SCRIBBLES

A few random thoughts about life, death, and the pursuit of happiness...

So it’s Saturday morning and the weather’s turned back into summer once again. I suppose people will say it’s hot because of global warming and all that, and while I get it, it is hot, and there is global warming, I don’t concern myself with it too much because there’s little I can do to reverse things. I’m 64. My motto of late is “85 & out.” That gives me about 21 years to do what needs to be done.

And what is it that needs to be done? That’s a good question. I suppose the first thing that needs to be done is getting my shit together. I know, it sounds a little retarded saying that: (SIDEBAR: Most of you here on this page know me. You know that I’m politically incorrect and don’t really have a filter, and that I have a tendency to say things before really thinking them through. When I write, it’s usually different. I can edit myself, and I do, because it’s fiction and I’d like to think that I’m a pretty good writer—although no one ever leaves a comment about any of my stories, so I don’t know if I’m any good at this, or if people are just being polite and patting me on the back, saying, “You’re doing fine.” Whatever. I also tend to ramble, so I should maybe get back to where I was going with this.) When I say I have to get my shit together, it’s not about something a lot of you know.

I have to explain myself eventually, so I might as well start now.

I haven’t been at work since January 10th of this year. I had a lot to look forward this year. For one thing, I was going to retire. I’d had it all worked out. I’ve been working at the same job for the last 45 years. I know, right? 45 years at the same employer. I’ve seen a lot of changes during that time. I started working there when I was 19. Just a kid. I’ve learned a lot of things, and not all of it good for me. When I was in high school there was a sign on the wall in my English class: “Children are like wet cement, whatever falls on them makes an impression.” I guess you could say it doesn’t just apply to children. But needless to say, I learned a lot of things working in a sawmill where almost everyone could be considered somewhat of a loon. Everyone was young. The older guys were ten years older than me. A lot of them had gone through divorces, were having children, while I was just 19. I never really drank a lot. I never did any drugs. Hell, I was probably still a virgin. These guys were pot-heads, and drunks. They drank on the job, smoked dope, dropped acid, did speed, coke, even junk, and all while working. So I can say that I was easily corrupted because I wanted to be corrupted. I knew I’d led a sheltered life and told myself I was not going to refuse anything they offered me. And I didn’t.

One of those people I met was Steve.

Steve was a year older than me. He didn’t speak to me very much when I first started. But he was one of the first guys I got stoned with on graveyard shift. We ended up becoming close friends as is wont to happen when you work with someone for 45 years. We both got married, both had kids, and still, got stoned together everyday until we finally grew out of it. (That took years of course.) When you work with someone for that long and share a life together, you share a lot of things you don’t expect to. There were deaths to be grieved together. His father’s death was one of the first tragedies we shared together. And then there were the ones that followed. The companions of our youth who died too soon. And there were a lot of those.

Anyway, I really should be moving this along. But you’ll understand why I don’t want to, soon enough. This year was an unusual winter. For those of you that don’t know, I live in Vancouver—well, not in the city, but in the general area. Winters here are mild in comparison to what they were like when I was a kid. Back then, it snowed a lot more, and was colder more often; I guess you could say it was comparable to what they have on the East Coast. When it snows out here now, it’s usually just enough to screw up the morning’s commute. It might snow for two or three days in a row, but then the Front will break, and the snow will all melt by the next week. It might be another 2-3 weeks before it snows again. As of late, it only happens about three time a year. So three snowfalls a year, each one inconveniencing the Lower Mainland for about a week before melting away. This last winter was different. We had a snowfall, and then a big freeze that lasted more than a week. There were patches of ice and snow all over the yard. (Oh, and in case you didn’t know, I work in a sawmill.) But it was so cold, and there was so much ice, that we ran out of salt.

So there you have it. Cold temperatures. Snow. Ice. Extreme conditions. It made me glad that I was in a nice, warm, machine. You had to walk through the yard using little ice spikes on the bottoms of your boots.

Steve came walking into the yard wearing those little spikes on the bottoms of his boots.

He came in from the river side of the yard. He was walking beside a row of logs that made it impossible for me to see him. He was walking over snow. He was walking on ice—packing the snow into his little spikes on the bottoms of his boots.

I knew he was coming into the yard. He called it over the radio.

I wasn’t driving fast. I had a bucket full of hog—bark mulch from a pile on the other side of the mill. The day was cold. It wasn’t dark. I’d say a little after 9:00 in the morning, maybe. But the ice had built up in those little spikes he was wearing, and there was a patch of ice. He hit the ice, and fell, and as I was driving passed the row of logs…he slid under the wheels of my machine.

And there you have it. I drove over him without even knowing he was sliding under me.

He died as a result of his injuries.

As a result, I haven’t been at work. I’ve been diagnosed as suffering from Acute Stress Disorder, which is a step below PTSD. I’m on the road to recovery, but it’s a long and winding road. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think of him. I’m no longer at the point where I was earlier this year. I’m not laying in the bed, weeping anymore. I’d don’t cry whenever I hear Buffalo Springfield’s “For What Its Worth” on the radio anymore, knowing it was his favourite song. But do you ever get over something like that? It’s different when someone dies of a heart attack, or a brain hemorrhage, or cancer. You can accept that a lot easier than you can thinking if you’d just waited five more seconds; if you went to the right instead of the left…well, it never ends when you think of what you could’ve done differently that morning.

You have to learn to accept that it wasn’t your fault. It was an accident in the true sense of the word. A tragedy. And then you have to tell yourself that life has to go on…just not with him in it.

And, well, that’s all I want to say about that for the moment. I mean, it’s summer again, almost noon, and time to venture out to the Valley for some cheap gas.