Image via WikipediaWe will either find a way or make one.
---Hannibal
It's official. I have to face it. I am no longer the iron-balled, bulletproof Super Duck I used to be.
I got up at 5 a.m. Thursday to move heavy, lead-weighted furniture all day in 90 degree heat for today's motel room rent money. Right Angle Al got me the gig.
Up and down stairs. Heavy furniture grunted through windows because the doorways were too small for some of the handmade desks. Two truckloads, loaded and unloaded. No dollies. Don't bother to tell me I'm whining here. You couldn't do for one hour what I did for ten hot, sweaty, hellish hours.
I got up at 5 a.m. Thursday to move heavy, lead-weighted furniture all day in 90 degree heat for today's motel room rent money. Right Angle Al got me the gig.
Up and down stairs. Heavy furniture grunted through windows because the doorways were too small for some of the handmade desks. Two truckloads, loaded and unloaded. No dollies. Don't bother to tell me I'm whining here. You couldn't do for one hour what I did for ten hot, sweaty, hellish hours.
First, I blew out my left wrist, so I carried the heavy stuff balanced on my arm. Then I blew out the whole arm, so I carried everything right handed. The balls of my feet started giving out after 6 hours. I limped the furniture in and out of the truck. The excruciating back pain began at the 7th hour.
By the time I got 'home' at 7 p.m., I was too weak to undress. Couldn't even unzip to pee. I slept in the tub for hygiene.
That's the hardest $80 I ever earned. It made me realize that I'm not ready to ride the rails up to Seattle.
By the time I got 'home' at 7 p.m., I was too weak to undress. Couldn't even unzip to pee. I slept in the tub for hygiene.
That's the hardest $80 I ever earned. It made me realize that I'm not ready to ride the rails up to Seattle.
Yeah, I'm gonna try the Boxcar Willie thing. Ride the rails for a month or five. A-Number-One stuff. I've already got my freighter picked out, the one I'm going to ride out of town on. I know where I'm gonna catch it in Inglewood. I've been practicing jumping on and off them in the downtown switchyards.
But now I know I'm not the ironweed I used to be. I need to get into shape. Six months. Maybe twelve. I'm closing in on fifty now and shaping up is gonna go slow.
station this morning and the It's sad to lose one's super powers. It's hard to realize I just can't be as free as I used to be because I just can't do what I used to do.
There's Kryptonite everywhere now. It's in the walls and floorboards. It's in the telephone poles and sidewalks. I walked to the ArcoKryptonite had me so weak, I had to stop three times to let the muscle pain subside. I'm 850 pounds this morning and moving around ain't easy.
Tags: day labor, moving furniture, Right Angle Al, Boxcar Willie, hobo, riding the rails, A Number One, catching a freighter, switchyards, kryptonite, James Jarvis
you can get grants and go to school
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