(Willow took on a distinct Irish air last night. Photo Socotra.)

I have tried to get out of Your Nation’s Capital on Fridays the last couple weeks. The farm is a comforting destination, and the level of stress in every sector of life inside the Beltway makes weekend flight irresistible.

With the dysfunctional system gridlocked, the current show about budgets and guns and climate change and energy policy all are actually conversations in the early stage of the 2014 elections. The President will rule by decree until then, and we shall

I mentioned that it was Saint Patrick’s Day yesterday- actually, as some alert readers pointed out, the actual day to commemorate the man who drove the snakes from the Emerald Isle is the 17th.

I sniffed. I know these things. That is why we have a room full of wild-assertion checkers in the back room of Socotra House Publications. What I perhaps should have said was: “Willow is closed on Sunday.” So, Tracy O’Grady is having the celebration to observe the day on Friday- and Saturday, but I will be out of town.

It was a challenge to get there, between the office and the Bluesmobile. I spent a couple hours before the office surfing the web, baffled at trying to get the owner’s manual for the P-71 Cruiser online and connect with a likely battery outlet here in Arlington, and got lucky. The Fort Myer auto shop is actually a Firestone outlet and they had what I needed when I cracked the code.

I decided to get a Saturday chore out of the way at lunch, and dashed back to Big Pink in the Panzer, intending to pull the old battery, take it to the Fort and swap it out, and be back at my desk in a half hour.

Easier said than done. The hood was frozen and when I gently pried it open with the edge of the emergency shovel, the battery looked like it had not been changed since the car was new. There was corrosion on the mounting bolts and on the screws that hold the battery leads to the thing. Oily, I am in work-clothes. Crap. Plus, I needed tools, which were up in the unit. Crap .

It occurred to me as I lugged pliers, wrench and the ratchet set down the stairs (not a first, but unusual during the long recuperation) that I have not been able to do this sort of stuff in a year- almost to the day. I tucked my badge lanyard into my shirt, trying not to get grease on it, and went to work on the rusty screws.

The battery eventually came out with a groan and it was a heavy sucker, wedged close to a razor-sharp edge of interior sheet metal that drew blood and threatened to leach onto the Brooks Brothers shirt.

The rest was fairly easy- a jaunt to the Post gas station complex, a quick transaction with Wally, the enormous head-man there, and I was headed back to drop it in the police car.

When I was done, it actually started with a couple cranks, and I headed back to the office with grimy hands on the wheel.

The radio on my desk was alerting me to a missile build-up against the North Korean threat, new gun legislation and more budget nonsense. I sighed and turned it off at quitting time, picked up my back-pack and headed for freedom.

(Chris-the-Marine holds a very special bottle of Bud. Photo Socotra)

We had a good crowd with a lot of the old timers there: Big Jim was behind the bar, Long Hair Mike (it isn’t, not since the cancer) and Ray the Jarhead  and John with and Jon-without, The Lovely Bea and her pal Jamie, Chanteuse Mary, her Michigan Sister and another. The company was fun. I still don’t know what anything means.

That was not the biggest deal, though. Old Jim was holding court to an engaged crowd, and decided to have a beer.

“I did not quit drinking,” he said with grave dignity. “Reports of that have been greatly exaggerated. I just thought I should loose a few pounds and take a break.”

Then he ordered a Bud.

Happy real Saint Patrick’s Day (mañana). Gotta run. I have snakes to drive out.

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com