Friday, September 15, 2006

Younger Days

My second cousin once removed, or some such thing, the one who works out at the railroad, was sitting across the table telling me about the places he had seen. Arizona, the pipeline in Alaska, Sturgis, South Dakota for the motorcycle thing.

“I’ve heard that’s a wild time, Sturgis.”
“Yeah, I was a lot younger then.”
“What happened? Anything good?”
“I saw some things.”
“Like what, now?”
“Well, you know… Actually, something interesting happened to me.”
“No kidding, to you?”
“I had the map, you know, so I was leading the way. But the guys behind me stopped for gas and I didn’t know.”
“So you were alone?”
“Yeah, I thought they were behind me. I didn’t know. So I stopped under this viaduct, thinking they would catch up. But they never came. I was looking around while I was waiting for them, you know. And up in those steel girders, what do you think I seen?”
“I don’t know. Pigeons? Naked people?”
“Nah, bags.”
“Bags? What kind of bags?”
“Bank deposit bags, you know, the ones businesses use.”
“Really. What did you do?”
“I put them in my pack.”
“Jeez. Weren’t you afraid somebody was watching those things?”
“Well, a little later that day a whole bunch a cops came cruising my way. But they went on past me, accident or something, I don’t know. I took the bags home to Mom’s. We opened them up on her kitchen table and counted out all the money in them things, ones and fives, that sort of thing. 1100 dollars I made that trip. That was in my younger days.”

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