"Propane"

5 x 7 postcard series

From the camera while riding down a blue highway in South Georgia. Blue Highway from the book by William Least Heat Moon. Blue highways are those that show up as blue lines on the maps. "Blue Highways" was a great travel book. Check it out.

This is one of my favorite exchanges that is appropriate for the new year.

"What kind of work you in?" he asked.

That question again. "I'm out of work," I said to simplify.

"A man's never out of work if he's worth a damn. It's sometimes he doesn't get paid. I've gone unpaid my share and I've pulled my share of pay. But that's got nothing to do with working. A man's work is doing what he's supposed to do, and that's why he needs a catastrophe now and again to show him a bad turn isn't the end, because a bad stroke never stops a good man's work. Let me show you my philosophy of life."

From his pressed Levi's he took a billfold and handed me a limp business card. "Easy. It's very old."

The card advertised a cafe in Merced when telephones were four digits. In quotation marks was a motto: "Good Home Cooked Meals."

" 'Good Home Cooked Meals' is your philosophy?"

"Turn it over peckerwood."

Imprinted on the back, in tiny faded letters was this:

I've been bawled out, balled up, held up, held down, hung up, bulldozed, blackjacked, walked on, cheated, squeezed, and mooched; stuck for war tax, excess profits tax, sales tax, dog tax, and syntax, Liberty bonds, bady bonds, and the bonds of matrimony, Red Cross, Blue Cross and the double cross; I've worked like hell, worked others like hell, have got drunk and got others drunk, lost all I had, and now because I won't spend or lend what little I earn, beg, borrow or steal, I've been cussed, discussed, boycotted, talked to, talked about, lied to, lied about, worked over, pushed under, robbed and damned near ruined. The only reason I'm sticking around now is to see WHAT THE HELL IS NEXT."

Thanks for looking.