The good old bad days...

For the last couple of days I've been suffering with a bad case of GFA, a really bad case. Why give a fuck about it, it won't matter anyhow. Anyway, I was out and about, stopped into my favorite little greasy spoon diner for a burger and ran into Chuck. Now Chuck is a buddy of mine, a few years older than I and retired. Back in the day he was a contract pipe-fitter who spent so much time at our place he kept a coffee cup in our break room, it was just simpler that way. It was good to have him around, if he piped it up it didn't leak, and when a lot of what's in the pipes is stuff you really, really don't want running loose that's an important thing. Anyhow, we bumped into each other and of course it turned into a back-when session, tales of adventures and misadventures from back in the day.  Lord knows there was some bone headed bullshit piled on us by folks who didn't have a freaking clue what they were asking for.


Back then? Back then I really didn't like my work life. Of course it didn't have a thing to do with 115 degree summers or 38 degree winters or twelve hour rolling shifts where after a year or two you just forgot what being rested felt like. The fact we had near 200 horsepower of ventilator fans trying, not always successfully, to keep the mind-burning fumes sucked out didn't matter, after a while you get used to working in the eye of a hurricane, perpetual low pressure just wasn't a big deal anymore. You get used to suffering, you get used to being used, you knew they knew you had a family to feed and didn't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut that you didn't really have any choice in the matter. It was a habit, back then, to walk in the door, look around and ask the place "ok, which part of this screwed up clusterfuck is going to try and kill someone today?" Lord knows it got close a time or three. Just luck no one ever left in a body bag, just luck. By rights we should have killed a dozen or so over the years.

It sucked, big time... and yet, looking back, it really didn't suck any more than now does, not really. Just in different ways. We'd pretty well agreed on that, Chuck and I had by the time fourth or fifth cup of coffee had gone away. Don't have to sweat so much now, most of the time. But there's still way to much to worry about, and even less to be done about it. It comes up about even in the wash. I look back and realize I did some of my very best writing in those days, just trying to stay sane. So yea, here's to the good old bad days when at least there was a reason to be seen. Here's to you Grover and Dan, Oren and Arthur and WillieBob, Pecos and Pam, CajunOb and TomV and Scotty Hellraiser who'd been in the trenches with me even before they built that damn vertical hole in the sky… a toast to the good old bad days... may their likes never be seen again. Cheers!