Leap

Yesterday (Saturday, April 11, 2009) I made a great leap.
Every afternoon I walk the dog up to Michael Prouty Park, and then back.
And in so doing I pass the abode of my longtime neighbor Mr. Albert Blythe (“BLEYETH”).
He’s a little older than me, and like me retired.
He previously was a self-employed semi driver, and had his own rig (tractor).
He used to “rubber” trailers and shipping-containers here and there.
He owns quite a bit of land, and used to turn around and park his loads next to his house.
We’re both retired, and whereas I like to write, Blythe likes to play with his many tractors.
He has a slew. Usually his garage-door is open, and he’s inside tinkering, grinding and welding.
Having stroke-addled speech, I usually keep to myself.
This isn’t something the average person understands.
To my siblings I’m 100% normal, and my assertion of stroke-addled speech is just reprehensibleness.
My friend Gary Coleman (“COAL-min”) from Transit had multiple strokes, and I can hear it.
It sounds pretty much like the old Gary I knew, but I can hear the slight choppiness in his speech, just like me.
I introduced myself to Blythe some time ago, because he had complained to Billy across the street I was antisocial.
I explained, as I have to hundreds, that I’d had a stroke, and since my speech was mucked up, I tend to not communicate much.
Last week Blythe towed a giant heavy roller with a tractor up our road from his house to Billy’s.
He thereafter rolled Billy’s lawn, a thing the recently deceased 94 year old nosy neighbor used to do every year.
Old Vern would hitch a small roller to one of his many lawn-tractors, and roll his lawn.
Vern died last Spring, and Billy didn’t roll the lawn last year.
This year he had Blythe do it; a full-size tractor with a roller about 10 feet wide and three feet in diameter.
We don’t roll our lawn, since we’ve heard negatory things about it.
The back edge of the backyard of our mowed part, is a drainage swale with a ditch cut into it.
Having been here almost 20 years, that ditch is almost filled in, and our wooded part to the south is always wet.
Knowing Blythe had all those tractors, and seeing him roll Billy’s yard, I wondered if he could dig out our drainage-ditch.
Blythe was inside his garage yesterday, tinkering and grinding.
Usually I just walk by, but yesterday I treaded gingerly into his garage.
Prepared to repeat myself as always — the bane of a stroke-survivor with compromised speech.
I remember the drama at Tunnel Inn last summer when I had to park somewhere else.
People thought I was mad when my speech became halting, and became angry and defensive themselves.
Linda wasn’t there to speak for me, so I had to give up and walk away.
I seem normal but my speech is compromised. I’ve had this happen “hunderds” of times.
“I’ve got a minor proposition,” I said to him.
“We got a drainage-ditch behind our house, and it’s all growed in.
Far as I know, ya got a back-hoe. Think ya could dig it out?”
“Well, lemme look,” he said. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
I got Linda, since she understands this more than I do.
“Usually ya hafta start at the end of the drainage-ditch, and work back,” he said.
“I’m not in this for money, but we could probably do this.
Ya do a lotta walkin’,” he said to me. “I should walk too; I’ve gotten too heavy.
Seems ya had difficult health-problems yourself,” he observed.
“But I’m still here,” I said.
“My whole left side was dysfunctional, but I was pretty ornery about that, and I guess that’s why it came back.”

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s almost four, and is our sixth Irish-Setter.

“Michael Prouty Park” is a town park near where we live. The land for it was donated by the Prouty family in honor of their deceased son (“Michael”) who used to play in that area. —It is mostly athletic fields, but has an open picnic pavilion. It’s maintained by the town. I walk our dog to and around it.

“To ‘rubber’” is to deliver trailers (freight) over the highway — rubber tires. (As opposed to railroad.)

I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty putting words together.)

“Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993). My stroke ended that.

Mr. “Blythe’s” many tractors are actually retired construction equipment, not farm-tractors (although one may be, but it’s small).

“Billy” is the only child of my neighbor across the street Vern Habecker (“HAH-bek-rrrr” — “our recently deceased 94 year old nosy neighbor”), who was always watching us. —I had a good time with Vern; always giving him the business. Billy lives in their house. He’s about 75 or so.

“Our” is me and my wife of 41+ years, “Linda.”

Tunnel Inn is a bed-and-breakfast in Gallitzin, PA, we stay at when visiting Horseshoe Curve, west of Altoona, PA, by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.) —I had gone to Horseshoe myself.

“Hunderd” is how my blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who badmouths everything I do or say, noisily insists “hundred” is spelled. —He’s a chronic misspeller. Insists spelling mistakes “don’t matter.” (Unless, of course, it was me who made the mistake.)