Passing Inspection

I drove my wife's car to the dealership for inspection. The service door opened and I drove in and parked. Two men greeted me smiling. "Good morning," one said as the other took my keys and directed me to the service desk. Another guy said something to one of my guys who laughed and gave a high-five. I went to the service desk.

Four workers were each talking with a customer. A fifth said hello on his way out to the garage. "Last spot on the end, sir. I'll grab some numbers from your car and be right back." Less than a minute later he returned. A woman at the next station smiled at something another worker down the line said.

My guy told me that I didn't yet need an oil change or tire rotation. "Just the inspection today. We can have that done in no time." He was efficient, chipper, and engaging. I asked how busy the day would be seeing that all five of them were already engaged. "Not too bad," he said. "Even when it's busy that's good." Down the line a worker and customer laughed loudly. I smiled. My guy directed me to the waiting room. "I'll come get you when it's ready."

I had brought my laptop intending to write but was too distracted in the waiting room. Mercifully the television was off but there was constant movement through the waiting area. The service desk was out to the right, bathrooms to the left, coffee and the hallway to the showroom left of center, and a business office in the middle. The office was the main distraction. Someone in there seemed to have just returned from an absence.

I watched through the cashier's window and the door as it opened and closed. People smiled and laughed. The talk was light and relaxed as at a party or family gathering. I heard please, thank you, we missed you, hey did I tell you?, laughter, and the sounds of happiness, caring, camaraderie.

No wonder I couldn't focus on writing. I was too confused. I'm at a car dealership, I thought. Do people dream of doing this work? Do they feel called to it? Can they be satisfied doing it? I now hear the condescension in those questions and apologize. Blame my ignorance and confusion and know that I'm not looking down now. When my guy said the car was ready I was relieved to get away from my confusion but sad to leave a place that felt so good.

I'm on vacation from my job and absolutely dread going back. We are stretched too thin and worn out there. No one is happy and we have given up putting on brave faces. Some of us are looking for other work. It's a dark, angry place that is the primary source of my depression and declining health. It pays the bills and affords us healthcare but that's not enough. I enjoy moments on the job but far too few. The punishments outweigh the benefits. I want more. I want the car dealership.

The dealership must be run by people who get the best out of good people by giving them what they need, valuing them, and treating them with respect. What I felt and saw there doesn't happen by accident. Good families don't just happen and the dealership was clearly a good family. I'm not looking down any more. No, my neck is getting stiff from looking up at what I want and the kind of place toward which I need to move.

2018 Top Rereads

Following up on my list of best first-time reads of 2018, here are the best books I've returned to this year. These are books that not only survive multiple readings but become richer on repeated reads.

1. Austin Kleon, Show Your Work. This is why I started bgfay.com and the newsletter

2. Rick Bass, Winter. There’s nothing I’ve read quite like this book. I read it in summer and kept thinking, like Bass, I’ve got to stockpile more firewood.

3. Linda Cline, The Ghost Of Cramer's Island. I read this for the first time in 3rd grade. It has been years since I reread it and it still feels great. Better than Where The Red Fern Grows.

4. Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without A Country. Thank goodness Vonnegut only had George W. Bush as the worst president in his life. He might have killed himself if he saw who we have now.

5. Christopher McDougall, Born To Run. People think it’s just a barefoot running book. It’s hardly that. McDougall has written a nonfiction thriller as good as anything I’ve ever read.

6. Stephen King, On Writing. Anyone who thinks Stephen King isn’t a brilliant writer hasn’t read this. Great memoir and good advice for writers. This keeps me writing. I read it once a year.

7. Annie Dillard, The Writing Life. I forgot what a poet Dillard is. I wanted to copy huge sections out of this. The word lyrical may have been coined to describe this book.

8. J.K. Rowling, The Harry Potter Series. Every summer my daughter and I each reread these books. I never tire of them and they shine as bright as they ever have. Rowling is supremely gifted.

2018 Top New (To Me) Books

My 2018 top-ten list of new (to me) books ended up being eleven. Oh well. These are listed in the order that I read them. All eleven are nonfiction. That sounds about right for me.

1. Damon Krukowski, The New Analog. This confirmed what I’ve felt about turntables and taught me the value of signal and noise.

2. Alan Jacobs, How To Think. This really got me thinking about how to think. That’s not something most books do for me.

3. Alan Lightman, Searching For Stars On An Island In Maine. Lightman deftly showed how faith and logic can live together, how religion and science intersect. It's quite a high-wire act.

4. Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments For Deleting All Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Technology companies are using me. This book convinced me to delete my long-held Facebook and Twitter accounts. I'm quitting Amazon but won't ever quit Google.

5. Richard Russo, The Destiny Thief. Russo's prose is as good as anyone writing today or yesterday. I wish he wrote more essays. I’ll reread this book someday soon.

6. Hans Rosling, Factuflness. My friend Laurie begged me to read this. Now I beg everyone else to read it. It turned me around. One of the most important books of this new century.

7. Chris Offutt, My Father The Pornographer. The best memoir I’ve read in a couple years. It's difficult to get through because of who and how his father was. The prose is lyrical. This is a writer’s writer but the book is for everyone.

8. David Sedaris, Calypso. Sedaris is the humorist of our times, which is a weightier mantle than that of comedian. He's also one of the best writers I've read.

9. Stephen Kuusisto, Have Dog, Will Travel. How is this not on every Best of 2018 list? Kuusisto is an honest to God poet and his prose is infused with both poetry and his vision of being a blind man in a sighted world.

10. Deborah Levy, The Cost Of Living. No book stuck with me more. Levy’s style is brilliant, forceful, spare, and so far beyond my abilities I almost want to cry but that would get in the way of reading more of her stuff.

11. Kristi Coulter, Nothing Good Can Come From This. I love this. Her mix of humor and honesty raise the book beyond the typical alcoholic's memoir. I can’t wait to read what she does for a second book.

Next up: 2018 Top Re-Reads

Rubber Band Ball

In the kitchen junk drawer (does everyone have one of those?) sits a rubber band ball that has grown just larger than a baseball. I found a purple rubber band from the asparagus on the table and stretched it around the ball. As usual, I thought of The Mickey Mouse Make-It Book from which came the idea to make a rubber band ball. I was six then. We didn't have hundreds of rubber bands in the house. Not being able to make the ball immediately, I gave up.

Fifteen years ago I wrapped a couple rubber bands around some used aluminum foil. I added bands as I found them. The ball grew but lacked bounce because of the foil core shortcut. I tossed it in the bin as a thing begun badly, but the idea lingered.

When the kids outgrew them I packed my Mickey Mouse books in a tote but lingered over The Make-It Book. I saw the things I had made. Some worked, others not so much, and one, the rubber band ball, still called to me.

I wound two rubber bands together to form a tiny ball. I added the half dozen bands lying in the junk drawer. I added rubber bands as I found them, winding each tightly around the core. Sometimes I thought of the book, the aluminum foil failure, the idea of what I was making, but mostly I wound the band I happened to have around the ball in the drawer.

In my basement nook is the tote of comics and Mickey Mouse books. Without digging into it for the Make-It Book I remember most every page, especially the rubber band ball project. In the white space I should write that these things take time, patience, and the art of forgetting, letting go. My grandchildren would do well to learn that, but maybe such things can't come straight out of a book.