Neanderpundit

or, more accurately, inertia. When I was but ten, my partner Mike and I were running around playing with some old Master locks dad had brought home from Ford, discard lockout/tagout locks from obsolete machinery.

Now, when these were attached to their respective machies, they each included about 7′ of steel chain making them, well, more or less, theft resistant.

To a ten year old, discovering the forces of inertia by whirling a weight on the end of a string is one of the most amusing science lessons, and as I whirled, Mike walked around the corner of the house.

The lock hit him in the temple and laid him out like a mackerel.He flew off to the side and hit the ground perfectly horizontal, and just as he did, I noticed him for the first time, his mom walking out their front door, and my mom pulling in the drive.

Mom started hitting me with something, I think it was the back of her hand, or maybe it was a brick. Mike came to, sitting up and rubbing his temple, saying “I see stars”. His brother Bobbie yells “MICKEY GETS EVERYTHING!” and Mike’s mom, not to be outdone, starts wailing on Mike’s freshly throbbing headwound with a plunger handle.

How the hell did I survive childhood?

In my life, partially because I’m not too good at avoiding trouble, I’ve gotten myself into a wide variety of situations, and it’s a source of some surprise to me that I’ve survived them all, so far.

When I was taking my apprenticeship, some twenty five odd years ago, i worked with some, well, unusual people. In some fairly dangerous situations. Some could hack it, some not. Some dealt with the situation with alcohol, some smoking dope, one guy went to a hidey hole and shot up with heroin every morning. I saw him do this, a hundred times. God protects fools, too, because these people seemed to escape serious injury and trouble, while I watched hardworking, straight, sober men die, one close enough to blow his last breath in my face. Those experiences taught me of the fragility of life, especially for the decent.

A friend’s relative died a couple of weeks ago. Most of the world knows the man as a decent, honest soul, and they couldn’t be further from the truth. He had a lavish funeral, appropriate to a person of his means and station in life, and only very few knew that he was a cheat, a mean, horrible man with no soul and no regard for others or their lives. That lesson is this: things are not what they seem. Only the creator knows. The creator alone knows the plan.

but I needed to make an addendum:

TO the lady in the robins egg blue 78 LTD? The left lane is the FAST lane. go FAST.