SLOGGING THROUGH WINTER… Good & bad (Part 169l)
Being
Winter, Elle preferred that I go to the 10am church service with her and
the kids. However, on this Sunday I wanted to be alone in my time at
church. My sleep had been restless with the recurring thought that the
deceased driver was doing exactly what he’d had in mind to do with his
life… be a professional race car driver. I knew there would be comments
that his was a wasted life. Racing, all kinds, had been a part of my
life and even though some of it had been dangerous, it had never gotten to
my psyche. Accidents were going to happen to the other guy, not me. In my
auto racing days, I’d be a little nervous while waiting to go out on
the track but once there, no problem. However, the risk level of it to me was far
below that of where the accident took place… 60 miles per hour on a 1/4
mile track versus 180 miles per hour on a two 1/2 mile track. In church,
I chose to do my own praying and didn’t follow the prayer book. As I
remember it, I was praying that I could be strong enough to not let the
unfortunate things that happen to others make me question their desires
and ambitions. As far as the rest of the day, I have no record or
memory of what I did.
Bret was waiting for me at work the next
morning. He knew Cliffy a little bit from when he raced at the local
track. He also knew Cliffy had gone to Daytona to be in the pit crew for
a local driver but hadn’t been able to get any information on how the
driver did. He was disappointed to hear that he hadn’t qualified. Then I
told him that he’d been on the pit crew of the driver that had died. I
remember his eyes bugging out of his head as soon as I told him. I
remember him asking if I was sure and told him that Cliffy’s wife had
told me herself. He was still shaking his head as we walked to our
desks. Once there, he told me that he’d actually gotten that driver’s
autograph when he’d raced at the local track the year before. I didn’t
really want to talk about the accident itself but Bret wouldn’t let it
go. Finally, I was ‘rescued’ by Joanie telling me I had a phone call. It
was Lynda from the stock broker’s office.
I’d not talked with
her since she got out of my car when we met out at the bowling alley. In
her desire to do something for me as a “Thank you…” for getting her
home safely on New Year’s Eve she’d agreed to give me a couple of
pictures of her in panties that had been taken by her husband. However,
nothing was mentioned about when she’d give them to me. I wasn’t about
to ask so, for me, the safest thing was to just wait… and I’d
consciously chosen not to go over her office hoping to hear from her. After hearing the familiar voice I
held my breath. The call was to tell me that her boss, Stan, who was my
broker, had some information sheets for me to look at. I really wasn’t
in the mood, or position, to buy any more stock so just told her I’d try
to get over there later. I remember her asking if everything was OK. I
didn’t want to go into the racing thing so just told her it was.
The
next surprise was in having Hobie come over to my desk to ask about the
racing accident. He had a newspaper in his hands and asked if I’d seen
the pictures of it. Hobie had never shown any interest in car racing so
this was from ‘out of the blue’. He went on that he’d seen it on the
late night TV news. The fact that it had been on the regular
TV news had also been a surprise when I’d seen it the night before. Bret
heard him ask me about it and came over as well. In my mind I started
going over just how I was going to ‘escape’ again from what appeared to be a never
ending reminder. Neither of us had seen the newspaper pictures and I
wasn’t sure I wanted to. But, Bret did.
To get out of that I told
Hobie I wanted to show him what Mae and I had accomplished on Saturday in the cellar
and what we planned to do going forward. On our way I
remember Hobie saying that at one time his son wanted to get involved
with race cars and now, after seeing those pictures, was glad he got involved
with girls. I had to smile in hearing that. He didn’t give the response I
was hoping for when he saw the results of our efforts. I mentioned the
incident with what I thought might’ve been a rat getting into the main
part of the cellar. I’d already told Mike to get more rat traps but
Hobie told me to go see the owners of the old time hardware/general
store. It was run by an old line family with ‘roots’ in the town almost
as deep as mine. The patriarch supposedly had a homemade rat poison that Hobie
said had worked for the bank back a number of years prior. It sounded pretty good to
me and I figured I could stop there when I went to pick up the
information on the stocks that Stan had picked out for me as the store
was almost next door to the brokerage.
Thankfully, my day was
fairly busy with customers. Even though I hadn’t done anything physical
all day I found myself feeling tired by the time 5pm came. When I went
to pull out of the parking lot there was policeman directing traffic who
wouldn’t let any one make a left turn. I tried to find the reason but
he wouldn’t have any of it so I just turned right. I had to take a
fairly circuitous route to be on my way home. However, it did take me
past the hardware store so, with them still open, I stopped. I knew the
youngest son, Tom, from the Chamber of Commerce meetings. When I told
him what I was looking for he laughed and said most of the things that
made up his grandfather's concoction had been outlawed. My
first thought was that there was no wonder the rats had been eliminated.
He did offer up a new kind but couldn’t attest to the effectiveness of
it but I took it with me anyway. Back outside I ran into Stan, my broker. The brokerage rented space in the parking lot owned by the hardware store and he was on the way to his car.
When he saw me he told me about the group of stocks he wanted me to look
over. I really wasn’t interested at that moment but, wanting to stay on
his ‘right side’, agreed to walk back to the office to get them. I
thanked him and told him I’d be in touch if anything interested me.All I
wanted was to be on my way home.
Elle had some news for me when I
walked in. Beth had called in the morning and told her she and Cliffy
were on their way home. But there was a caveat to that. They expected to
be home sometime late Tuesday night but would only be there to get some
sleep. They would be leaving first thing in the morning to attend the
funeral for the race car driver. It was being held on Wednesday evening
near Boston. After telling me, Elle expressed disbelief that Beth wouldn’t
make at least a quick stop to see her baby. I’d questioned how she
could’ve taken off for Florida in the first place. But the baby seemed
to have thrived under Elle’s care and hadn’t been a problem at all…
well… except for one thing.
To be continued...
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