Grading The Rebooted Resolutions Machine

"You know what? Go ahead and jump." photo by Joe

Friends! Remember a little over a year ago, when I attempted to Reboot the ol' Resolutions Machine? Yeah, neither did I until a few minutes ago, when I reread it. Feels like half a lifetime (and three-quarters of a democratic republic) ago, doth it not?

It doth, Joe. It SO doth.

Okay, as all four of you dear readers surely know by now, I just adore doing self-evaluations (I don't) - almost as much as I LOVE making New Year's resolutions (I don't. Why do you think it routinely takes me until many weeks past January 1st to make them?). Yeah. So let's make haste, and grade the results of last year's to-do list, and then jot down a few goals for the remaining 318 days of 2025. Shouldn't take long...

First, last year's list:

• Take the Christmas tree down (DONE!)
• Make mac & cheese (DONE!)
• Shovel snow twice (DONE - Oh, I remember, now. This is a bunch of stuff I had either already done when I made this list, or things that are so easy and routine as to not even remotely count as "resolutions." Pet a dog? Come on, man!)

So, I scored like 110% (which at many of our employers means MET EXPECTATIONS). Let's make things a bit more challenging for 2025, shall we? Shush - we shall, and it's not up for debate. Yes, even though I said "shall we," as if putting it up for debate. There will be no debating that we shall. You love it when I do this, as do I.

I resolve to:

• SURVIVE.
• Deposit 145 checks from my Beloved Donors within 24 hours at Beloved Employer (HA!! The year-end flood is only just now subsiding; I've already completed this resolution several times. Not sure what I was trying to pull off, there. Just showing off, I guess.)
• Remember to say "white rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits" upon waking up on the 1st of each month. I'm told that doing so will result in good luck for the entire month, and I'm all about superstitions, yeah?
• 'Spread awarene's's of approaching 's's, by way of overu'se of apo'strophe's.
• Use, fewer, commas,
• Get to the National Zoo to visit our new giant pandas. Given the new regime's onslaught of massive, cruel, ill-informed and blundering destruction, I'd better hurry.

Baby Tai Shan in early 2006. photo by Joe

• Memorize John Mulaney's "Horse Loose In A Hospital" routine, update it a little for 2025, and randomly recite it as my own, at work and with family and friends - almost none of whom will know it's stolen. (oh, I'm kind of excited about this one!)
• Purchase all of Kendrick Lamar's music catalogue. If fragile white male racists hate him, he must be good people.
• Get someone to spontaneously play THIS GAME with me.
• Not rest until the Potomac River is officially renamed the Max Headroom Crayfish And Minnows Express Waterway And Food Court, Sponsored By Nordstrom Rack.
• Be someone's lava lamp.
• Learn a dead language. Deader than Latin. Deader than Disco! Then, I'll hold lively conversations with myself on the Red Line, so no one wants to sit next to me (no one wants to sit next to me now, but a little insurance couldn't hurt
• Be doomed. (HAHAHAHAHA - done!)
• Two words.
• Seriously, something's gotta be done (attempted) to get one or two of my little novels to see the light of day. I keep telling them that the light of day is totally where it's at, but they are shy.
• SURVIVE.
• Atone for my race and gender. This might take a minute.
• See Simple Minds, Soft Cell, and Modern English in concert, preferably on the same night.
• Finally read all the "Harry Potter" books. Don't judge me!
• Watch cartoons.
• Repeat.

Let's stop there. You guys are TROOPERs, but we all know I'm not going to do half of that stuff, let alone any real resolutions like find my Ebn-Ozn t-shirt (ha), drink more water (as if), be more positive (barf), read more, write more, reach my target weight, blah blah blah...

But I can dream, can't I? Of course I can. It's basically all I do.

See, What Happened Was (A toast to '24 - bet it's shorter than last year's)

 

Good riddance, '24 (and yet - we'll miss you)

Here we go again. It's time to toast the passing of another year. If you're unfamiliar with how this goes, see the 2023 and 2017 and 2013 versions. Not sure why I must always wait until the New Year is just a couple hours away, but it is what it is. Hey - maybe the limited time will motivate me to be brief! We can only hope.

