Blog 2058 – 05.14.2021

Friday Again

The Eagle Flies On Friday is a payday expression. Next Friday is the wedding rehearsal dinner for my son Jay and his fiancée Lauren. The big day is a week from tomorrow. They are planning a week long honeymoon in Key West. That week I will be heading north pulling my little house on wheels across the prairie to begin a long awaited work assignment in Nebraska. After right at a year and a half without work I am very ready to get back to it and to begin restoring my savings. I am not complaining, but as always just glad and grateful that everything that I could every want or need is already mine and coming to me at just the right time and in just the right way from my loving and infinite source.

To those of you who find that philosophy a curious one, it is one that I finally arrived at some years ago by trial and error. My first regular paying gig was as a sack boy at a neighborhood grocery store at the age of fifteen. I had to wear a white shirt and tie and my after school Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday duties consisted almost entirely of bagging groceries for customers, wheeling them out side, and loading them into their vehicles. For this service I received the then current minimum wage and often a dime tip if the customer was pleased and much more rarely if the customer was especially generous a quarter. After work the other high schoolbag boys and I usually went to a nearby drive-in restaurant and spent our tips on a burgers, fries, and a cold drinks. “Cold drink” was the common way to say Coke, Pepsi or soft drink where I grew up, Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Friday’s were always special because Friday was payday for a lot of folks and flush with cash they were more inclined to tip, to share the wealth. Other than Social Security and a few stimulus checks, pay days have been few and far between for the longest period I have have gone without gainful employment since I was fifteen. I am far from alone in this. Actually it is because a dear friend convinced me over five years ago that I made way too much money to always be strapped for cash and took the time to teach me some money saving techniques that my wife and I were able to weather this last year and a half far better than most, still it took all I had put away for that proverbial rainy day to do that.

I am looking forward to Fridays taking back their special place again. For years I have gotten my pay every two weeks with the first two weeks’ pay held held back. That first new paycheck though still almost a month away will be a very welcome one. I hope to be able to work at least another five years and that most likely only from May or June to October or November as that is how construction work goes mostly in the far North country which is one of my most favorite places to work.

This is my first work assignment in Nebraska, though I have driven across it’s width and breadth several times. My inspection assignment is set for Wayne, Nebraska and I have secured a slot for my camper at the KOA campground in nearby North Sioux City, South Dakota, a suburb of Sioux City, Iowa. As I mentioned, I grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee where many folks that lived in nearby Georgia and Alabama drove from to work everyday. It was called, as I have I have heard several cities also are around the U.S. are “the tristate area.” I am looking forward to becoming familiar with my new tristate area over the next six months or so and not just on payday Fridays.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YA0WtFXxH6OJLwfJ9lovDSRn19dFnS6p/view?usp=drivesdk

The Highwayman