Rambling Josh

Something borrowed, something blue, something old, and something new. On September 19th, 1975, my aunt and uncle, Debbie and Doug Nelson got married. I was only 3 years old, so I don’t remember the event, but due to the miracle of photography, I’ve seen the day various times throughout the years while flipping through our stacks of family photo albums.

A few years back, I was out at Doug and Deb’s farm, talk turned to weddings and such, and I told Doug I always loved the suit he was wearing in their wedding picture. Pastel blue jacket, baby blue shirt with a wide swath of ruffles running from collar to crotch, and a bowtie that would dwarf a 1970s Caprice Classic hood ornament. A glorious ensemble.

A week or so after my visit I received a package in the mail…the suit. Doug’s mom had kept it all these years, and it was just as dapper as I remembered. The pants had run off and got lost some time between the 1970s and the 2020s, pants will do that, but the rest, complete with cufflinks and bowtie in their original boxes, were all there.

The mailman wasn’t halfway down our driveway before I was standing there in the suit with a smile as big as the bowtie. A perfect fit. So it goes.

My sister Amanda and Reid Arnold got hitched on August 9th, 2025, and I thought this old borrowed blue suit would be a fitting symbol of enduring love for this new union. So, after the wedding ceremony, and a few hours into the reception, I retreated to our hotel room to slip on a bit of the past in celebration of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold’s future.

Something I hadn’t anticipated was that the presence of the suit also served to dust off fond memories that led to enjoyable conversations with Doug and Deb and many that stood by them that day back in 1975.

I know I will carry fond memories of August 9th, 2025, with me for as long as I am able to have memories. One often doesn’t know when something is going to hit them in the feelers, and when I saw my sister walking towards the altar flanked by our parents my feelers took a hit. Thankfully the waterproof mascara held up.

A few months back my sister asked if I would be willing to write a little something to say at their wedding. Writing something to say was easy, saying that something was not. My sister is one of those people that maintains their ability to speak while their tears and emotions run amok. I am envious of those people. Emotions and tears run roughshod over me, transforming me into a blubbering mime. I hate mimes.

The first time I saw my sister and Reid together was at The 109 Club in Lignite a few years back. As the hour got late, my sister leaned her head on Reids shoulder, and I saw a look of complete serenity wash over her face. It was then that I knew that something borrowed, something blue, something old, and something new was surely to be.

All the best to you, Mr. and Mrs. Arnold, and welcome to the family Reid.

A few weeks back my wife and I ventured westward to give musician Sierra Ferrell a listen at the KettleHouse Amphitheater in Bonner, Montana. As is often the case, when you go to a concert of this sort, there is bound to be an opening act…some good…some not so much.

Musical taste, like many tastes, is quite subjective. Basically, we like what we like, and although we can say why we liked or didn’t like something, I’m not so sure we really know why. Much of it can probably be attributed to the nature/nurture cocktail we find ourselves being marinated in during our formative years.

The Brudi Brothers opened for Sierra Ferrell, and I tried to nurture a liking for their music, but by their second song I found myself heading for an extended nature break and a fresh cocktail to marinate my mind in, hoping that both would take about as long as the setlist they had planned for the evening. Subjectively, Dawn liked them. So it goes.

There is something about Sierra Ferrell’s music, and Sierra herself, that appeals to a wide range of people, and this eclectic gathering of humanity dramatically illustrated that you can wear whatever you want to a concert. We’re all a bit odd in our own ways, but at this concert there seemed to be a disproportionate number of people that were disproportionately odd fluttering about.

Good music…tremendous people watching.

The concert was Saturday night, so we stayed at a cabin by Seeley Lake on Friday night. I chose Seeley Lake as a destination because it is where one of my favorite authors wrote one of my favorite books. Norman Maclean and his father built a summer cabin at Seeley Lake in the early 1920s, and Norman, born in 1902, got his first book “A River Runs Through It” published in 1976.

I wanted to see the places, the trees, the mountains, and the rivers that Maclean saw. For whatever reason, I wanted to be where he had been. Why do we seek to see these places, to be in these places? Places where lives were lived and stories were written.

The Maclean cabin sits dwarfed amid a grove of massive Larch trees, the oldest and grandest of the grove being “Gus”, which is 153 feet tall and estimated to be around 1,000 years old. Dawn and I walked under the canopy of these trees that many have walked under for many years to get a closer look at the cabin.

