Last Sunday my son’s SUV was parked behind my truck so I took it to go shoot some hoops at the local schoolyard.
He’d wanted “bubba tires” on it when he got it a couple years past. I’d met him half way knowing those tires are problematic and make a gob of noise. He was agreeable but clearly disappointed.
It was like riding in a darn buckboard wagon. RUM, RUM RUM RUM RUM … Christ it was loud and bumpy. I’ve always tried to do the most I can for them. They are old enough now where the whole thing is to get them off the payroll.
I got to thinking about him driving this thing back and forth to Boone and suddenly I misted up. Hell I’m misting up now and it causes me to wonder.
When I was 12 my Father took me to work and said, “Boy … I raised you this far. You’ll be earning your keep from here on out.”
He wasn’t nasty about it. He was just stating a fact of life as he knew it. The tale is he was plowing behind a mule at 12. Tow headed and somewhat small, in the S.C heat he toiled from dawn to dusk. The story has been verified countless times. Having lifted a manual plow to feel its heft I can only wonder how he did it.
I didn’t want things to be that way for my children. So riding in that raggedy old SUV my heart traveled back to that sandy loam of sweat and tears and endless labor and I wanted to cry.
I want to cry for my little boy. Not long ago my wife had some 8 mm film put to jump drive. I watched a skinny version of my confused self wash them in a basinet. I watched them play and fall and look up at us in wonder.
So maybe it won’t be much longer until they are completely off the payroll. That’ll be a good thing because I’m no spring chicken and they’ll need to find their own way but I’ve learned something these past few days.
I don’t give a damn about the past. I could care less what I had to do or my father or his father before him. I will give to these boys until my last breath and thank God for every day I can.
I'd be willing to bet there's quite a few of you that feel the same.
