Coupla things that're for certain my friends: death & taxes, the change of seasons, and that goddamn loadin'-foreman in Longview bein' a constant pain-in my-ass: always testin' my patience, my temper and my belief of all those things I try to remember from church on Sundays. After loadin' up on Thursday afternoon, I offered up a friendly suggestion about one of the paper-filin' procedures, and as the loadin'-foreman shoved my road-log back into my face, he started glarin' at me, yellin' and goin' on and on about "this is the way things are around here Tommy-boy", and "we've done things this way for years now and we're not about to change it just for some stupid driver who don't know nothing", and "If ya don't like it, ya can drive your truck all the way to Timbuktu where some front-office boys might actually listen' to ya." So I was pretty-near a whistlin' & boilin' tea-kettle on the drive over the river and into town. The whole way I was perfectin' my response to him in my mind - the one I never said at the time because I was so damn mad. As I rolled into St Helens I decided to take a minute and stop in at the Red Apple Market to grab a Dr. Pepper and some jerky to help cool me down before headin' into Portland. As I got out of the cab, some young fella, maybe 14 or 15, who was hangin' in front of the store started tellin' me how cool my rig was. As I began pointin' out some of the finer-points of my truck to him, he suddenly interrupted me and leaned in quickly towards me while shovin' a ten-dollar bill into my hand. "Can ya pick me up a half-case of PBR dude?" he said out of the side of his mouth, while lookin' around to see if anyone was onto him yet. I wasn't havin' any of it. I looked at him and asked what a young fella was doing wantin' to drink a half-case of beer after school. "Ain't nothin' else to do dude," he said angrily while shoving the ten back into his pocket. "I mean...look around dude, what do you do around here? They shut down the BMX bike-track I used to hang at." This got me a bit curious and fired-up again and after I asked him why this track-place wasn't around any longer, he began to tell me that the people who started the BMX track owed some money to a contractor for hauling some of the dirt that was supposed to have been donated, and not wanting to turn it down, the track-fellas told the contractor that they would pay him as soon as they could. I started gettin' that feelin' in my gut again as the kid finished his story. "And they were payin' him for it too, but the contractor-dude was friends with the Mayor and some City Hall assholes who paid him off and then the city went and kicked the BMX people off the track for good." The young fella was clearly pissed. I asked him if there were any parks around, or a library or somethin' to go to. "Are you kiddin' me?" he said lookin' at me like I was out of my mind. "The parks? What parks are you talkin' about? And anyways, when me & my buds go to any of the parks that are around, we always end-up gettin' chased outta there anyway...and dude, check out our joke-of-a library sometime...it's right there down that street, and THEN you come ask me about goin' to the library. That place sucks." And quick as that, the young fella turned and walked away, lookin' for some other kind-benefactor to buy him his beer in trade for keepin' the change. I got to wonderin' as I headed out of town what y'all can do to change some of these things and help out some of these kids around here before they can just become another casualty of the streets. Y'all be sure and take of things in this nice town ya got, ya here?
Tom
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