The cabin is still in use, and still owned by the Maclean family, some of whom were occupying it as we lurked about the Larches while day faded to dusk. Perhaps the family is accustomed to weirdo’s making pilgrimages to the place that a book was written 50-years ago by a guy that has been dead for 35 years?

I was a respectful weirdo and didn’t move any closer to the cabin than the public lakeside path allowed, and as we stood there, legally lingering and leering, someone emerged from the cabin. Perhaps to come and ask a weirdo if they would like to come in and look around…sit in Norman’s chair…stretch out in his bed…shuffle around in his old slippers…write with his favorite pen? No…they walked down to the waters edge and were either taking a picture of the setting sun or looking for a cell signal to call the authorities.

I came and I saw, and now I know the rest of the story. “Good day.”

I don’t hate snakes. When I’m out camping or hiking I don’t go stark raving mad at the sight of a snake and remain raving until the snake has been bludgeoned into a sufficiently slitherless state. Not hating something doesn’t necessarily imply fondness.

I understand that snakes, like jazz music, are an important part of the ecosystem, I would just prefer that snakes, and jazz music, not share whatever ecosystem I am in. Given the choice, I’d prefer a snake encounter over a jazz encounter, as snake encounters are generally over as quickly as they began and tend to leave me in a heightened state of mental and physical arousal.

In contrast, a jazz encounter seemingly has no end, nor a discernable beginning, and tends to leave me feeling as I would imagine I would feel if I were a sack of potatoes. A pile of roughed up russets in an itchy sack with a fedora on one end and pale puffy feet void of any compulsion to tap a toe at the other.

My wife and I broke our 1967 Aristocrat camper free from its driveway moorings for its first excursion of the summer. 358 days in the driveway and 7 in a campground is the tally thus far this season for the camper. So it goes.

A day getting the camper ready to go camping, seven days of living in a campground with vault toilets 15 miles away from a perfectly good house, and a day undoing all that was done upon returning. Why do people do this, and more importantly, why can I not avert my eyes from the abys of a vault toilet before closing the lid on a deposit? Humans are strange…and devoid of adequate fiber intake.

I pondered why people willingly drag themselves and a large portion of their stuff out into the woods? I pondered this while swaying in a hammock enjoying a stogie and a cocktail by a babbling creek under a canopy of pine trees on a Tuesday at two o’clock in the afternoon.

As Norman Maclean wrote in A River Runs Through It, “Life every now and then becomes literature…as if life had been made and not happened.”

Perhaps we need to drag ourselves and a large portion of our stuff out into the woods to become literature, to make a story rather than let the same story happen again and again in our perfectly good house? Our perfectly good house with nary a snake in sight or jazz in sound.

My wife and I enjoy camping and hope to convert a few more driveway days into campground days for our camper before the campground gates close on the season and bring this year’s story writing opportunities to a close.

Summer is fleeting in this part of the world…soak it in.

June was here just a minute ago, and then we turned around and went to Houston for a graduation, headed to upstate North Dakota to celebrate my Aunt Susie’s 60th at the Bowbells pool, ventured to Grandin, North Dakota, for a Chrest family gathering at Uncle Tim’s and Auntie Holly’s…and “poof”…June was gone.

I’m fond of calling her Auntie Holly, especially when I’m a bit deep in my cups, as we’re about the same age. She may not garner as much entertainment from it as I do. So it goes.

A good time was had by all at Susie’s Hawaiian party. The Bowbells City Park and pool have been the gathering spot for many birthdays and celebrations in our family over the years, so it was nice to share that space and that time with family and friends for the day.

It’s been over 25-years since the last time I was at the Bowbells pool, and although the renovations and heated pool are nice, I missed seeing blue-lipped goose bumped kids lying on the hot cement quivering uncontrollably as they attempt to bring their body temperature back up to a sensible level.

I remember my 11th birthday, when mom mercifully gave into my pleas to drive all the way to Kenmare to the heated pool. It was an overcast day, and without hot cement and direct sunlight as a refuge at the Bowbells pool, I wouldn’t have had the motor control to open gifts, blow out candles or undo the perpetual knot in the drawstring of my polyester swim trunks.