Here's to January, another blur of year-end gift processing heroics by yours truly, conducted in the quiet offices of Beloved Employer, in the fashionable West End of Washington, DC. It was exceptionally cold. Then it was SEVENTY, and all the Metro platforms turned to weirdly-slippery death traps, for a couple of days. You should have seen DC's subway commuters, shuffling along like Tim Conway's old man persona in a desperate attempt to remain upright. It was less fun than it sounds.

Cheers, 70-degree January evening!

There was some cooking, as well. Here, because I thought they looked pretty...

Korean veggie lettuce cups. Pretty, non?

Here's to February. Cheers. Yay, February.

My tree! Look what you've done to my tree!!

Here's a sad fact. February 19th was the last time I posted to my poor neglected bloggy space. At least it was a HOBO STORY.

No cheers for March. I lost a water heater and another of my beloved uncles. Yeah, we had the Madness, but it was a bit meh. Better luck next March...

Big cheers to April, though! [Maris] and I trekked to Lake Erie, where we photographed lighthouses for the first time in 13 years - and covered bridges after an even longer drought. We also hung out with family from all over, and oh yeah - there was a total solar eclipse...

I'm ready!

No photos will ever do justice to the experience of witnessing this with one's own eyeballs, but here's what the old Nikon saw...

See ya in a few, sun...

[gasp]

I'll have a corona, thanks.

See? It's all downhill from there. Trust me - it is. Cheers to May for baseball, a nephew's hope-filled high school graduation, and a teeny turtle...

Let's lose to the O's in 12!

What the hell, man? Put me down!

I don't remember anything about June, except that we had a little outbreak of weak Maryland and Virginia tornadoes, and they were too close for comfort. So, no toast for you, June.

Mostly cheers for July. The Olympics were fun. Helping a relative move for the third time in five years was not. Biden dropping out of the election put a bit of a charge into a lot of people. DC was kind of abuzz, really. Otherwise - hazy, hot, and humid.

Cheers, August. You too were hazy, hot, and humid. 

"It's too freakin' hot - even on the white part of the car."

September. meh. Thanks to [Maris]'s employer, we got to experience ballpark amenities to which we're hardly accustomed - and a great view of our scrappy young rebooting Nats...

...and keep 'em comin'

Still not really baseball, to me, but fun!

Predictably (unless you don't know me - hi, I'm Joe!), I can almost always raise a glass to October, because OBX gluttony and sloth vacations are the BEST...

First, fancy drinks. Food not pictured.

Don't wake me for sunrises that don't look like this.

I fell asleep again. What day is it?

Visible aurora in Kill Devil Hills, NC. WHAT??

Mostly, November can just go eff off and die. It knows what it did. Even if I was utterly ignorant of politics and democracy and autocracy and oligarchs and all that stuff - to feel the energy in DC on the 5th, versus every day since is just criminal. We'll see how it all unfolds. As Yoda said, "Always in motion is the future." *sigh*

Finally, let's give December her due. Here's to you, final month of 2024. We got all kinds of busy with trees in convertibles (they know me at the fire station, now), and we took [Maris]'s gnomes to work, and we rocked out with our old friends the Trans-Siberian Orchestra...

Sometimes it's unseasonably warm for this. Not so, today.

First Class, all the way...

"Morale here must be through the roof!"

"Get some big donations - we wanna ring the bells!"

Trying to match Chris' energy...

A lot like the eclipse, it's hard to adequately photograph.

((devil horns for these two on the cranes))

That's all, folks. Raise a glass to 2024. Whether you're saying "good riddance," or "OMG you're gonna look like paradise, a few weeks from now," cheers to you, and you, and you - wherever you are. Enjoy yourself - it's later than you think.

And I'll leave you with these gentle reminders...

(probably)

"We're ready. Keep your hats pointy, everyone!"

Good Night, and Happy New Year!

Jimmy "New Man" Neandertal And Hugo Stares Are Not On The Same Page

 

"I have a message from the universe, but never mind." Photo by Joe

On a warm late-September afternoon in 1939, 30-year old Jimmy "New Man" Neandertal - so named because of his penchant for reinventing himself - was following the Southern Railway mainline north out of Charlottesville, Virginia, deep in thought. He was formulating the next incarnation of his persona, and felt that he was getting close.

