Author Notes

A 1963 Chevrolet

As long as I can recall, it’s always been a ‘63 Impala convertible, white with a red interior, and one of those early big-blocks, and a four-speed on the floor. Maybe I saw one or rode in one with my dad. We were Ford men; I knew that, but that Impala was hot. You chose your allegiance early in life. Ford men and Chevy and Mopar men got along ok, but there was always a palpable suspicion.

I felt a bit of a traitor for loving the ‘63 Impala, but I kept it to myself; I did confess to my cousin. He was a Chevy man, he understood, even at three or four years old, we knew automotive identity was foundational, a key element of who we are.

A ‘63 sits on Station Road; I pass it every time on my way to Storm King.

I’ve stopped in twice. The first time I saw the SS in a circle after the ‘Impala,’ and it was indeed a four-speed on the floor. The interior was an ugly blue and nearly sixty-year-old blue, but that could be fixed. The canvas roof rotted away, but that could be replaced.

It was raining that day, and the beast smelled from years of neglect.

The next time I saw the owner outside, so I stopped. He was nice enough; he let me poke around. I recognized the 409 block by the stock exhaust manifolds, and the oddly shaped valve covers, and I saw the duel quad Rochester Q-jets up on the intake.

I asked him why he’d not got it on the road; he said, “no time.” I wondered if he’d sell it, and he said, “I want to hold onto it for a little while longer.”

The guy has a gutted ‘68 Mustang fastback sitting in the front of his house. I swear this is all there to taunt and haunt me. I look every time, wondering if I’ve imagined the whole scene, but there it sits every week. He has every dream car that ever mattered sitting in his driveway in pieces.

He has no idea what he has, I’ve told him that and it sits in the rain, and it rots. I even offered to help him get it on the road for free, but it sits there.

I drive by, and I ponder rescue missions with Osama Bob. He understands, being a Chevy man, and he doesn’t hate Fords as much as he claims.

Were there even titles and VIN numbers in 1963, could it be traced?

Osama points out a flatbed in a driveway would probably draw someone’s attention and the cops.

And the guy who has everything won’t sell.

So the Impala and the Fastback sit and seize and rust.

There ain’t nothing sadder than a graveyard in the rain.

From a Teacher

*** I created this collage with questions to show the different ways mental health can be looked at, when thinking of teaching: In-person/hybrid & virtual. These are just questions roaming around in my mind, and maybe they’re roaming around in yours!***

What is best, mentally, for our kids during a deadly pandemic?

-Is it more important for teachers to be physically in the room, with your child, and not be able to smile at your child behind a mask and shield or is it to show emotion like you can virtually?

-Is it more important to be physically in a building in a “cocoon” of 10 students that never move around, and hoping that your child can get along with one of the other 9 children or at home where moving about can be done freely, and not having to stand on a “X” to wait and use the bathroom?

-Is it more important to have students use Chromebooks in a classroom? Or in their homes? Remember, pens, pencils and paper is a huge no-no! They can spread the virus. But at home these utensils can be used!

-And finally, is it more important for your child to stay healthy? Or more important to gamble with it?

–Aimee Stout, High School Teacher

–Pine Bush, NY

Willin’

Alone in my red Ford, the Lowell George song Willin’ comes on the radio like an invasion from a lost and forgotten past life.

Remembering sitting in a truck stop on the Trans-Canada highway, forty below zero at 3 am, watching it snow, seemingly without end into a whiteout.

This pretty waitress, in a short skirt, bringing us a constant stream of coffee while we sat chain smoking cigarettes and arguing over some meaningless bullshit, probably my need for a haircut and or shower or some life decision I was about to monumentally fuck up.

That ’78 Kenworth with the Cummins Big Cam 400, that Bill Jones and I would use to turn ourselves into The Flying Gonzo Brothers by summer, idling for hours, a hundred feet away in the freezing cold.

We pretty much ruined the entire east-coast for Big Frank that year. He couldn’t go into a truck stop after that without hearing about those two assholes he had working for him. Some places said he owed them money for something we’d done or damaged or destroyed.

Fleeting moments that break through blur at the strangest times, like hot summer days.

Some quick math and the realization that pretty waitress, Dallas Alice, is now seventy-five.

Weed, whites and wine…

Freedom Fest, 2020

So, the other night, in Montgomery, the local republicans had a “freedom fest,” with fireworks.

The hero-patriots got to sit in their cars and be socially distanced while they celebrated God knows exactly what. Thinking they were excited about:

Babies in cages?

Supession of the press?

Capturing COVID statistics so the administration can twist the narrative in a favorable light?

150,000 deaths due to inaction and lies, a quarter-million by the fall. 75,000 new cases a day?

Opening schools in the middle of a pandemic that’s not even completed the ‘first wave?’

Being the laughing stock of the world, and our slide into ‘shithole country’ status continues?

Hate rallies and the military in our streets?

Tear gassing citizens for photo-ops at churches?

Unidentified stormtroopers in Portland, coming to a city near you soon!

14% unemployment rate?

Russian bounties on American soldiers?

Small businesses on the verge of collapse?

Militarization of the police.

For profit prisons.

Health insurance that costs as much as your mortgage.

An additional SIX TRILLION added to the deficit, most of which went to large corporations, there’s a name for that: fascism

Boogaloo, the KKK and 1488?

To be fair, we’ve not had one single attack from the ISIS Air Force or Navy, thanks to our trillion dollar military budget, so there’s that…

FREEDOM!

Sunlight in July

There is a comfort in knowing if I stand in this exact place and look to the west, every July 15th at 6:34 am, when the sky is cloudless and clear, the sun will shine precisely on that spot, that rock.

The trees around me will grow and die and fall, and the rock will probably be there for thousands of years, but that spot on the earth will always catch this July sunrise.

No matter what is in this spot, I imagine the sun will hit it at this exact moment in the year till the end of my time and well beyond, the end of all time, I suppose.

That patch of dirt out on my back lawn is my particular and perculiar and private Stonehenge.

Nothing is significant in this date or day or time,other than it was noticed at this moment, waiting for my coffee to perk. The comfort is knowing that as long as I can count on the sun hitting that spot next year, and the year after that not everything is broken.

So then, I take comfort in the laws of motion and inertia and gravity and particles of light, and not much else or many other things. My cousin is a scientist and he bought me a book on physics. He’s understands things, the mechanics of the universe. I don’t understand anything, I just need to know some things still work.

I’m feeling a little windswept today, but not enough to billow my sails, or right this ship; the safe harbors are gone. I feel at the mercy of the wind.