I got a cowboy hat that year. A lovely high-crowned straw model complete with a massive feather hat band that looked as if you had stuck your head out the window of a fast-moving 1977 Ford Econoline and ran headlong into a flock of pheasants.

I also remember that that prized hat, that looked so dashing with the black satin western shirt with ivory snaps and tassels hanging from its velour yoke that my mom sewed me, got crushed on “The Bullet” at the Flaxton Fair. My hat and my flock of pheasants never fully recovered from that tassel twisting ride.

Speaking of tassel twisting, Uncle Tim and Auntie Holly were thoughtful enough to schedule the Chrest family gathering at their home in Grandin to coincide with a tremendous lightening show and 100-mile an hour winds. The wind blew, trees and granaries flew, and the power was out for a day or two…or three. As the news soon revealed, we were quite fortunate given the devastation and lives lost in other areas of North Dakota.

We love to travel and always enjoy family time hither and yon, but it always makes me smile to see the Black Hills fill the frame of the windshield upon our return. It’s nice to be back in my Mountain Time state of mind for a bit to rest up and reload for the next journey.

Safe travels wherever your summertime sojourns take you…“and at the end of the day, your feet should be dirty, your hair messy and your eyes sparkling.”

We ventured to Houston last week to attend our nephew’s graduation, enjoy some family time, and to put our antiperspirants to the ultimate test (they failed miserably). “Swelterland”, as I referred to Houston many moons ago in a Ramblings column of the same name, did not disappoint.

Like last year, when we attended our niece’s graduation in Houston, my wife flew and I dusted off my chauffer hat and hemorrhoid pillow and drove her dad, Bernie, and his brother, Tony, from their homes in Grenville, South Dakota, to Houston. How far is it from Grenville to Houston you ask? 1,200 miles…so it goes.

Tony ditched us for the return trip, as he and his daughter had an anniversary to attend in Chicago, so it was just Bernie and I for the other 1,200 miles.

Being the youngest of the trio by over three decades, and desiring to be three decades older one day, I gladly lashed myself to the helm for the journey. Hell, highwater, delirium or truck stop hotdog induced intestinal distress, our fate would be in my hands for the duration as I deftly thwarted any and all attempts of mutiny from the crew.

Bernie (“Bernardo” as his older brother Tony refers to him) performed admirably as co-pilot on the return trip, and relying on his 30 years as a track inspector, proffered an interesting masterclass on all things railroad related as we ventured north. He also served in the Vietnam War and spent 35 years in the Army Reserves, where he served in Iraq during the Gulf War, so I had the privilege of learning bits and pieces about his time in the military as well.

In 1960, Bernie was about 2-weeks from being drafted, so he decided to enlist so that he would have more of a choice as to what he would be assigned to do during his service in Vietnam. He wanted to be a helicopter pilot, but he contracted a bad ear infection during basic training that burst an eardrum and negatively impacted his hearing, so he was shifted from helicopter pilot training to helicopter crew chief training.

In his usual easygoing nature that he often expresses with, “That’s the way it goes”, he took the new assignment in stride. He utters the same phrase in explaining that his 90-day tour in Vietnam, turned into 10-months.

As he explained, he trained his replacement, but his replacement was shot and killed on his first mission, so Bernie had to stay and train another replacement, who was also killed on his first mission when the helicopter was shot down. When the third replacement arrived, Bernie trained him, but refused to let him go on a mission, understandably, Bernie wanted to go home.

As crew chief he was tasked with getting helicopters ready for missions and helping to get them patched up, cleaned, and repaired upon their return to base. Due to a shortage of helicopter pilot helmets, one such cleanup required Bernie to clean the helmet of helicopter pilot that had been shot and killed so that another pilot could use it.

The pilot had been shot in the forehead, just below the helmet, and 65 years later, Bernie said that occasionally the sights and smells he encountered during that cleanup will make their way back to him as clear as the day it happened. One never knows the things that people carry with them. Sometimes you just need to take them for a little ride…and listen.

As Socrates once said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

Dawn and I spent Memorial Day weekend in Grenville, South Dakota, where her dad, Bernie, and several of her relatives reside. At last count, during the 2020 census, 48 souls were reported to be residents of Grenville. As many of those 48, present and accounted for, were old souls in 2020, five years’ time may have served to lower that count a bit.

