Neanderpundit

rich man, poor man
beggarman, theif.

When the book came out in 74 I was a freshman in high school. I didn’t actually put my hands on a copy until my first year at Purdue, where I bought it for a buck out of the remaindered rack.

In 1978 I was a lot more interested in wetting my wick than filling my brain, but I still read a good deal, and this book, in that era of typewriters and shorthand and long distance communication by mail and telegraph, it seemed very advanced. Microdots. Matchbox cameras. Dead drops.

Today the technology seems primitive, but the human interaction is as real- if not more real- than we have today. WHat is now relegated to technology was once the domain of roomsful of people with typewriters and pencils.

I re-read it New Years day, to try to refresh my memories of the players for the upcoming movie. It is as good now as it was then, despite the dated technology. I cannot wait to see the movie, though if the theater is loaded with screen talkers, I may have to borrow Francesco Gullino’s umbrella.

associated with a memory like mine.

Like, I can remember with perfect clarity, the last time I saw my father outside a casket, on a stainless slab at St James Hospital. I can remember the way it felt the first time someone kicked me hard in the nads. I can remember in exquisite detail walking in on my ex-inlaws in flagrante delicto.

There are a million of those memories I would love to have an erase button for; Most of the time my piss poor retrieval system protects me from the worst of them, but sometimes something triggers the old synapses and a creature climbs out of the old memory hole and assails me with it’s obscene clarity.

I someties wince at those old moments that come out, but most of the time I can get some stupid song stuck in my head and drive the rest of the crap out.

On the other hand, I can remember when the nurse put my infant daughter in my arms for the first time, and the memory is far better than any picture. I can see the dirt on her little shoes as she squishes beans into the indiana loam for the first time at six. I can see the flush in her face as she wins her first fencing match. I remember the smile on her face when she graduated 8th grade and the church had a bat loose inside making everyone giggle.

I’ll happily take the bad with the good. If i live long enough to develop Dementia, I figure I can make ten good years on the good memories alone.

comes as often as not to those who don’t deserve it.

Today a miracle has been visited upon me, and never was there anyone less deserving. The noise the truck has been making has gotten worse, and tonight I decided to rip the right front off the truck on general principles. The halfshaft is cheap enough, so I go get one and in the process of ripping it apart I discover that the inner segment of the axle is not snapped into place, and comes out with the CV axle. So i pry them apart, widen the circlip that holds the inner shaft segment in place, and snap it back in.

It’s a bit annoying that I’m so good at this, I’ve had the front end of Exploders apart so many times. I managed to rip off the outer quadrant of the suspension-Wheel, brake, rotor , bearing, upper, lower, knuckle, CV voint, go to the store and get a replacement joint, and reinstall it all, by myself, between seven and nine. In fact by Nine proper I was already here eating dinner and beginning to type this.

And the noise is gone.

Oh, it’s still loud, it’s a 13 year old ride with 160,000 miles, and big crossover tires. The unwanted, unexpected noise, otoh, is gone.

I’mna have to go to mass twice this weekend.