The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

You see folks everyday who are more stressed than a government service employee in a GOP administration.  Stress, as we should all know by now, is a Killer, capital ‘K’ and I don’t mean Jerry Lee Lewis.  Traffic tie-ups, hellish commutes, bad bosses, a co-worker who needs meds or a capital K for Killing —- we all know what that does to our blood pressure, our marriage and our equanimity.

On the South End we definitely believe in Equanimity.  Let the rats race, we don’t really have a finish line, so why hurry?  Some of the boyz down at Karls Kustoms Hot Rod, lounging around the lift, were comparing notes on headers and 4 barrel carbs over a few cold ones and inevitably they got around to jobs they hated the most.  It’s an old list, something to talk about when politics goes stale, and better than worrying about whether to take Social Security early or hold on a few more years of odd jobs and piecemeal work.

Karl used to run the service department at the Ford dealership a few years back.  Long commute, pressure job.  Unhappy customers.  Unhappy Karl.  But like the rest of us spinning socket heads and imagining ourselves behind the wheel of the cherry red little Vette Karl was putting the final touches on with an artist’s concentration, he’d tossed in the grease rag one Friday payday, told the boss to shove it and  took the long way home past every tavern and dive from the dealership to the cold dinner, then began living off his wits and his savings, neither a gold mine.

Poverty, of course, can be the cruelest stress of all, wondering week to week if you can tread water a little longer, not really expecting your ship to come in or even sail by, just holding on.  Course, the months pass, then the years and there finally comes a day when every South Ender worth his salt decides to quit worrying.  History is on his side.  Precedent.  Patterns.  And now … probability.  Truth is, we’ve learned the art of Making Do without making much money.  Hard to believe for a lot of folks.  But … belief is what we had to learn.  Things usually work out fine and worrying about em won’t help.  We leave that to the folks up north.

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