Bernie’s guest room was spoken for, so we stayed with Dawn’s Uncle Tony, who lives on the homestead his uncle established many moons ago a few miles outside of town. Tony is Bernie’s brother, and at 88, the eldest of the nine Lesnar siblings, of whom eight are still above ground.

When I teach my Aging & Death and Lifespan Wellness courses, I often blab about the components of healthspan (Mind, Body, and Spirit) as “buckets” we can fill throughout life with adequate social connectivity, bolstering cognitive reserve, sufficient exercise, adequate nutrition, and appropriate emotional and stress navigation.

Buckets filled with the aim of helping us to live as fully as possible until we are as fully dead as possible. Barring of course the various uncontrollables that sometimes upend our buckets and lay us low such as disease, getting run over by a rogue heifer, or, more likely, just some bum genetics.

They say that successfully living life up to about 80 is largely dictated by lifestyle and that the years beyond that are largely dictated by genetics. My grandma Helen Ellis, who lived quite fully until 92, possessed the one genetic ace of spades that I was hoping to get dealt from my grandparents’ ancestral lineages, but, alas, I’m fairly certain the card I’ll eventually flip over is the 3 of hearts…triple bypass. So it goes.

With Tony, although the deck was cut right and he was dealt a pretty solid genetic hand, he is also a fine example of someone that is actively and mindfully filling his buckets and getting every last drop out of life. He’s very social, he keeps in regular contact with family members, he walks, lifts weights, gardens, is mindful of his diet, and keeps a very tidy house.

Regarding his weightlifting…we were watching the Minnesota Twins baseball game, and Tony would periodically grab the dumbbells by his recliner and knock off about 100 bicep curls and overhead presses. Smacking his biceps like a body builder prepping for a gun show, he told me that he had firmed his arms up by starting with 2lb dumbbells and working his way up to 5lb dumbbells. One of the few physical ailments that has found Tony is blurred vision in one eye, and upon inspection, he had in fact started with 5lbs and worked his way up to 8lbs.

I always enjoy the time I get to spend with Tony. He is curious about life, thoughtful and articulate in conversation, and possesses an ever-ready smile and a mischievous and lighthearted personality that I’m sure has served him well throughout his long life.

Tony’s farm sits among the sloughs, lakes, prairies, and farmlands of northeastern South Dakota, a landscape enveloped in gray and quiet throughout the long winter, has now opened up its vibrant color palette and is teaming with the many sounds of spring. All of which, even after 88 years of living, is not lost on Tony.

With obvious gratitude for life, he drinks it all in as we sit in the cool night air and listen to all the life around us and ponder the life in front of us.

A sound from long ago found its way into my head recently. I’m not sure why, I’m not sure how, but I can hear it. I can hear it like I heard it many years ago, even though many years ago I didn’t know I was listening to it. It was just there. It was just there like so many other things that are just there that we don’t know we are going to need or want later. So it goes.

The rattling of a pane of glass in the window of an old wooden door. A wooden door that sticks a little, so you have to lean into it a bit to get it to open. You have to put your scrawny 12-year-old shoulder into it as you turn the knob, and as your scrawny 12-year-old shoulder presses against the door, your ear is drawn close to the windowpane. The windowpane that rattles a bit. Not a lot, but enough to be heard 40 years later.

The reason I pressed my scrawny 12-year-old shoulder into that door as I turned the knob, the reason my ear was drawn close to that rattling windowpane that I hear now, was because my Grandpa Fritz’s woodshop was on the other side of that door. On the other side of that windowpane that announced your arrival with a bit of a rattle…not a lot, but enough to be heard 40 years later.

40 years later…the woodshop, the door, the windowpane, and my grandpa are no more, but the sounds have found me again. The sound of the saws, the sound of the hammer, the sound of sandpaper…the distinct sound of silence from my Grandpa Fritz. A welcoming silence. A silence that I would try so very hard to quietly ease into despite the glass pane announcing my arrival.

I didn’t know it then, but I see it now, my Grandpa Fritz was the first person to teach me the beauty and necessity of solitude and that it was permissible to be silent in the company of others…permissible to just be. Grandpa’s woodshop was a place that I knew I could just be, before I even knew that sometimes I needed to just be.

A welcoming silence. He never looked annoyed that I had entered his sanctum, he would just glance up from whatever it was he was creating, and in that glance, when his silent “welcome” washed over his kind eyes and to his warm smile, I knew…I felt…without a word…that it was okay for me to just sit…to just be.

