Milestones

    I am now within the 90 day window in which I can file for social security benefits at 62.  (long sigh) At early retirement many years hence, I selected the option to receive less in order to receive more later.  In other words I have had to learn to do more with less as they say in government by the lucky individuals who will do anything but.  It's not going to be a lot though now Lisa and I have the option of working or not.  I choose not.

      Speaking of working,  Likely we are the privileged few who even now are occasionally called.  A nice present but surely over now (as I have said every other time.}  We just returned from a few day gig.

      Now we have had to learn to get along with the occasional inhospitable land owner.  And without naming names, there have been a few ( among other titles) who have been truly despicable.  This time we were warned that once again we'd be located on inhospitable land.  A truly onerous sort.  Drop by at two in the morning to check if you're asleep or let any of his animals out.  I'd heard another horror story from a previous gate guard about the gentleman.   So I was prepared to get in and get out.

      Let me digress just a bit.  Down near the border where we started, our location was situated on a huge piece of property I heard rivaled the King's holdings.We got to know one of the head hands who turned out to be the personable sort. Though when he dropped by to converse occasionally, his one complaint to us was the behavior of the Border Patrol, who often left gates open. " Every critter inside them fences has value" he said.  "And now they're getting out all the time.  When I was a kid, go to work  for one o' these ranches, you left the gate open one time you were fired.  One time.  No forgiveness or sorry, you're just down the road."

   So we were working a rig move and I was in the process of checking in a line of vehicles and equipment at around two in the morning, when the last one, a big shiny one pulled through.  I walked to the driver side and was met with a big smile, a hand stuck out to shake mine and the offer of a beer.  Of course contrary to some of my previous bosses who sought to besmirch my name, I've never drank on the job and never will.  Of course it didn't hurt that a company man showed up just a few minutes later.  Had I accepted, I'd be motoring down the road fired and blacklisted.

    But over the course of the next twenty minutes a very affable discussion ensued.  The land purchased by his grandfather after the second world war, he intended to take care of it and made no bones about battling the companies or individuals that disrespected it.  He allowed sure he made a pile of money, but his ranch would still be there when the big companies left.  He then commented he liked what we were doing and left.

Now it's tough to get everything done when it's hectic and never to leave the gate unattended or open.  But if it were me, and the beautiful animal I'd raised from a colt were to slide on out and get killed by one of those psycho truck drivers working down here.  Who've bragged working four days in a row with no sleep.  I'd be more than perturbed.  Especially given the money it cost.  The upside of this racket is that for a long time, the oilfield wages were good.   Sometimes it's just a point of view.

   I still dream about my old jobs.   The two that I worked the longest for.  Sometimes  even I'll admit them to be a little unsettling, the dreams that is, resembling not at all my actual experiences at that time.     But my  first retirement date was June 2007.  And the second in 2008.  So it has been nine and eight years respectively.   So what have I learned after all that time? That Curmudgeony is neither an illness, nor a choice.   It is in fact an insidious male phase of life whose symptoms can simply be described as more bellowing than voice. Speaking loftily as master of all things worldly, child rearing, politics etc,  I find myself in that unique position of being both astounded at my own senior abilities of possessing all that is wise,  with another tiny voice whispering in my ear, the one that has reminded me time and time again while in  the presence of such gifts,   "You are so full of shit".

Just ask my kids.....

And that folks is my tiny bit of insight accorded to me this two naught, naught, naught.  Enjoy.....