(The younger Bob expresses his views of the car keys in “Visions of Johanna.” Photo Robert Zimmerman.)

I have inflicted enough on you. Re-cycling is something I believe in, but the process of transforming long-ago manuscript into modern digital screeds is harder than I thought. So, for now we will leave the Good Ship Midway and her merry pirate crew as they were in those days, when the South China Sea was an American lake, and the Mercedes Mullahs were just getting started on the Shia paradise.

I am done with that for a while, as I am sure you must be gratified. When the October Surprise happens, we can turn our attention to the volatile region again.

t was a quiet day here. Since we left for 1980, things have changed dramatically here in the present and recent past. Doc “Elvin” Hayes pronounced me healed a week ago this morning, which filled me with a sense of triumph that lasted all the way home. No more Walter Reed, and the queasy feeling looking at the kids who have suffered such devastating wounds in combat with the latest generation of jihadis.

In honor of being cured, I have been back in the office, and that brings a remarkable sense of liberation. I got all the way through the in-basket yesterday in preparation for a meeting with a small business concern whose owners wish to join our team on that new contract we won, but which is under protest and actual business is a ways down the road.

(Hubris in motion. Photo M-B.)

I made an appointment to get the Hubrismobile into the shop for the annual safety inspection. They are very automated and Germanic over there, and the web-site is not particularly user-friendly, though I have noticed a trend in the auto business that your car maintenance history is online- no reason to keep those thick sheaves of paper records in a folder anymore.

They were bugging me to get the inspection- this new wired age is something else- but I also realized the inspection does not expire until September, and rushing over to change the oil and get the inspection should wait until September to stretch out the next year, and then I looked at the mileage and saw I have put less than a thousand miles on the car since the Spring oil change, and then I read a long post from a pal out West about the coming Snowmageddon winter on the East Coast due to the La Nina conditions in the Pacific.

Then I thought that I am not going to drive in the winter, and if I am thinking about retiring in the next few years, and then I thought, WTF, what am I keeping an inventory of cool exotic cars for anyway?

Isn’t that crazy ’91 hot-rod Sylcone pickup truck enough? That is parked in the garage down at the farm and I haven’t even started it this season. I wondered whether it was time for a new ride, something practical but grimly efficient as a Panzerkampfwagen.

(German panzer styling. Photo M-B.)

The dealer has a certified 2010 GLK-350 4Matic SUV with all the bells and whistles on it- 19K on the odometer- for $32K- and I found a 1.9% offer for a car loan from my credit union. Maybe I will swing by this weekend and look at swapping out the Hubris vibe for that of a Panzer and thought about swapping the flashy convertible for something that works in the snow and rain. It may not do 140 clicks on the autobahn, but I am pretty much done with that, too, plus the tiny trunk is constricting.

The SUV can haul crap, and with whatever is coming, that might be a good thing. Plus, the Hubrismobile is an ‘04 model, and that is getting on toward a decade old. Plus the 2014 models are all going to have that automated tracking stuff on them by Federal mandate and I am not interested.

(The Bluesmobile at the Brandy Station battlefield. Photo Socotra.)

That was one of the things I was thinking of as I got in the Bluesmobile and headed over to Willow for the business meeting. I love that old Ford police car. It is bedraggled, low-maintenance, and thoroughly efficient in an old-school way.

It is Restaurant Week, so we sat outside and let the civilians fill the place up. John-with-an-H is hanging out at Screwtop these days, and Old Jim is boycotting the place based on grounds of personal integrity. Jon-without, minus the lovely Bea, cruised by, the only regular who still is.

We enjoyed some happy hour white and my business associates drank a bottle of red with one of Kate Jansen’s superb signature flatbread pizzas.

I looked at the watch and felt bad that the hour-long swim kinda got lost in the noise.

Plus, there was one last summer thing to take care of. Johanna, the Polish Lifeguard, was sitting in at the pool for Konrad, this year’s regular, who is in New York or something immersing his tanned, chiseled body in the American Experience before going back to Mittleurope for school in the Fall.

Johanna was our regular guard three years ago, and I wanted to say goodbye, since she is taking off next week for university back home and I may not see her again in this life. I had a little bottle of Absolut Vodka in the freezer, and I dropped that off with her once I got back from Willow in the growing darkness. She is Polish, after all, and the vodka was welcome.

I can feel the season changing. It is dark now long before the gate clangs closed for the day. I sat at the Guard’s table since there was no one there and I took a cocktail down in a thermal mug, just like old times, and smoked right there.

We chatted for a while, I took a plunge, and luxuriated in the cool water. I did not swim for an hour- not even close, but I wanted Johanna to be able to close up early if she wanted and gave her a kiss on the cheek and wished her a most pleasant life if I don’t see her again.

A little seasonal pre-melancholy as we move the deck chairs toward Autumn. Another step back toward normalcy after the surgery, and another change of seasons. I slept like a log, but had a disquieting dream about German SUVs.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com