The sound of a rattling windowpane in an old wooden door. A wooden door that sticks a little. Lean into it.

My cousin Jamie, who has been blogging for about the same period of time that I’ve been writing this column (check him out at Thingelstad.com), recently posted a blog regarding his hosting of an “IndieWeb Carnival”. My first thought was, “What’s an IndieWeb Carnival?” followed closely by my second thought, “What does IndieWeb mean?”

Google informed me that IndieWeb is “a community and movement that focuses on empowering individuals to control their online presence and data by building and maintaining their own websites, rather than relying on large, centralized social networks. It emphasizes open standards and protocols for social interaction, allowing users to interact with others on their own sites.”

Google also informed me that an IndieWeb Carnival is “a monthly, hosted blogging event where participants write and share their thoughts on a chosen topic or theme on their own blogs.”

Jamie, the host of this particular blogging event, chose “Renewal” as the topic or theme for his carnival and the questions he posed to his carnival goers were, “Do you have a story of renewal to share? Is there a need for renewal that you see and a way to make that happen? How do you approach renewal?”

While contemplating the theme of renewal, the story of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again just as it nears the top, came to mind.

What does the myth of Sisyphus have to do with renewal?

Each time Sisyphus neared the top and felt the boulder start to slip from it’s upward progress, I see him giving into the inevitable, stepping aside, watching with amusement as the boulder rocked, rolled and bounced back down the hill, looking around at the world from his vantage point on the high ground, filling his lungs, and exhaling with purpose and renewal as he heads back down the hill through the settling dust the descending boulder has kicked up to begin again…and again…and again…

It is what we all do in some way, shape, or form most every day of the days we get. We get to push our various boulders up our various hills, we get to watch them roll back down, we get to move, we get to ponder, we get to love, we get to laugh, we get to live, we get to lose…we get to do it all until we are at a loss. At a loss of mind, at a loss of body, at a loss of spirit, at a loss of life. So it goes.

Renewal of mind, renewal of body, renewal of spirit…before all is lost. “Pneuma”, the ancient Greek word for “spirit”, can be translated as “wind” or “breath”, and just as we cannot see the wind that moves the trees, others often cannot see the spirit, the meaning, the purpose that moves us. Our “why” may appear to be meaningless toil to others, but if it moves you, it moves you. Afterall, how much choice do we have in what it is that moves us?

To move and to be moved effectively, we must allow for sufficient renewal. We must take a moment to look around at the world we get to be in. We must breathe in and out with purpose and renewal of mind, body, and spirit and then lean into our boulder yet again, because it is our boulder and it is ours to move for as long we can move it. Sometimes we get a little flat. Sometimes that old guitar just needs a new set of strings to renew an old song.

“Do you have a story of renewal to share? Is there a need for renewal that you see and a way to make that happen? How do you approach renewal?”

Enjoy the carnival.

One pair of Levi’s ¾ Bottle of olive oil Small sack of potatoes ½ a bag of cheese ¾ of a bag of Craisins ½ a tube of toothpaste Roughly 6 Dude Wipes Bottle of statin medication Big jug of protein supplement Container of creatine supplement Box fan One pair of black socks Three rolls of toilet paper Tattered brown leather belt About a ½ dozen eggs

I’ve worked at Chadron State College for 11 years, and since Chadron is roughly 100-miles from Rapid City, where my wife and I have lived for about 27 years, I do a bit of commuting during the school year. I don’t drive every day, generally I head out Monday morning and come back home on Thursday.

No, I don’t sleep in my office or my car while I’m in Chadron, I have an apartment across the street from campus. A swanky “studio” apartment. I believe “studio” is Latin for “small enough to fry eggs, do dishes, and brush your teeth without leaving the comfort of your bed.”

This past week I arrived at my apartment Monday morning to drop off my duffel bag before walking across the street to campus, and when I entered my apartment, it was not as I had left it the week before. The cupboard doors were open, the bedding was tossed aside, the mattress was askew…something was amiss, and some things were missing. Little by little the list above took shape. A list of things that were stolen from my apartment. I had been robbed.

It’s an odd thing to stand in your apartment, knowing that someone had been in there doing a bit of discount shopping. Perusing your stuff, while sipping on the ½ empty bottle of orange juice you left in your fridge…or perhaps ½ full…so it goes.

