Free Bowling Shoes With Every Meal

Thought I was kidding you huh.

I’m now an outdoor kind of man transporting outdoor kind of stuff in a truck, I mean, IN A TRUCK!

I have wood in whatever it is they call the back of a pickup truck where you put stuff like that. Frankly, it is quite exhilarating, and Camo-esque.

Me: “Bob, try to find country western music on the radio…”

Me: “…or not.”

Bob: “Your truck is fine with all the wood in the back right.”

I think so, I guess, crap I don’t know, suddenly the front of my truck seems higher than the back of my truck.

Me: “The salesguy said I can haul 10,000 pounds of stuff and can tow 9,000 pounds of stuff…” and then I look at Bob to see if he has any idea of just what that means, “…maybe it can hold more inside in case we stop dragging 9,000 pounds of stuff behind us and put it in the back part of it while also having two 500 pound people in the back seat.”

Bob: “………” (that means he is speechless)

When the salesguy told me those man-truck facts this is exactly what I asked him back: “How many speakers does it have.”

“You might want to slow down some driving in the snow/ice by the gorge…”

Gorge?

We have now left the almost not a barn anymore, barn, and are driving on windy arse Central New York roads only 15 miles from the Adirondack State Park which is bigger than 50 countries in the world, and may or may not have a bunch of bigfoots living in it.

Me: “What gorge…”

Bob: “That gorge…” said as he looks out the passenger window and points downward.

Now, would be a bad time to try and read the truck manual to see exactly which one of the several hundred buttons around me that I push for “Gorge-falling-over-conditions.”

I turn the knob with all the “4’s” on it as far as it goes and then hit a button that shows a truck with squiggly lines behind it hoping that it doesn’t actually cause those squiggly lines.

Bob: “You hungry.”

Me: “…………”

“What’ll you have…”

We are in small town America having lunch in a bowling alley.

You can buy stuff in here to support the local Boy Scouts and Little League, down the road is an auto parts store with someone working in the parking lot on their Ford 150 with a plow up front.

Most of the businesses have the names of the families who own them on the signs above the store, there are American Flags mixed with flags of the American Legion Post, and a small granite memorial to those from the area who left to serve and never came back, alive.

As we eat you can hear the white coffee cups clink on their white saucers along with the gutter balls or shouts for the spares and strikes.

Bob: “You see that…” and moves his head in a direction off to my right.

A New York State Trooper, a woman, had just walked into the restaurant, she walked up to a table of folks, men and women and a baby, took off her Trooper hat, placed it reverently on a chair next to her, reached over and picked up the baby and kissed the infant on his or her cheek, then rubbed noses with the child that must have been her own.

Bob: “Striking isn’t it, she is sitting there in full uniform, gun and all, with what could be her family, holding the baby, kissing and cuddling the baby, and she could get up, walk outside, get in her patrol car, stop someone down the road and get shot and killed just like that.”

Just. Like. That.

You know of course this adventure was never just about…

..the barn wood.

It was also about family.

It was also about friends.

Mainly, about those two things.

It was about what might be a last trip up to an old family farm that will one day soon be torn down for the value of the land underneath it.

It was also about two old guys who worked together on some very serious stories all over the place for 15 or so years, been best friends for over a quarter century, and who needed, NEEDED a road trip, an adventure, or “abenture” as a young child friend of ours calls it, to see if maybe we can still tell tales of what we see out there on the road in big or small towns.

Family

On our way home we stopped to visit with Bob’s daughter, who I’ve known since she was a little girl, visit her & her husband and their 4 and and 1 year old baby girls.

Watched as my friend played hide & seek with the kids, crawled on the floor with the kids, read them a book, listened as his Barb face timed in to say goodnight to the babies.

About barn wood huh.

When I got home the first thing I did was take a piece of the family barn and made them a sign that said, simply: FAMILY.

It is already up on their mantle.

This Thanksgiving their family, and their extended family are together, as are ours.

This Thanksgiving, all of us, the Leys, the Barones want to wish you and yours a safe, fun, and possibly and “abenture” this Thanksgiving.

May you be safe.

May you be happy.

May you be with family.

And may you take the time to think of and thank all those people all over the world who will spend their Thanksgiving away from their families in order to keep us safe, or come get us through the fire or broken glass.

Happy Thanksgiving,

db & bl…and the two Barb’s who let us be us.