The future is now?

   Four years, two days ago I permanently became a grandfather. Apiphany was born and immediately out of the hatch she showed us that this was to be a very unique little girl.  These past four years Lisa and I have been able to spend a good deal of time around  her.  have witnessed many of the things that make her amazing.  But she is nearly 2000 miles away now and those times sadly will probably be shorter.

   Seems Danny is fed up with working months with few days off.  Graves backed up with swings and other nonsense conditions.  Specifically working in the tougher part of town.  Two events of late has kind of brought home reality for these types of jobs.  One, a few days ago somebody got shot in the parking lot resulting for whatever reason, the cops tend to not hang out as often.  Thus no longer brunting the odds of a robbery and the second, cleaning up a large amount of blood from a homeless man vomiting in the parking lot.  Pretty legitimate complaints for the pay.  Can't say I blame him.  So I offer to help and we spend a few days at Mcdonalds updating resume.  Gets one application in.  Called the next day and hired immediately after the interview with better pay and benefits.  Boy could sell an eskimo a freezer.

       
Getting older now I tend to confront the future and consider our outlook.  We probably can make it work.  But looking over my social security stuff as I am about to legitimately become a senior citizen, I noticed something most folks probably ignore.  That item would be in the past earnings column. Yup that's what I am going to talk about as it relates to something else.

   So, I'm taking an avid interest in,  something called cpi.  (Consumer Price Index)  There is a handy little calculator found here.   It's pretty cool, plug in the year and amount and fast forward for value in today's dollars, or any other year one might want to compare against..  Kind of provides a perspective of living on a fixed income for the next several years.

        So once again turning to my past earnings numbers, I discovered that directly after graduating from high school, I earned about 2700 bucks.  Not much by today's standards. Probably the reason I've never paid much attention.  I was only eighteen years old then after all. For some reason subsequent years earnings were cut by half during those muddling years after high school,  But that's another easy explanation.

       Out of curiosity, I plugged that amount in to get a comparison what that meant in 2016 dollars.  And holy crap, 2,700 bucks in 1973 is nearly fifteen thousand now in purchase value. Actually 14,500 to be accurate. Dementia is an insidious evil thing I was thinking.  I was going to college then and already earning the same monthly amount as a professional today.  Maybe as a  junior Engineer or Certified Public Accountant if I was just working those three months over summer. Five grand a month, whatever did I need college for?  I was bound for big things. Big things I say, just ask my teachers and football coaches enthusiastically praising my drive and work ethic.  Oh wait...

      Through my alcohol and thumped about old brain, memories of that time  churned  to the surface.   That time of my life really was not that unusual.   It just consisted of a steady $2.75 per hour typical construction job that lasted the summer and the following fall and winter, a popular pizza joint, (where I consumed most of my calories during the week in pizza and beer) and for some reason or other I was also entrusted to safeguard the lives of nearly eighty kids whom I transported to school each day. (Silly adults) Usually arriving late provoking some unnecessary reactions from them.  Really,  making me wonder about the quality of parenting they'd received.  Normally the first bell had already rung and the little varmints really had to dash for it in order to avoid being tardy.   Watching them scramble like that really made up for all the "You asshole, again ?"  queries (or words to that effect) blurting from young mouths as they hopped out. Followed up by my own cheery "See you again tonight (ya little bastards)" That last part under my breath.  Those jobs both lasted several months, overlapping each other.  Pay was a little more than minimum

So I really have to break this down here.  My memory is a little clearer now. During that summer, as an 18 year old, I earned 477 per month.  Roughly 1400 over the summer.  (2500 per month in today's dollars.  Who pays an 18 year old that kind of money now?) The next nine moths or so another 145 bucks per month.  Easy peasy. three years before I'd been making a buck and a quarter for moving sprinkler pipe.  Sometimes fourteen or so lines a day.   But anyway, at minimum wage for the day, 146.00 per month is just 20 hours a week.  Typical part time job. I think I worked less than that. Easy 14 or fifteen credits, with a couple of shifts a week.  Beer money left over.

  Oh, did I mention that amount equals the annual income of a full time minimum wage worker today.  And who are we fooling, they are working a lot more hours than that trying to make that 600 to 800 rent that is now a days considered "affordable".

