Blog 2069 – 05.25.2021

“I Sure Hope The Road Don’t Come To Own Me”

Is a line from a song from the Carole King 1971 album Tapestry called Far Away. Tomorrow after a break of over a year and a half off work due to the Covid 19 pandemic I resume my on the road away from home work life. From April 2012 through November of 2019 I spent all but a couple of months away from my Houston home and wife working as a contract inspector. Many who work as I do, mostly in the high north country take off the colder months and return home to be with family for those four month and sometimes longer winters when construction work jobs are few and far between. I did only once between jobs for the month of November in 2018.

It is my intention to begin doing as my peers and take the next five winters off before retiring from the road completely at the ripe young age of seventy six. I mentioned yesterday that the concluding phrases and disclaimer of my ever evolving daily mantra are: “I make these and all my intentions for the highest good of the Universe, myself, and everyone, every where. So be it and it is so. Amen and Aye Women”

I began my daily mantra even before committing to my full time on the road work life with: “I am so glad and grateful that everything I could ever 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.” Like Snow White’s seven dwarfs and most people I used to sing, “I owe, I owe so off to work I go.” Thanks to a dear friend that I met on the road I finally learned how to save money some years ago and I was able to put enough aside to enable us to get through most of a year and a half without my work checks coming in. Oh, it took all our savings and some hard choices, but one result fortunately for my wife and I is that we were able to pay off all our debts and free ourselves from promises that we are no longer able to keep so that if we had too we can get by own the Social Security and two small retirement checks that we have coming in each month.

My intention to work even half years away for five more years is only to replenished our savings so that if one or both of us should stubbornly decide to hang on to this particular adventure for years to come we will have the where with all to have fun with it. I am even still planning to replace my little house on wheels on the prairie, my nineteen foot pull behind camper trailer, with a refurbished one in much better condition, so that Linda and I can spend the warmer months of the year on the road together, if I can convince her that it is both a good investment and a good plan. Dreams need to be shared to be truly sweet dreams.

Yesterday, with a tear in her voice she asked me, “Do you have to go?” I replied, “Yes, but I will be back.” Many do not understand how a marriage could survive such long separations. Indeed my first marriage at nineteen to a girl seventeen did not survive my last teenaged year in the Republic of South Vietnam as a soldier. Barbara Ann just could not wait for me. I believe with all my heart that my Linda Lee would have, like me she is wonderfully and stubbornly loving in that way. I am so glad and grateful that she came along at just the right time and in just the right way in my life, in the nick of time, actually.

Carole’s song did too in 1971 when I was still recovering from not just one broken heart but two and seriously fearful that the road might come to own me. It has not, this year and a half long taste of home has made me even more determined to work so that if we really do get to retire in a few years that we can if we chose share a life on the road together seeing this great big beautiful country together.

It is nice to have a plan and a dream to look forward to as I hit the road again in the morning for Nebraska.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FXZdG_yZ6hNw7Ct0gZGV9C8ezca0-2Ba/view?usp=drivesdk

Nick Of Time