02 May 2008
 
Record Keeping

What a week.
 
The Nimitz finally got back from it’s ten hour cruise on television, and by the time that irritating young sailor realized his pregnant girlfriend had moved on, I was as exhausted as the last time I was stuck on her flight deck in the heat of the gulf, strapped in the COD, sweat rolling down my forehead. A pilot had managed to taxi a wheel on his jet into the catwalk, and everything was at “all stop” until the matter was resolved with the Tilly.
 
It is over, and that is done. It was time to turn-in, and get ready for Friday. Reading the traffic this morning, I noted that there had been an actual labor stoppage on the West Coast. May Day, I thought. Hadn’t thought about the significance in years. The ports were closed by workers in support of anti-war activists. Shippers knew it was coming, and allowed for the temporary shortage in capacity with some scheduled overages, and apparently everyone was happy.
 
A Strike, of all things! It has been so long since we have heard of Labor! Almost forgot the Unions still around, what with the four-dollar-a-gallon gas. That has everyone’s attention. I have been so focused on that and other matters that the other news startled me. The DC Madam, the gal that ran the high-class prostitution ring here in the nations capital and got so many powerful people in trouble with her meticulous record-keeping committed suicide yesterday in her Florida retreat.
 
I’m sure that she killed herself, since that is what the authorities say. She must have been depressed, what with all those well-connected enemies. Besides, keeping records is a natural thing, since the files help you to remember.
 
I used to keep all sorts of records in an awesome filing system. Maintaining the archive was a sort of dismal hobby, watching the money pass through my accounts on its way somewhere else.
 
Of course, my philosophy changed after my first encounter with the Ex’s fierce attorneys. I got an ominous Order from the court to produce all sorts of stuff when the dispute was at its height, and I spent last weekend on another homework project for the implacable firm. This one was easier, since I stopped keeping records and turned off all the paper statements long ago. Everything went straight into the shredder and eventually the paper ceased to come to my mailbox.
 
It was liberating, not having a past. Made it easier to move, too, and I did not have to use the little black truck quite so much bouncing around Arlington.
 
I marveled at that, too, when I stopped to fill up the Hubrismobile at the beginning of the week. It was actually $3.84, but considering that it is a military gas station not open to the general public who pay for it all, I figure we are there. A milestone.
 
When I pulled up to the pump, the totals were still displayed from the last transaction. Someone had been driving an SUV, apparently, since the amount was nearly a hundred bucks. Science fiction.
 
The numbers on the pump when I was done were not breathtaking, since I rarely let the tank get below half full. Dad taught me that around the time of the Detroit riots. Still, the numbers were significant enough when I got done filling that it was as if the tank had been on fumes.

At least the Hubrismobile is a marvel of German efficiency. The truck is just a beast.
 
It rumbles like an earthquake. I use it only for hauling things too big for the tiny trunk in the convertible, and it is elderly now, but there is a chronology that is a little unique. The truck had been Uncle Dick’s toy, bought new in 1991. The salt spread generously in the winter in the Pocono’s had not been kind to it, but it is stable now.
 
Dick was meticulous about everything. He kept files with receipts for all the maintenance work that had been done in the decade he owned it. I felt obligated to maintain them when I took it over six years ago. He kept a little notebook in the cab that recorded all the gas and oil that went through the turbo-charged engine down through the years, every gallon. I have kept them up, and note the date, place, price and total amount with each fill-up.
 
The notebooks came in handy when the gas tank began to sag off the mounting hoops and the fuel gauge ceased to work. History can be useful, if you pay attention to it.
 
I won’t tell you what Dick was paying a decade ago. It would only upset you.
 
I only top off the truck about once a quarter, or after the occasional flurry of movement. I try not to drive the Hubrismobile more than I have to, though this week has been a bear. Meetings at Chantilly, Fairfax and Ballston were on the agenda yesterday, and the same today. It is going to cost fifty bucks to fill up again this weekend, at least.
 
I am not a big public transportation guy, as you know, but I took the Metro downtown for an event on Wednesday, eschewing the privacy and comfort of my own vehicle. If the cost of fuel is starting to impact the way I live, I wonder what it is like for people who actually work for a living.
 
Particularly the ones who live out in those big houses in Chantilly and depend on their cars for everything. It makes me think that the change is finally here, and like it or not, everything is going to turn on its head.
 
Should be interesting. Seems a pity we didn’t do anything when this started in 1973. We might have done things a little differently.
 
Of course, that is what my attorney says, too.
 
Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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