Papa and the Dump Truck

So what’s a college professor doing driving a dump truck?

One of my boys needed help.

We were at the diggins, the boy’s new house, and we needed to move dirt from the back of the poured foundation to the front of the property. To do this we used a skid loader and a dump truck, with the skid loader operator, the boy, being the more skilled of the two operators. After all, he had once picked up a quarter with a skid loader, or so he said.

Of course it rained the night before, so you had to overlook some of the puddles and slop, lest you spend the rest of the day in them; kinda like life. So the boy mixed dry dirt with the slop so we could work with it, though this created more work and everything seemed to move slowly.

Well the grays lowered and then turned into a mist. This made everything slick, which in turn made moving dirt even more difficult. But it wasn’t really all that bad, and in the end I only got the dump truck stuck once.

In time the mist stopped and the day lightened up and we began rolling with efficiency. The skilled operator explained how he wanted dirt dumped within six inches of a specific spot. After all that’s understandable, that was his skill level. But the college professor’s skill level was more like, “Thank you Jesus, we got this dumped in the correct county.” But the skid loader operator didn’t mind because that’s why God made skid loaders, to move dirt. Least that's what Papa said, and the boy agreed. So that’s just what we did, move dirt. As an aside, the dump truck driver actually did a pretty good job, a pretty good job indeed. Even the boy said so.

So what’s a college professor doing driving a dump truck?

Helping his boy, of course.

Remembering the Old Days

Well we had the grandkids over the other day, and the little boy was with them. You remember the one; we used to watch him before he was old enough to go to school. But we don’t watch him anymore since he is now grown up and in the second grade.

Well the two of us sat at our table in the kitchen and remembered the old days, when we use to sit there in the mornings. We talked about how grandma would bring us breakfast. We sometimes had hash browns and bacon, sometimes pancakes. We remembered how we talked about things and had a good time. We remembered too how wonderful the breakfasts were.

And there were other things that reminded us of the past. Like later that day when we fed the cats and took trash down to the road, just like we did in the old days. He then asked about Smokey, and I explained how that cat ran off. He then picked up a rock to throw in the pond, but I told him he probably shouldn’t do that. After all, his aunt would get mad because she didn’t get to throw rocks in the pond when she was little. He reminded me how he used to, back in the old days, so I said one would be okay.

We talked about other things too, about kicking through the leaves in October, and stomping around in the snow, and how we would get the mail every day. I told him how Papa enjoyed having him around, but I didn’t say anything about missing him. I didn’t want him to feel bad, now that he has grown up and all. After all, growing up is the way of life. It’s just that it happens so fast.

Well we had the grandkids over the other day, and I spent some time with the boy. Kinda reminded me of the old days.

Miss Stuver, Doc Savage, and the Make-Believe World of Literature

            Nancy Stuver was a young woman recently out of college when I met her over 45 years ago. This rather timid woman was my high school English teacher. Her job was to teach us American literature.

            In those days I was withdrawn and difficult, a troubled kid with a crappy attitude whose personal life had exploded into chaos. I didn’t particularly like reading, certainly not the horrid books Miss Stuver wanted us to read. I would merely skim a few pages and bluff the rest, just enough to get by. The poor woman didn’t know how to handle me.

            But ironically at that time, I was reading Doc Savage. Doc was the Man of Bronze, the superhero who righted wrongs and punished evildoers. Written mostly in the 1930s by Lester Dent (Kenneth Robeson), Doc and his five aids (headquartered in New York City), sought adventure in a world of dirigibles, autogyros, and automobiles with running boards and starter switches that you needed to step on to engage the engines. In Doc’s world, criminals could be converted by a simple operation, heroes could be beaten senseless without lasting consequences, and good guys always won. During my high school years, Bantam Books reprinted these adventures at the rate of one a month.

            But something happened as I escaped into the world of Doc. In fact, what happened was the same thing that eventually killed the original series. Reality.

            World War II arrived, and Doc’s successes against horrid villains who threatened to destroy the world seemed insignificant to the reader, now enmeshed in the horrors of fascism and war. Doc Savage Magazine underwent some changes in those years but finally stopped in 1949. The escape world of Clark Savage Jr. could not survive in the real world. In fact, Doc’s world seemed hollow when even compared to my own troubled world.

            So what does all of this have to do with Nancy Stuver? Her patient persistence changed things. Huckleberry Finn was the first book forced upon us that I actually read; in fact I was taken by it. And though still a make-believe world, this one was different. This book told an adventure of a troubled kid and a runaway slave floating down the Mississippi River, and a Colonel who stopped the lynch mob who came after him, and a feud that generated serious consequences. In Twain’s make-believe world, I saw something about life that was indeed real and important.

            So I read the other books that she offered: The Red Badge of Courage, The Great Gatsby, A Separate Peace, plus other books that today I don’t recall. And somehow in all of this, I understood that stories needed to be more than just taking us into a make-believe world. This make-believe world needed to show us something about life, and if the book is really good, something about ourselves. These make-believe stories were not threatened by reality, but rather taught us something about it.

            So what would I say to Miss Stuver if we met today after all of these years? Would we talk about a runaway slave named Jim? Or perhaps Doc and his friends?

Probably not.

I might tell her that I’ve had three books published, and if she remembers me at all she’d be stunned.

            But what I think I’d like to say would simply be, “Thanks, Nancy.”

Papa, Soccer, and the Boy

Well the boy played soccer the other day, and of course Papa was there. It was a cool October morning, a beautiful fall day.

The boy’s a sixth grader so he played on the U12 league. I always tell him he’s special and that I love him to pieces. After all, that’s what Papas do.

He started the game playing goalie. I walked down the sideline to where he played, you know, to be close and where he could see me. I gave him that low wave that I do, and he returned it. You can’t wave real obvious like; after all, he is playing soccer.

Well he’s a very good player. He directs the play when the ball gets near the goal, and he knows just what to do. He had several saves, and the other team didn’t score that half. But that’s not why he’s special.

In the second half he played forward and soon scored a goal. He played real heads-up like, and just knows where to be and how to anticipate things. And he could tell that Papa was proud of him, you know, with me standing on the sidelines and everything.

Anyway the game progressed and the boy continued to play, and then he scored another goal. Oh, did I mention he’s a really good player? But scoring goals is not why he’s special either.

Well his team won. At the end of the game I gave him a big hug and told him again how special he is. And it’s not just because Papa says so, though that’s important. The boy’s special because, well because that’s the way God made him.

He said he knew all of that, and I’m sure that he did.

Well the boy played soccer the other day, and Papa was there. It was a beautiful October morning.

The (Grand) Girl and the Pickup Truck

I drove to the construction site the other day. It had rained, and mud and yuck covered the landscape. Of course my granddaughter was there; she was helping her daddy with some of his work.

Well we had to go on an errand so my granddaughter and I hopped into my pickup, my clean pickup. You guessed it. She brought a bunch of yuck with her into the truck.

Of course she felt bad. “It’s okay,” I said, and it really was. You should have seen the driver’s side; it was worse and I even said so. But she still felt bad. That’s because she’s a very special sweetie.

“Look,” I said. “I’d rather have a messy pickup and have my granddaughter with me, than a clean pickup and no granddaughter.”

That needs repeating.

I’d rather have a messy pickup and my granddaughter, than a clean pickup and no granddaughter.

She smiled and said she knew that, and I suspect she did.

Well that’s pretty much the story. We bounced out of the muddy field, onto the road, and away on our errand.

As for the pickup, well it survived. You see, as a granddaughter, she can track mud and yuck anywhere she wants.

That's because she’s my sweetie.