Drive me to Insanity in a Morris Mini

[gurdonark]

As my wife headed out the door to take her bicycle ride at 8 a.m.,
she said "looks like rain". I said, "I don't think so, yet, but even if it does, it's fun to ride in the rain". A few moments later, I looked out the window as the promise to Noah was unceremoniously broken, rain cascading down without even the grace of a rainbow. I wish I could say that I felt solicitous guilt for encouraging her to ride in what proved to be a maelstrom, but I have had enough of misplaced guilt with no basis for one weekend (I still shouldn't have sung that David Bowie song in church camp, you know), so I just laughed a bit and prepared to provide a towel to a drenched rider upon her return.

Within an hour, the sun was out and a really pleasant eighty degree day was blooming. Of the eight summers or so I've spent in Texas (discounting the four at the "front end" of my life), the weather this summer is the nicest. Rain seems to break the heat thus far each time the heat becomes unbearable. We drove ten minutes up to neighboring McKinney, whose Town Lake Park has nice walking sidewalks around a tree lined lake. I did two laps around, passing unsuccessful fishermen ("hell, we don't even know why we're here", they asked when what luck they'd had), parades of geese, and training wheel kiddie bikers. Then we headed home.

I've gotten little done of note today, other than stopping by Petco for dog food and mowing the back yard. Now that postage has gone up, I'm not sure our tract home back yard qualifies any longer as a "postage stamp" backyard. Now I think it may be an "artistamp" back yard. Unfortunately, due to a bit of neglect, the "theme" of the artistamp might be "Bermuda Grass Kingdom".
Note to self: when you don't mow the grass, on the ground that the back yard is such a small project that it can be done in fifteen minutes any day, the day soon comes when the back yard can no longer be done in fifteen minutes. It's like one of those trite self-help books--"Every thing I learned, Bermuda Grass Taught Me". I have tried to find some moral high ground in this grass mowing matter, but my wife swiftly quashed my attempt to compare grass blade height with the neighbors' yard. I did note with chagrin, though, that the new "low rent with junk food" feeder I've placed in the back yard to replace my "posh bird" number is still filled with seed. God has called me to watch birds, not to feed them. This reminds me, of course, of the wonderful person we know who spends every Saturday night baking for her small church. She has one of those gifts of the Holy Spirit--the gift of baking. But I have taken great moral consolation in celebrating an equal and complementary gift which her congregation members have, and which I share--the gift of eating good food. What profiteth a man to bake a gingerbread man, and haveth nobody to eateth it? Better to eat a gingerbread man than to burn with lust. Hmmm. This is not coming out right.
I think we'll skip over the Paul's Epistles baking metaphors.

I'm deeply touched that I got two nice letters in the mail yesterday. One was from heymaggie, who sent along some music I will much enjoy. It's going to be a fun listen--yet another nice postcardx matter. The other was from Adam B. of postcardx. I had sent him something, and he wrote me the nicest handwritten letter. I read in his postcardx profile that he was a big fan of cars, so I drew a very primitive Morris Mini on the back of his envelope. I saw a lot of three wheel and four wheel Morris Minis during the summer of 1980 when I was in the UK, so I knew it well enough to imitate it. Do you know how you can look at a picture of mine and tell it is a Morris Mini? Sure--it takes some knowledge of cars, but I'll tell you. You look under the picture and the telltale letters are there. Those letters say "Morris Mini". That reminds me of the story of my late paternal grandfather, who was riding with my parents to a small town in Louisiana. They asked him over and over when they should turn to go to the little town. Over and over he said "there's a big sign". Finally, after miles of country roads with no signage of any kind, they broke down and asked "What does the sign SAY?". He looked at them and slowly spelled out "S T O P". Adam B. was very kind about my LJ; it gives me a needlessly prideful shiver when I get an e mail or letter from someone who does not comment here that they read my journal. Adam B.'s use of an actual handwritten letter also makes me want to write letters, particularly letters using MS Paint as well as type. Let's see what I can do to become a correspondent of the physics and metaphysics of on line paintshops. A college kid wrote an e mail to compliment me on some career advice I've given on the vault.com law message boards over the last couple of years--the praise was robust, but I have to admit I lapped it up. I know it is wrong to absorb good feelings from unexpected praise, but I'll cop to this particular sin, in hope that frank confession does a soul good.

