We have 29 minutes left in flight, i’ve had three waters, finished my water bottle, three cups of coffee and haven’t moved from my seat.
talk about extended bladder range.
Years ago when my father bought his first F150 when he retired the Econoline van i grew up in and he drove to DC, he got the one with two fuel tanks. He also eventually got an escort station wagon, commuting in the big truck was less than ideal but the truck worked for everything else he did.
Including driving to Colorado to pick us up or to go on camping trips. Yeah about the CO pick up, that’ll have to wait for another story. Two fuel tanks. That’s some serious range. One fuel tank usually was enough to force a stop well before needed. Two, mean that anyone but my dad and my brother’s would need to stop and relieve their bladder well before the truck needed gas.
That truck got totaled one summer day, Fortunately it was on a local grocery run and only one or two of us were with our dad, and everyone was wearing a seatbelt. Brenin was stoked and confused about the Firemen giving him a lollypop for wearing his seatbelt. Normally when the four of us travel with him, two of us were in the bed of the truck under the cap. We grew up there in the back of that truck, not literally, but we spent enough time back there on the army surplus canvas wrapped open cell foam pads bouncing around in the heat and the noise that it seemed normal. That second truck? Well either due to availability or spec, the baseline truck with manual transmission and hand crank windows and vinyl bench seats, well, there was only one tank. And my Step mother couldn’t have been happier. Finally a reason to stop and get out of the truck on road trips at a reasonably interval.
It is pretty strange headed back to Seattle/PacNW with my dad now living out there. 40 years ago he left. My mother had fallen in love with my step father, my dad was drinking as much or more than any of us did/have/do and and well they got divorced, he stopped drinking, started smoking instead but not in front of us, we spent some time with him at his apartment before he left. We were little, he was ill-equiped to deal with us, having pretty much zero interaction with the other three, and with me? Many many local fishing trips, where we’d catch lots of fish, he’d drink constantly, I didn’t noticed it, mind it, see any issue with it, but reflecting yeah it was there. I saw a very different view of him than anyone else. Sheltered in many ways, it developed a strange non-talking relationship, that none of my other brothers have with him. Heck my wife got him talking non-stop driving down from somewhere one year. We spent three days driving to Colorado and had one, maybe two conversations that lasted more than a explaination of where we were or a memory of his trips through there.
It was his last trip through and maybe I wanted it to be his trip, i wanted to talk but didn’t. Wanted to tell him everything that had happened, how someone broke up one of the more infamous mid-pack masters teams and the story behind that.
I never did.
Once he was there my brother’s started flying out to help, the first three I missed. The first was fun for them but kind of last minute, I had other commitments I couldnt get out of, all the trips were either last minute or impossible to make work for me. On their second one he started opening up to my brothers about the troubles with my step mother that lead to his divorcing her and ultimately left him alone with failing health in the middle of nowhere colorado.
Talking with my brother after I landed and on my way here, I got a better glimpse into my dad’s decline. Talking with my dad on the phone on his 80th birthday sunday was tough, he had changed, mentally not the same, weird verbal patterns. But my brother filled in a bit more, but no one has really given me the full medical story. I don’t think my dad is capable of doing that, and he’s always been adverse to medical care, and watching over the years his doctors have been high profile pill pushers, I’m fairly certain all the cholesterol drugs and other macro indicator adjusting pills he was taking contributed to the neurological decline. Goal is to make sure I have a chance to pry out of my brother or his wife more what the docs are saying.
So even now, not much has change, I’ve been kept at an arms distance to the actual what is going on, Probably not deliberate but when something is this complicated and no on has been able to get you the full history where do you start?
I’m sitting here, in the studio, looking out at the trees I planted in the early 90s, in a part of the field that was 2” of topsoil over clay, they took years to establish themsleves but now they are 3-4 stories tall and laden with cones. A bit tightly planted, intended to thin them at some point, but they are self regulating now. The alder trees are totally moss covered and a barrier to the ancient douglas fir on the top of magic hill. it is quiet. the rain is falling. I didn’t go to sleep until 11pm or so work up when it got light and then fell back asleep until 8-830. Made coffee… there’s no wifi down here, but that may be a good thing. I can read and write off line drinking coffee and having some quiet. My oldest kid is sleeping down here in the studio. We’ve got our space and the concerts are coming up tomorrow and well like my brother said - there’s really nothing different, we’ve been doing this same pattern for a long time now, it is routine. There are variables in play that are different this year but shouldn’t perturb the pattern too much.
Time to post before I add too much more.
heddwch
G
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