This isn’t the first time for me. The other time was the same car before I started subtitute teaching about eight years ago. It was winter then. And it was more of an alibi than reality.
The work situation is unaffected. George Jaworski happily picked me up and another good fella brought me home. The person I’m teaching about email is going to pick me up and return. If I don’t have wheels by mid-August, I’ll be in a fix because there’s a sub teacher refresher seminar I must attend. I look forward to that. This will be the first one since the arrival of the new District 186 superintendent.
For the past two days I’ve concentrated, grudgingly, on catching up with some aviation magazine index transcribing. Back in the 80s, using 3 x 5 notecards, I noted contents of every aviation magazine in the collection: thousands, using an abbreviation system I created expressly for aviation historians who may find what I’m doing worthwhile in the future as they find it worthwhile these days. I’m amazed. Google knows all about this little enterprise. Few in Springfield know about it; fewer support it. More folks have contributed to this collection from Australia in the past two years than Illinois, but that’s okay. It’s coming in, a little at a time, and regularly. The information I’m transcribing from these notecards was mostly longhand, and the publication I’m tackling, a now defunct title called Air Classics, while never top drawer in most respects, was prolific in volumes and scope of coverage. Now that it’s gone, it’s important to get my indexing completed and uploaded for free public access. But it’s tedium maximus. The only reason I’m letting it absorb so much of my time at this time is because as long as I’m feeling so trashed and out of the loop of life, I’m not going to endure this pervasive sense of dread and discontent by engaging in activity that’s FUN. Better to have the appendix removed when you think life is particularly droll. That way you won’t have to face it when you’re back on the sunny side of the street.
Speaking of which, I”m about to leave the house AS A PEDESTRIAN to walk about 10 blocks to a party at a publisher I write for. YES, I did consider taking the car. By taking side streets I could probably make it and avoid contact with gendarmes and steel. But if I consume the quantity of adult libations I intend to consume, I don’t want a DUI charge tacked on the the litany of “menace to society” charges I’d bef strung up on if I do something REALLY stupid behind the wheel coming home where I don’t belong anyway.
So, it’s time to batten down this electric box and go for a stroll to an anticipated reunion with some fine people who believe I can write and take a picture. If I return to this magic machine in one sentient piece, I will let you know how things went.
Live long . . . . . . and walk; don’t run.