But for me those were awesome times.  Bought a nine year old car for $200 .  Almost two weeks earnings.  A 2007 vehicle today for two weeks pay? (good luck with that).  Plentiful opportunities for lodging at 60 bucks a month.  Your own damn place for eighty or ninety.  And as I muddled around living in different cities finding myself , I'd eventually wander back to college and fork out the hundred and sixty or so dollars for tuition.  Saved me from a lifetime of "you want fries with that?", which I have done, or department store greeter. Something I have also done.  I blame the right wingers of course.  Who through greed or delusion want to keep wages as low as possible.  Problem with that thinking is, whether I like to accept that fact or not, the right wingers tend to love their kids just as much as I do.

And the kids, those amazing kids who are still making it.  Making it with every unnecessary roadblock ilk of my generation have thrown at them. But no fooling around, no sir.  Best get serious yesterday.  But again, speaking for myself, is that what we intended as parents?  Conservatives and normal folks alike?  Because I think we can agree they are getting screwed and screwed good.  The numbers look really bad that they will fare as well as we did.

So that leads to the one question I ask myself.  Knowing this why do we tolerate it?  And that's  the question for the ages cuz I sure as hell don't know why.  Especially when we are in a position to change it.

Stephen Hawking on Capitalism

Last Night

       Had a dream last night.  It's been similar to others I have had this past year.  Involving people who are no longer with us.  This one was a bit different though, involving my late uncle, although younger and at an earlier age than what he was when he actually died.  He was accompanied by a number of other people who for the life of me, though I could still see a face or two in my minds eye upon waking, I had no idea who they were.
    
    To qualify this, I have no particular belief, or didn't before that dreams meant anything more than random nocturnal activities of the brain.  

     Kenny was the closest to me in age of all my uncles and aunts and consequently the one who I share a lot of childhood memories.  Just before he died several years ago, I had a last, very emotional, talk with him that left me in tears after hanging up.  I knew he was close to death when I was talking with him because he told me as much, and if memory serves me he passed that night. I carried a lot of guilt because I'd really made no attempts to contact him for several years.  Kenny had called my house a few times trying to get a hold of me and had talked with my wife instead.  I'd just written my being an asshole and not calling him back off to being too busy.  Trust me.  My kids fully believe the asshole thing about me back then.

      My wife and I unable to attend the funeral traveled through Missouri a few years back and attempted unsuccessfully to locate his grave in the small Amish town he was living in.  We'd driven a hundred and fifty miles from our camp. out of our way. and were due at another location the far end of the state the next day.  So basically we had until dark to try and locate that grave somewhere in an old untended and overgrown Cemetery. We tried our best walking up and down the rows until dark.  I left strangely not disappointed, but satisfied making it to that small town he'd lived.  At least I'd gotten that close I was thinking making that long drive back that night.

      So to my dream.  Solid 1080p.  Kenny, myself and a number of people, maybe twenty five or so in the old style living room. Some old house somewhere. Like I said, I remembered some faces but recognized none. Men, women, all dressed in 60's style formal.  Kenny wearing brown slacks, white shirt and tie underneath a V neck beige colored sweater.  Later  I vaguely wondered if he'd really  owned those clothes or they'd been manufactured by my mind.   We talked for a few minutes.   I remember none of the words, and then Ken hugged me.  A long tight brotherly type of hug and said goodbye.  He then went on to hug the other people in the room who surrounded him and blocking my sight of him.  (mind's eye anyway).  

       So yeah, my wife snuggles and hugs me in my sleep. Can't discount that.  I tell her about my dreams, those mornings I remember.  We think alike.  There's no particular discussion involved afterwards.  It just is what it is.    

        Now I tend to scoff at radio and televangelists. I've just seen more than my share of hypocrisy displayed by these people over the years.  And when some  "vision" is related by any of these types, well, then I tend to discount them.  Like I said, too much water under the bridge over the years to warrant any kind of respect.  

       But then I think and feel quite strongly here, that the emotions I felt after waking, of being moved in a manner lacking words to describe, were quite real, to me anyway. That in a sense, I genuinely got to meet Kenny one last time and say goodbye in person. And that experience was as real as anything else in my life. And for that, I just don't have an explanation, just appreciation.

Craaaaaaaaaaaapppppp

 I know I have said it before, but judging that we have not been paid for the last week of work, it seems that finally the manner in which we have made our living the past few years has finally come to an end.

