Okay, Spring Semester 05 ended the way all semesters do.  I worked my ass off to overcome heaps of work (minor procrastination disasters), yet balanced such pressures with hope, friends, the trail system, and television.  I also developed a surprisingly strong relationship with my job at the cafeteria.  Note: I never took the job all that seriously.  It was something I did twice a week to keep me focused and earn a little spare change.  Yet, at the end of the semester I felt really good about working there.  An employee of the month award for finding a piece of gum in the mashed potatoes they were serving was awarded to me along with a sticker that said “I got caught doing something right!”  The old Vietnam vet. Janitor that always walked around smiling and making small talk and many of my other coworkers were revealed to be more complex than I originally imagined them to be to say the least.  Once you get to know some of these people and they let you into their lives, you learn.  They tell you about themselves and give you perspective.  It seems I come away from every work experience feeling a little more enlightened, but oh I hate fore shadowing.  It was a good end of the semester.  I did well.  And that is all I have to really say about that.

  Now we begin the first and perhaps most interesting part of my summer.  Those that know me know I have pretty much worked the same summer job since I was 14.  I know to many of you this may sound boring and I agree too some extent.  I began this summer intent on finally doing something different.  I signed a lease to stay down here for another three months without first finding a job.  I make dandelion wine.  A period of panic set in when I began my job search; I needed serious money (and by serious I mean above minimum wage) to make my decision to stay in Mt. Pleasant financially justifiable.  I also wanted a job that was interesting and usual.  When I was about resigned to put in an application at McDonald’s, I got an amazing job offer.  I could probably write several pages about this job if I were to use standard rhetorical devices, but you probably don’t have the time or interest and I don’t have the stamina.  So what follows it a set of scraps from which you can create your own impressions.  It all comes without commentary.  But perhaps there is a soundtrack.  It would be a mix of NPR Morning News, staticy AM Piston’s playoff radio, classic rock, jazz, and bubble gum pop.  Roll tape. 
  
  Night Ranger at Coldwater family park.  Hurray!  Pays well.  Work outside. Work alone at night.  Get a uniform and truck keys and gate keys and cabin keys and mystery keys.  Get pumped in training.  Get to drive a truck with the boss and 67 year old short man.  Actually drove truck.  Was a big deal.  Went really fast down narrow, dirt, back roads to keep from getting lost.  Got CB radio, got flashlight.  First day leave for work at sunset and come home at sunrise.  Vampire lifestyle.  Cleaning bathrooms horrible.  Too much for one person.  Holy shit memorial day weekend, I am in over my head.  Most people great, but they are only awake for a portion of the shift.  The rest of the time it is baby sitting drunks, idiot kids, and Crystal-Meth heads.  No one respects quiet hours on their own.  The people I talk to the most don’t like me because I’m the one that has to remind them to remain human and semi considerate of others.  I like watching the sunrise alone on the lake.  I like those few days when things were slow enough for me to spend hours reading in the gate cabin.  It was excellent. Series of huge thunder storms.  Lightning reflects in the water, distorted by choppy water.  Rain like I have never seen rain.  Hard pounding warm rain.  True darkness.  Radio communication with Marty is choppy, have to call Mike to get protocols.  Reassure all campers that everything is going to be all right.  Head back into my cabin and sit in the dark.  Venture out into the storm every few hours to make sure anarchy hasn’t ensued.  Power comes on with an hour to go, toilets immediately begin overrunning.  Open gate, close gate, lock gate, open gate, close gate, lock gate….  Huge flying bugs.  I am at war with them.  They can not be in the bathrooms.  I hate them.  I read Of Human Bondage then sit out on the beach under the stars.  Family Reunion ends with complaints.  I get blamed for not telling them all to shut up, which I did.  No big deal, but the boss did bring it to my attention.  The next day, zero tolerance.  Never got another complaint.  One man did say there were a thousand chinks chattering next to his tent.  But I only saw an Asian couple sitting quietly in each other’s arms.  A good percentage of campers are assholes.  Stuff is stolen from a camper’s boat.  Perhaps on my shift, who knows?  I get extra careful about looking for thieves.  I get night vision.  I come home so tired at 6:30 in the morning.  Fall asleep, wake up at 6:00pm eat dinner, watch Smallville and do it all over again.  Burning out, I hate this.  I don’t want to be a Night Ranger!  Yet I still enjoy interrupting bunny picnics and the bike rides in Mt. Pleasant are amazing.  So I am stuck and it is wonderful and it is horrible and I shrink and grow.           

