The wreck of the day in Normal entries

Wrote some long dumb-ass thing earlier, maybe yesterday, I don’t know where it got off too, so I’m writing this long dumbass thing. I suppose it doesn’t have to be long. At this point it’s all potential. I think it does have to be dumb ass though; I might have used up my smart ass for the month, certainly for the day.

I actually had breakfast this morning. My brother and sister in law were in town, came up Sunday afternoonish left this morning after breakfast. Originally it had something to do with a sick and/or dying friend in New Hampshire. Turns out she isn’t all that sick or dying anytime soon. They are taking the scenic route. From here it is up north to cross into Canada at Sault Ste Marie. Pretty up there. I’ve been back in Michigan for almost two years now and I haven’t been to the U.P.

I don’t know why exactly, the U.P. was always what I used to defend Michigan’s beauty to all those people who never asked or even thought much about Michigan one way or the other. The Lake Superior shoreline is beautiful. It’s a bit like the Columbia gorge in that it has no peer. Sure there are other big ass lake shores and other river gorges, but not like Superior or the Columbia. I suppose it’s just an opinion, it’s one I have a hard imagining anyone countering. I would love any opportunity to prove that opinion too.

There’s this song by Arlo Guthrie with a refrain that goes something like this

You can tell me about the times you spent

In the Rockies and on the plains

Please don't think that I'm the last to say

That there ain't lots of other places

In this world that still remain

Beautiful and unchanged

But they're just not the same as Massachusetts

Arlo’s dad had been commissioned by FDR to write forty songs (I might be off a few on the number) about the Work Project that became the Bonneville locks, Dam and the Bonneville Power Administration. One of them has a refrain that goes something like this

Yep, the Columbia, mighty good river.

When I was a Young Turk there was the endless monotonous song about a shipwreck on Lake Superior by, I think, Gordon Lightfoot, called The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald. I’m sure that if I could remember my dreams that the nightmares still use that song as the soundtrack. I don’t mean because it’s frightening, the fucking thing never ends and it has absolutely no variation to it. They should have gotten a Guthrie to do it, at least then it would have been short.

Bonneville locks, Bonneville Dam
Run a thousand factories for Uncle Sam …
It’s a mighty good river.

I have completely gone off the deep end with fucking e-juices. I am smoking something called sucker punch by a company called suicide bunny and graphics that meet half way in between suicide girls and the movie sucker punch. It’s pretty much a punch flavored juice. There’s this juice something something Muertes with day of the dead sort of graphics. In one of my tanks I have the flavor Cold Soul. It’s pretty much menthol. I mean sort of … it’s … pretty much menthol.

My brother tried to give me two cigars. I tried to give them back. We each half succeeded. I had a pretty good reason to give em back, he just asked me to read the wrapper and that was reason enough to keep one. Padron 1926 anniversary. I’ve smoked many fine cigars. I’ve smoked many fine, classic, spoken of only in hushed tones, Cuban cigars. I don’t think I’ve smoked a cigar I like as much as the Padron 1926 anniversary. I might not even smoke it; I might just chew it a little every day.

That cigar is a bit like the Superior shoreline or the Columbia gorge. I can’t really use the excuse that I’m afraid it will lead me back to smoking cigarettes. Sure there are a lot of fancy things in this world you can put in mouth and light the other end of, but nothing quite like a Padron 1926 anniversary.