When I moved to Gonzales I had a vision of what my yard was going to look like. I had been thinking about how I wanted to lay out the backyard ever since I first knew this was going to be the house I buy. We had asked the saleslady to pick us out a house she thought that would be good for our family. She chose this house in the middle of a cul-de-sac. My backyard is the biggest I have seen in this subdivision.
Of course we didn’t really have a family of our own then. It was a few years before I got my backyard looking the way I wanted it to. I was working in Salinas and everyday for the first two years we lived here I came home, put on my old clothes and went out to start digging or whatever was required that day. My, how things have changed, the fact that my sprinkler system broke and I now have trees at each corner of my house prohibits me from chasing down the problem. Not to mention our two dogs are big and they love to play tug of war on any of the grass that’s trying to grow. So now I have a bunch more trees and all low-maintenance plants.
I’m going to make the boys feel guilty if they don’t help me tomorrow because I have to cut down a weeping willow that is trying to get under my foundation. It’s situated in a great place for a tree so I am going to plant fruit trees. My mom had the greatest orange tree. She would call us and tell us after the last frost so we could go pick oranges. They were the best oranges I have ever tasted. My mom could make anything grow. Of course there was a time when we had to eat what she grew. When she passed, my brother moved into the house and immediately made me mad. He trimmed the tree way back so it wouldn’t “kill itself,” as my brother said. He finally cut the tree down because he’s too lazy to care for it. If I can grow an orange that tastes like hers I’ll be one happy guy. It will take a couple more years before the whole thing comes together. My Beautiful Bride tells me she likes the idea and who am I to argue with her?
I don’t really think you are interested in my backyard. It’s just that I have started noticing that I get tired more lately and since I’m working on my truck and motorcycle I don’t really have time to do anything else. I started writing this today to complain. I’m complaining about people that open a garage or work out of their home and tell you they know everything about cars. To be honest there are some things I don’t want to do anymore. Crawling around under my truck while it’s in the garage is one of those things. You take my transmission. It has been about seven years since I wrecked my truck and it’s about time to get it back on the road. The transmission doesn’t want to cooperate. I asked some guys in Salinas who does the best work on automatic transmissions. They gave me this guy’s name and where his shop was and I went over. He couldn’t get to me for about three weeks and now I know why. He has a bunch of cars in his lot that I suppose he is supposed to fix and I should have taken note of that. But I was in a hurry to get the truck running right so I left it with him.
“Come back in a week,” he said and then it was two weeks later when he called to tell me it was fixed. To make a long story short, it wasn’t fixed. I should be a lot more concerned than I am, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t get mad anymore if I could help it so the heck with it at least it’s on the road and running well.
I’m writing this on Father’s Day, so if I slow down for a minute and tell you how great my kids are you’ll know I had a great Father’s Day. Oh foo! You know how crazy I am about my kids. As I get older and they have their own plans for the day, or any day, I sometimes wonder what I must have done in a past life to deserve all the wonderful blessings I have. I know not everyone is as blessed as I am and you might get a little tense about hearing about my life but as I am approaching the day when I have to give up my motorcycle and become an old man I’m just happy to be alive.
God Bless.
