Picking up where I left off on the last entry...

I was sitting at a brewery, the only one of it's kind in the entire region on this side of the state line, the man and wife were arguing back with me about their pro-palestinian stance. 

I'm sorry, but I do not believe for 2 seconds that Israel is targeting Palestinians.  I do not believe they are the kind of people that just take out innocent people who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time on purpose.  They do their best to target Hamas, but there have been endless reports of Hamas using Palestinians as human shields.

When I said that to them, they told me I was a "victim of propaganda" and that Hamas wasn't doing that at all.  Instead of referencing Hamas using hospitals as storage units for their weaponry and hiding out there, I simply asked them: where are you getting YOUR news and how are you going to verify that I am wrong and you are correct?

Well, the man identified himself as a Palestinian, a thing that couldn't be verified or disproved, but that made no difference to me.  He's sitting at a beer bar in east Texas, not in the Gaza strip.  He has no more info than anyone else has that isn't on the front lines.  It isn't just Fox News making these reports, btw, and I do not rely on Fox News exclusively at all. I do watch it and I don't care what anyone thinks about that. If you don't like it, you can ...well anyway, there are the rest of the news outlets, most of which are leftist, far left progressive garbage outlets with so much spin take on their version of the news, they could turn a thousands tops with their nonsense.

When we got to the "end" of this argument, trust me, I could have gone on a long time with my version of the truth, I have been watching this situation unfold since it began and I have a very good memory of the timeline of events and reporting on how everything got to where it is now - the man just came over, got in my ear again, talked in low and conciliatory tones, said we will just have to agree to disagree peacefully to which I spoke my complete agreement with.

THIS is the way it USED to be. You could have a passionate back-and-forth with a person who is 180 degrees opposite of your views, air yourselves out but at the end? You didn't hate each other, you weren't ready to get into a fist fight and you smiled, joked about some insignificant thing to cool the air down and that was that.  Which is exactly what we did. Went on to much lighter, easily agreeable topics that were not politically charged.  I could only wish for the days of that coming back to America.  Democrats and Republicans don't have to hate each other, they don't have to look at the other side as the enemy....but..

....but....Communism. Not sorry folks, you start talking like that and you will become an enemy quickly.  I do not hesitate to instantly utter my thoughts on Communism, there is no good history to it, there is no good outcome of it, it is alive and well in many nations and it is oppressing the people in those same-said nations.  

Anyway, we actually hugged, lol, we all left.  I went and got the boy, we went home and that was that. 

Speaking of boys, I talked to the kid yesterday about getting a box blade. That tractor is currently useless to me without one.  He's not a boy or a kid, but since I'm 60 years old and he is 18, has a baby face and still is the "I know everything" phase of life, I call him a boy and yes, to his face lmao.  It's ok,  he calls me old man.  So, he said they have several old ones sitting at his work, would I pay $100 for one? Of course I would!  I don't want to pay $400 for one, those are listed all over Marketplace but $100? Done.  So, he had my trailer hooked up to his pickup this morning and presumable bringing one home today.

I will get busy straightaway fixing the driveway once again if he does, indeed, bring one back with him today.  I am tired, I am tired of working, but that driveway -- once it rains, it's toast.  I really need to get a mini-ex over there and dig out the side of the driveway again to create a drainage ditch on the side.

The problem? Those machines rent for almost $500 per day. There isn't any real way to use the tractor to create one. Well, maybe. If I came it it straight up to the edge and used the bucket to dig out a trench one section at a time. Uhh, I didn't really think of that until just now.  I don't want to spend $500 on a one day rental for a machine, as useful as it might be, that's a lot of money.  

Whatever.  I hope he can get one cheap from his boss and that will be that. For now anyway. 

The weekend is here.  Feels meaningless to me, I am getting up at 5:00 am tomorrow and going to Gurdon. Sunday I have off, tho. It will be 6 straight days of working, off a day and then at least 4 more days after that.  If I had my druthers, I'd work straight through to Saturday next week again and then get Sunday AND Monday off.  

So, the youngest was "begging" me to go to his field trip.  These are elongated trips that are well away from where we live.  The other boy probably doesn't have one again until near the end of the school year.  Anyway, Taylor invoked that I would have to pass a background check to go on this one. Why this one and not the one last year where I met the older boy in Dallas at the Medieval Times? I have NO idea.  It's not me getting on the bus, so what's the big deal? Well, you're going to be around kids. Ok? I was around a thousand of them the last trip?  

I actually didn't want to go on this one anyway. He just popped it out of the blue and wanted me to go.  Why not mommy? Daddy? Well daddy can't really get off of work but that doesn't matter to a 7 year old, they just think: I want this person to go!  

I finally relented.  Ok, how do I go about doing this background check? Taylor was online instantly.  What's your date of birth, your SS number and your DL number?  Do they want my blood type too? Perhaps they want a copy of my mortgage, how much money I have in the banks, what my net worth is and....you get the picture. I don't like going through such things, it's been part of trucking life forever and the intrusiveness of it just sickens me. 

Taylor said it took a week or so to get her results back.  Oh, well ok, I'm not asking for time off until I know I passed their "test".  I mean, seriously. I have to take a day off of work, which is fine, but I also have to drive myself clear over there. It's like 80 miles away. It's a Christmas wonderland for kids, it's right next to Interstate 20 and I've passed by it many, many times. It actually looks like it might be fun?  

An hour later, I get an email: I have reviewed your request to be a volunteer at X ISD and we have approved your request. You can now - whatever, do whatever I want to volunteer for? I didn't volunteer anything but to go to the field trip.  Why did my application get through so fast? Well it probably has something to do with my CDL and the fact that I had to go through a federal background check, fingerprinting, etc ad-infinitum because I have hazmat endorsement on it.

Oh my, I'm going to blow up an entire city! Look out for me! NOT.  Ridiculous nonsense you have to go through endlessly with hazmat crap, the stuff I haul now is not hazmat and I am very thankful it isn't.  Because when it is, you have to go through a collage of security junk. There are so many rules to hauling hazmat, it's staggering to think about all of it.  Our company does, indeed, haul hazmat, I just happen to be in a dedicated lane that isn't hazmat. If I have to do the run to near Dallas ever again, that's hazmat and oh well.  I hate that run,  you have to go clear up to Crossett, AR to load and the clear over to Dallas - Ennis -  to offload.  Those are long days that I don't miss at all. 

I think about mom a lot now that she doesn't have vehicles.  I imagine some frustrating days spent tearing  up knowing you can't ever drive again.  At least, not without a miracle.  If she needs or wants to go somewhere, it's an Uber or Lyft ride and those cars are quite abundant in her area, she doesn't need wait a few minutes and one is there. But still, it's the freedom to just get into a vehicle and be able to take off where you want to go when you want to do it.  I don't bring it up to her, I don't want to salt a fresh wound.  

The part that really sucks for her is not being able to drive up to the mountains anymore.  Her property up there is her summer home and she stays up there pretty much the entire summer.  My oldest brother took her up there several times this last summer, very good on him. He has a heart after all.  

Anyway, I'm done here.  I'm going to take an afternoon nap before those noisy kids get home from school.