These last few years working in the Oil Patch have definitely created many life time memories.  Often Lisa and I have spoke while making the night time hundred mile drive through central Texas to some god forsaken nowhere location on some dirt road setting up the trailer in the middle of the night with the sounds of feral pigs and Coyotes sometimes sounding only yards away, "did we in ever in our wildest dreams believe that we would ever be doing this a few years ago in the cloistered office environment we'd grown up in?"  Best answer is no.  Will I miss it? yes and no.  The very first day not a hundred and fifty yards away I saw my first cougar in the wild.  Thereafter, used to Border Patrol showing up in force in the middle of the night pursuing illegals who'd passed by me in the middle of the night and I hadn't seen or heard a thing.  Waking up to the sounds of a government helicopter not twenty feet over our rv.  Or the time I was awakened by Lisa not to get too excited, but there was an exodus of workers from the several or so rigs we were guarding that one had been taken over by armed illegals.  Turned out to be much less but I'll always remember waking up to the mass of vehicles speeding out and helicopters heading in overhead and circling the suspect rig. My calm and cool wife confidently directing traffic. But, well there it is.

Mornings usually started around three thirty AM with large numbers of guys showing up.  You got to know them pretty well over the weeks of continuous days and nights.  No longer needing to inquire their names and just a wave as they passed by.  Lots of free lunches, Breakfasts and original Texas BBQ.

The expression on my face when I realized ten miles South of Catarina meant we were only a mile or so from the Rio Grande but more or less isolated.  

During move days Lisa and I getting more and more efficient each time. Going through the routine of discovering the new location, wrapping our place up and  hurriedly driving through the region to arrive at the new location in the time allotted us.  But then the time Lisa tearfully informed me a young man, one of our regulars was killed that morning in a traffic accident.  Nice kid about the age of ours.  That one hit a little hard.

Driving to town for groceries and the inside thermometer registering 121 degrees outside.

Or the time she told me a bulldozer started slipping our way in the mud during a downpour while I dozed away.  Darn, maybe a week later when a wheel came loose from a speeding semi coming to rest about fifty yards away from us.

  When we learned that illegals had spent the day scant yards from us in a porta potty, only figuring it out when we discovered the hole cut out in order to see outside.

The time we watched a rig burn from a distance of about five miles.  Nary a word of it on the news.  Though rumor had it there had been some deaths.  And on one occasion workers arriving conveying the news that a dead guy was just down the road.  Turns out,  he remained there awhile as the state, feds and the locals feuded over who was responsible for him.  We even were told the rumor was false until some oddball folks showed up with morbid pictures.  

Did I mention my roadrunner pet Fred?

Being presented with an official doo rag of a bunch of non english speaking guys sporting Oilfield Mafia decals on their trucks the day we left

So I was trying to find the youtube video of crazy surreal mix of the oil boom insane traffic contrasted with the incredible poverty one drove past found in some of the central towns in Texas.  Appears to be plenty of them. Just type Eagleford traffic.

And all the grand mornings, beautiful sunrises and waking my wife with the smell of fried Texas sausage and eggs and coffee.   Definately some awesome together time.

So, anyway, I don't think it likely that the EagleFord will ever be that lively "hair on fire" again.  And yeah, years from now, grand kids ask, we'll have the stories. We were there.

Fridge

I really really try to head off problems before they occur. So explains that I have been in search of a replacement two way refrigerator to replace the twenty year old antique we'd been using.  Luck would have it, I located one barely five years old and acquired it not seven days before ours took a long and elongated dump.  For some reason I didn't have the fifteen hundred bucks, (two thousand installed) for a new one.

Truth be told, I messed up on the measurements just a little bit......k a lotta bit.  Anyway, took about a week but we finally got it in....after taking the door, furnace and other misc stuff.  Seems to work.  Biggest plus, saved literally hundreds of dollars...so far.

Kinda looks Ok.... eh?

So in the meantime I guess I'll just enjoy these mix of summer and fall like days that make South Texas so enjoyable in February.   For Super Bowl the neighbor is going to provide the TV and steaks and we'll provide the fire pit for an outside party.  Found this on youtube.  Thought I'd share.  Course you'll have to turn off the overhead music to hear.