Speaking of careers, I wonder how many people daydreamed when they were kids of what they would be with any real specificity.
I didn't have to, you see, for it was preordained. I was raised by a country doctor to be a country doctor. I was to follow in my father's footsteps, as sure as the sky is blue and the day is long.

The only problem was that I was not willing to put the work in to get the grades to give it a run. My undergraduate career was competent but far short of distinguished enough to even think of med school. The other med-related fields, many of which would have worked fine, were out of the question, as I had been raised to be a doctor. I found myself with a degree in physics (the only physics major in my school's history, I believe, with essentially a minor in English literature). Next thing I knew, I was in law school, although that came 9 months, some shoveled coal, and a story best saved for another day later.

Langston Hughes wrote a number of poems about a "dream deferred".
I like the one which says that a "dream deferred" has a "boogie woogie rumble". But I guess I never learned to boogie properly, as I didn't know to daydream about any career, except the career
I didn't end up qualifying for. Now I daydream all the time, and yet I have a perfectly nice career. Maybe I need to head to ebay...could there be time to dream of a Morris Mini?

Comments

would you fit?

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

a beautiful story

i don't know that i day dreamed of a career as a child

i did want to be a nurse or a teacher when i was very young

i cannot take the sight of blood and do not tolerate groups of unruly children

then i dreamed of being a mother and that is not my way now either

after that i dreamed of moving to the Haight and living the bohemian life so i moved to Paris, France to be a free woman in Paris unfettered and alive

then i just wanted a to raise a few sheep in the country

still do

loom, spinning wheel, sheep and beads

I fit in a Geo Metro

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

In LA, my car was a Geo Metro,but a morris may be a stretch for me.....

we have hobby farmers here who run sheep...there's something about seeing sheep in the field.

Re: I fit in a Geo Metro

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

i painted sheep on the barn door

will have to send you a pic

them Morris' are tiny

kinda like the first Honda or the tiniest Renault that was released here back in the lat 70's

could not resist

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

saw this and had to send it....http://homeadvisor.msn.com/Garden/LawnCare/LawnCareCenter.aspx

Re: could not resist

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

lol...thanks for the link! maybe I can go xerigraphic, and avoid having to do lawn care at all!

Re: could not resist

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

OHHH NOOOO

not the pink gravel "old man" yard!!!!

LOL

xeriscape is cool

there is a whole park here now supported by the local water authority in conjunction with a local junior college to demonstrate and educate

Re: could not resist

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Have you been to Rancho Santa Ana garden, over by the Claremont School of Theology, in Claremont?
Wonderful native garden stuff, and especially cultivars of native plants redone to withstand water, etc. That's how I'd like my CA yard to look, if I had a CA yard, instead of a TX "edge of the prairie" yard!

Re: could not resist

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

have not been there

i will put it on my list of things to do up north

thanks

[gregwest98.livejournal.com]

You know me; my pre-med pre-career was based on a misplaced goal to get the most money and status. Lucky for the world I guess that I didn't go that route.

I really wanted to be a rocket scientist or astronaut when I was a kid. And, you know, I actually did it. So I have arrived. And now departed.

It was fun.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Something tells me the last chapters in your career book have not been written. But the metaphor is imperfect, as I hear the Kenny Rogers song about "turn the page" popping up in my mind.

If an angel of God had appeared to you on the Highway 23 (you may remember it as the "pig trail"), and told you that you had the kernels of a physicist within you, would you have done things differently?

What about other avenues? When you finished your PhD, you had a solid PhD from a solid if not top school and could have done the endless strings of post-docs to try to get into research positions to try to get into a research university, etc. I remember those times roundabout when you finished your degrees, and I cannot imagine you climbing that ladder, with the accomanying economic disadvantages.

Similarly, it's hard to picture you staying in the Silicon Valley, either spending every last cent on housing or renting forever or commuting forever. You really did get in and get out at the right time to be a rocket scientist, IMHWO.

I guess that I always think you did the right thing at the right time for the right reasons.

So when will you do the right thing and move back to the DFW metroplex?