Stuff

Here's a column from the new book, Angels, Chimps & Tater Mitts. It's a blast from the past about a blast from the past.

Driving by the high school parking lot last week, I was struck by the fact that every vehicle sitting out there that could be clearly and easily distinguished from a pile of scrap metal. Most of them were newer than the car I drive. A few were newer than the oil in the car I drive.

What’s up with that?

My first car was a 1961 Buick LeSabre. I paid $50 for it, more than two month’s take-home from my job washing dishes in a family restaurant. The car was big – the front and back bumpers were nearly always in different zip codes. It had a huge V8 engine, but since it weighed slightly more than a truckload of bulldozers, it wasn’t very fast. Of course, every day I drove my Buick it got a little bit lighter, as bits of trim and apparently unneeded engine parts fell off.

Springtime around here involves a number of rituals. There is the Baring Of Pasty White Skin I documented a while back. There is the Chipping Of Horrible Stuff From The Barbecue. There is the First Harley Past The Bedroom Window At 3:00 AM. And there is the always exciting recitation ofWhere Do You Suppose I Left The Damned Lawn Mower, a favorite in our family for generations.

As we stumble headlong into 2012, which as we all know will be the year during which the Mayan god Quetzacotal is going to turn all of us humans into little puddles of smoldering slag, I would just like to take a minute and fire off notes to some of the people who have helped shape the world we live in.

Dear NFL players,