  Okay back to normal, I go back home one day to hang out with the hometown summer crew.  I walk into Glen’s to visit with my mom.  My boss for the past eight years is on his way out to take a more promising position in the empire.  He tells me wants to set the new guy up some one of worth to take on extra responsibility in the transitional period.  He makes me an offer I can’t refuse.  An offer that is far larger than I had ever hoped.  It gave me a reason to move back.  Two weeks notice and then off to the Gulf of Mexico for Tarpon fishing with my dad.

   But that will have to wait until tomorrow.  I need to sleep for my big day tomorrow.  Big things in motion. The process is reaching climax.  Anyway, I need to go now.  Stay tuned as the saga of my summer unfolds.  Here is a quick preview, giant fish, Glen’s adventures, hippie fest, and the triumphant return to Cimtown.  Good night and good luck!             

• Cimtown (my apartment and the neighbors) rocks!
• Hootie's "Hold My Hand" has become the offical Cimtown theme.
• The Cabin has replaced the Bird as my favorite place to drink.  Tuesday nights are especially cool because it's open mic night and I love live music.
  
• I was snowed in the day before Thanksgiving with Kerbleski.  It sucked not being able to get home that night, but we watched the pistons, drank some PBR, and had a decent time.
• Classes are difficult, silly, and I'm ready for them to be over.
• I played basketball for the first time in years last week and almost died.  I am very out of shape, but I was able to sink a three pointer so I didn't come off as a complete chump.
• Cimtown is heading down to the Palace to see the Pacer game in March.  Should be a pretty intense game and we are bringing weapons just in case another brawl breaks out.
  

 

• I got a job at the Robinson Dinning commons.   I signed up to be a busser, thinking I would be just cleaning tables.  Oh no, my job is to transfer the food from the kitchen to varius serving stations.  I also have been staying late nearly everyday I work to help the Pot and Pans Man with his work.  I can't say I like this job, but I don't really work enough to let it bother me.  I don't get paid much, but I only have to walk a block to get there.  Bottom line is:  The job isn't so bad and I don't feel like a bum anymore.

• I went to the CMU vs. MSU football game.  Adam, Pare-Dog, Monty and I went down to East Lansing and stayed at Tyler's house.  MSU is pretty much wicked.  People are up and about at all hours of night and there this a Bell's Pizza which serves pizza by the slice for cheap.  Tailgating was insane and most MSU people were kind and loved our CMU clothing.  We saw president Roa and yelled "Fire Up Chips!" at him and he waved.  We bought excellent 12th row tickets from a scalper right before the game at less than half cost.  CMU lost but it was actually a very good game and Bam-Bam had a 90 yard run.  Quite sweet.

• Classes this semester are as hard as ever, but I am still doing well.  My HST 597 class is crazy.  I think I am the only person in the class who isnt a graduate student.    My senior seminar English Class is wicked though because we are focusing on Road Literature, which I happen to enjoy.  It also looks like I got into the Teacher Education program, but they haven't sent out the official admission report yet.  I will get in though, no worries.

Moved down to Mt. Pleasant a few days ago and I am glad to be back in the swing of things.  The apartment has set up nicely and I have thoroughly enjoyed playing house, arranging furniture, buying table cloths, and the like.  Classes start next Monday and hopefully I will be able to get a job in the next couple weeks, but for now a few little errands a day are all I have to contend with.  This of course is delightful and decadent at least compared to working all the time at the market formerly know as Prevo’s.  I have spent my free time (isn’t that a wonderful phrase, as if all our time wasn’t free…open for debate I suppose) wisely, I feel.  I am ready now for the grind to begin and I have no regrets.  No regrets about summer past, it was one of my best.  No regrets about school, Central Michigan University, no matter how much I complain, is excellent.

Last night a pretty severe thunderstorm passed through Mt. Pleasant.  The thunder was loud enough to wake me from the dead of sleep, not an easy task.  I have always enjoyed a good storm, especially ones that come in at night sly like a cat and then from the silence of slumber awaken the senses, activate the mind, and move the body.  The rain has a taste, a sound, a smell, and even a feel.  Rain is more potent and sustaining than the lightning and thunder, rain’s teammates in the storm.  Lightning and thunder are of course the most exciting and certainly have their charms, but the rain is the beat, like a drum major it leads the storm on through the night.  Though it may not have a glimmering instrument nor make a sound that shakes, it is what I like best.  The wind too is excellent, but enough.  Writing about storms is like writing about the sea and the sky, it has been done before, done better, and everyone is tired of hearing about.  I kick myself hard right in the mouth.