his little girl, which I told him, of course. After the congratulations and blessings I said goodbye so he could continue the list of calls he needed to make. I called my own little girl and left a message for her. I'm feeling better about life now. But I wish my son was finished with dental school instead of just working on getting into it. My tooth still hurts.