One of my coworkers was impressed that I knew exactly what was missing, and I explained that when you are the sole occupant of a “studio” space you tend to know exactly what items occupy that space with you. There is no blaming the dog for running off with your toothpaste and Craisins, things are always right where you left them. Until they’re not.

Until someone who looks a lot like your neighbor is caught on surveillance camera crawling through your window at 11:02PM the Sunday prior to your Monday morning arrival. When I called the police to report the thievery, an officer stopped by, looked around a bit, and asked me what was missing. I rattled off the grocery list of items and he said they were going to go visit with my neighbor to ask if he had seen anything.

Apparently, he had. A few hours later I was walking back to my apartment and the police had my neighbor in handcuffs. The linchpin? The Dude Wipes. When the police were visiting with him to determine if he had seen anything they noticed the Dude Wipes, and he got a bit shifty when asked about them, so they obtained a search warrant a broke the case of the Studio Shopper wide open.

The perpetrator wasn’t a disgruntled student, just some 21-year old dude that was in a tough spot and made a bad decision. Out my window and into jail in a little over 12 hours…I wish him well. I have yet to learn the fate of my stuff.

What is the street value of statins and cheese?

Happy Spring to you. Less than nine shopping months until Christmas.

Carol Olney, of Lignite, recently posted a picture on social media of a news story that she had clipped from the Burke County Tribune somewhere around 1982. Below the title “Lignite Scouts hold Pinewood Derby” is a photograph of Lignite Scout Troop 347 composed of Justin Young, Travis Chrest, Robbie Gilseth, Ryan Reistad, Grady Bakken, Chad Johnson, Jarvis Ellis, Blain Johnson, and myself.

Nine of us shaggy-haired knuckleheads, lined up and looking in every direction except at Leonard Savelkoul, the photographer. Seeing the picture and reading the article brought back memories that I hadn’t remembered for quite some time.

I remember my mom being the Den Leader, and I remember her occasionally “talking” to Scout Troop 347 through clenched teeth at our weekly after school gathering at the Legion Hall next to Martin’s Barbershop. I remembered that the Beach Boys had a song called “409” that had a bit of motor revving at the beginning of the song, and I remembered that my creative mother (the Den Leader with clenched teeth) had set up a record player, hidden from spectator view, to kick of the Pinewood Derby with that motor revving.

I remember that I was in charge of the record player, I remember that numbers thwarted me once again and I miscounted the number of record grooves to the start of the desired song and on my mom’s signal I dropped the needle at the wrong song. Quick 10-year-old thinking, I ripped the record player plug out of the wall and fled the scene…around the corner to where everyone else was.

I remember being so embarrassed by this, and I remember feeling terrible that I had messed up the grand Scout Troop 347 Pinewood Derby kickoff and that I had let my mom down. It’s strange the stuff we remember and the stuff that flitters by without wedging itself in our psyche.

I remember that my Grandpa Fritz helped my brother and I make our Pinewood Derby cars. Jarvis’s was a slim and sleek racer that fetched him the 1st place trophy, mine wasn’t so slim, sleek or fast.

I remember Grandpa Fritz asking me what I wanted to turn my official Pinewood Derby block of wood into. I asked him if we could make a pickup, and I remember him turning the block of wood over in his hands a bit while he pondered my request, and said, “We can do that.”

I knew he could. He could make most anything out of block of wood. As the great sculpture Michelangelo once said, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block before I start my work. I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

Grandpa could see the pickup I requested in the block of wood, and together, we set it free. I still have that pickup, and when I saw the picture Carol posted, I dug it out of its parking spot in the trunk in our basement. Upon inspection, it is quite obvious what parts of it I set free and what parts my grandpa took the lead on.

The trunk in our basement holds a number of other odds and ends from many moons ago. Odds and ends that hold a lot of fond memories. What will happen to those odds and ends when my end comes? I’m the only one that holds the key to release the memories they hold, so odds are, they will meet their end shortly after I meet mine. So it goes.

I suppose that is the way of things, and I suppose that is as it should be. Locks without keys aren’t much good to anyone.

The pickup has a new parking spot now. A spot on my bookshelf, where I can see it, where I can turn it over in my hands and go wherever it takes me. “We can do that.”