Neanderpundit

At some time or another, if you live in North America and drive, you will come upon some fresh asphalt.

The smell, that asphalt smell you get from the laying of fresh hotpatch, is the byproduct of one or more chemicals known as Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These are present in the form of napthalene, anthracene, and benzoapyrene, among others.

When you make coke out of coal (no, not that kind, of coke. And not that kind of coke, either) you heat the coal in thin vertical ovens until it drives off everything but the pure carbon (more or less). The process has a LOT of by products. Sodum nitrate by the ton. Napthalene. Coal tar. The whole plant smells like fresh asphalt is being laid all the time.

When I began my apprenticeship in 1980, at Inland Steel, I walked down Coke Plant Road for the first time, drinking that hydrocarbon smell into me, absorbing all the new sensations and sights- flames in columns hundreds of feet high, ovens burning over 2200 degrees, doors open on their hellish yellow hearts of airless flame. Clouds of steam the size of neighborhoods, machines the size of stately homes that move under their own power.

I walked through the gate of the maintenance area and saw that someone had used a china marker to write, in a small and careful hand, the following inscription:

“Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create
se non etterne, e io etterno duro.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate”

I supposed at that time I was the second person in the plant who had read the divine comedy, and the first to have gotten this message, and I was not far wrong.

Fact is, I had a learning experience ahead of me. In the four years i worked there, I became a man. I learned to be a machinist. I learned to be a good mechanic. I learned to be a decent electrician. I saw people die, more than once close enough to blow their heated, sanguine last breaths on my face. I married and became estranged from my first wife. Four, five years of intenseness, every moment a harsh reminder of the frailty of life, as you constantly thought about the misstep you could make which would cause your instantaneous death. I finished my apprenticeship, got the education they provided, and moved on.

Still, when I smell an asphalt truck, or witness fresh hotpatch being laid, the smell hearkens me back to those days, I think of the friends I buried, and the way they died, and I am sometimes a tiny bit ashamed to have lived, more by dumb luck than by skill. Overall, though, the memories it dredges up are good ones, even if bittersweet.

The post below about people dancing like fucktards, and it’s connection to Vman, and one of his recent posts, brought a harmonic conversion of sorts which led me to this post.

Shut up, I’m tired.

Anyway, I had, for a while, an Indian physician. She was ncie enough, and very pretty, and I have to admit I’ve always wanted to hit me some indian chick. I think it’s the way they dance, those fucktarded dancers. THe days when that is possible are over, behind me forever. On the other hand, there was always the possibility this woman might have to give me a shortarm inspection, and the thought of her hands cupped around the boys saying, in her mild accent, “My, what an enormous scrotum you have!” gave me more than one major woodie.

One day she showed up in her surgery with the tightest pair of pants, showing off the most hideous granny-panty lines, and I decided that wasn’t for me. And I changed doctors.

Anyway, that brought me around to the fact that I only ever had one shortarm inspection ever, and that was from the local doctor- whose kid attended school with me- and it was to be allowed to play sports. Old Dr M- made me drop trou and reached in and jammed his fat boogerhooks up my inguinal canal, suggested I cough, and as I felt his hot breath onmy naked belly,, smelled the Alberto VO-5, the cheap booze… I decided I wasn’t interested in having a man touch me again, if I could help it. Been saving myself for Vman ever since.

Occasionally I need to remind one of my colleagues that we live, not in a democracy, but in a representative republic. I’m amazed the number of people who don’t get this: “And to the republic for which it stands”?

Anyway. A pure democracy is a clusterfuck; a committe. Nobody hateth a committe more than yours truly.

The point of a representative republic is to allow a group of duly elected officials, elected because their mores reflect the mores of the public who elected them, who make decisions and thrash out those decisions amongst themselves- but they have to bow to the will of their masters.

There has been a reversal of fortunes, even if only for a moment. Those whose power grew until they thought themselves masters, ruling elite, have rediscovered, again,. perhaps only for a minute, who the real masters are. Do we, as a nation, have the will to repeat this performance? to force our representatives to truly represent us? Monday I would have said no way. Friday, I think, maybe. Just maybe. And the horrid bussing issue shot down by the supremes? This has been a good week for conservatives, and it could be the shape of things to come.

All I can do is bask in the moment. Tomorrow? we’ll do what we can then too.