Clouded…

6:00 AM it was supposed to be a clouded day and I knowingly had an unsure mind.
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A country kid when getting to town on our own pedaling initiative. When we had succeeded getting there what was there to do. Growing up on 40, 80, 120, 160 acre plots as country kids we had played a many an hour in our very own backyard wildernesses, be they an open field or a shaded wood lot, there was in every direction our eyes had followed something seen, studied, collected, and shown to mom and classmates. It also followed in my one room school house while reading, writing and arithmetic was our main stay three curriculum courses a forth (hour) study was a lumped up mess/mass of history, geography, science, archeology. Thankfully either nobody had either thought about it or thought to much of it we were treated to Darwin’s discoveries; and, evolution contradicted creationism. We were in studies heaven. For every action there is an opposite reaction, we studied husbandry, botany, levers, inclined plains, the screw, and gravity. For us country kids all these last topics involved our daily lives. We had new age machines, animals, fruits vegetables grains we were involved in some manner and time participants.
Now this may seem silly, but after we’d gotten into a town on our own power there was little to do. Hearing of a library, a place full of books, going there we felt unwelcome, treated as dirty kids(?). Hell, we were, we come to town straight off a farm. A place we didn’t often enough seemingly get away from. Thinking back, kept so country busy we didn’t have time to get into trouble and we weren’t as dumb as we were supposed to be. Our everyday conversation vocabulary limited to the rural life we had little to nothing down to real earth in common with city people or more impotently city brats…
What to do? The library our even if we were the only ones in there, we got shushed? What was going to hear us? The books? The old biddy running the place treated us as unwelcome aliens. One such bike ride had taken us down into the railroad yard. Every town had one in those day more likely than not complete with an all knowing knowledgeable hobo (that’s another story). Meanwhile we (three of us this time) stopped along side the street in discussion, shall we or shan’t we take a look. We decided to look. Wow! What a time we had there were several piles of different looking sand, gravel and stone: but what really caught our eyes were the piles of coal. There were big chunks bigger than the bits and pieces we’d seen by the outdoor coal-bin behind our school, and some coal, all of them, of equal look alike size. It was the big ones what interested us. Looking closely as if we’d found a new country bug to watch we discover a fossil. A fossil imbedded on a big piece of coal. Wonder of wonders, what had we found? On of us had decided to pick one up and smashed it against another chunk. Split down the middle we’d seen a perfect black maple leaf. We broke three four pieces deciding we had better stop before we got into trouble. We weren’t home where anything we wanted we could pick if we eatened it right then and there. Were we dirty country kids? I’ll say we were! But, getting home our mom’s knew us!
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Valium O’Clock Time
Getting in at 6:00 PM I don’t know which one of us took the worst licking, Me or Ugly? Ugly lost the ugliest part of it’s body, The cargo box. Me, while I hadn’t lost anything all the physical ups from all the down-unders has left me feeling sorer than a boil all over. So glad this day is over.
I simply had to do something for old Ugly. The right front box corner had taken up a continual bow. And during more recent days both the rear corners had taken to flapping in the breeze as if trying to become airborne UFO on every paved road it had encountered.

Tomorrow, it’s add another fuel tank with a newly welded fill pipe, that is if I can take apart the assembly I’ve planned on using. Also looks as though I may be looking for a three way brass valve for switching tanks. So this Ugly business is my 99.4% pure excuse for another day happily spent in Shorthorn country. BGKC.
Fernan

PS: If a man speaks in the forest, but there is no woman to hear him, IS HE STILL WRONG?