"I feel that I am getting close," he said over his shoulder, in the direction of his traveling companion, a fellow hobo five years his senior, by the name of Hugo Stares. "Wanna hear what I've come up with? Hugo?" He turned to find the space previously occupied by Hugo now fully empty, save for a few gnats and a nosey dragonfly. Hugo had stopped about thirty feet back, and was now standing between the rails of a switch that led to a long siding. He was staring into a dogwood tree, hands on hips. Jimmy rolled his eyes and backtracked his way to where Hugo was standing with his gaze fixed somewhat accusingly on a sparrow sitting in the dogwood.

"Whaddaya suppose this guy's problem is?" Hugo growled, not interrupting his stare-down with the bird, who seemed puzzled, but undeterred from his chirping. "What the hell you want, ya dumb bird? What you think he wants, Jimmy?"

Jimmy looked at the sparrow, and the bird gave him a look in return, one that said, If I could shrug, sir, I most assuredly would. "I would be apt to wager that your diminutive avian acquaintance desires only what any sparrow would have - a meal, a song, a mate, and a nest - not necessarily in that order."

"Well I don't like him."

"Peep!" said the bird, as he made a tiny hop to the left and bent forward slightly, possibly in preparation for departure.

"My friend, it would behoove you to stand clear of that switch," Jimmy suggested, "lest you wish to find yourself here and there, a victim of the oft-overdue local freight, on its way to utilize this very siding at any moment."

Hugo finally turned his attention from the bird to his hobo companion. The sparrow decided that this was as good a time as any to depart, and departed - vanished really. "I see the switch, Jimmy - wait. Why you talkin' like that? That sounds familiar..." He thought for half a beat. "Say - are you quoting Foreign Tomas, The Strangetalker?"

"Um, yes - I guess so. More or less. That's what I was trying to tell you when I discovered that you had been waylaid by that malevolent presence, perched as it was so menacingly in a dogwood tree that you were left with no choice other than to engage it in an inter-species verbal tussle with nary a point in mind..." 

Hugo was staring at his friend, now. "What's wrong with you?"

Jimmy shrugged. "Nothing. I'm just tired of expressing myself, you know, not good. So, while my aim is not to imitate Foreign Tomas, or to be the next Foreign Tomas, I do indeed aspire to a more refined manner of verbal expression."

"Oh, I get it. You fixin' to become a new man again, mister New Man Neandertal? Again?"

"I am. It's what I do."

"Your pop was a two-star general in the Great War, and you guys was set to ride out the Depression just fine, but you took off, because you liked trains..."

"True enough," Jimmy agreed.

"And you decided to live up to your family name of Neandertal - never did understand how that could really be your actual honest to god name, by the way - and you spent your first five years as a 'bo using nothin' but grunts to communicate."

"Right. Admittedly not my most savvy move..."

"Yeah - you suffered more ass-whoopings than a delinquent in a nunnery - and that was mostly before I met you. Then, you assumed that tough, hunky Johnstown steel mill foreman persona. I gotta admit, you got the accent down pat, but you were not believable as a tough boss man type."

"Not my proudest few years," Jimmy sighed. "But I made it through, and you must admit, these last couple of years of being super-laid-back South Florida hobo Jim have worked okay for me."

"Eh... So-so, buddy. Everyone just thinks you're slow or something. And yeah - on the one hand, that takes the pressure off of me tryin' not to be the dumb one, but on the other hand, I kinda like bein' the dumb one, man! Fellas would ask me how I manage, takin' care of myself and my slow friend, and I had to just shrug like an idiot, and they'd walk away goin' 'well, birds of a feather and all that...' I hated it."

Jimmy put his hand on Hugo's shoulder. "I'm sorry, friend. I've been trying to put a stop to that dynamic for some time now. I only just came up with this 'talk like a smart and/or weird guy' persona. I memorized a lot of Foreign Tomas' sayings, and I think I can extrapolate from there. I think I can talk better. More interesting, you know?"

Hugo had found a wooly bear caterpillar making its way north on the polished steel of the outer rail of the Southern main, and he stopped to stare it down. "I dunno, Jimmy. Sounds like you might be headed for a whole bunch more ass whoopin's. Now, whaddaya suppose this little monster's beef is? What's your problem, fella?"

"Well, I intend to try it on for size, my old friend. I shall eat time and convert it to life, watching seconds become inklings, minutes begetting thoughts, and so forth... You're not even listening to me, are you?"

Hugo was not listening. Hugo was gearing up for a decidedly one-sided altercation with an insect.

"Good talk, Hugo. Good talk."

Rebooting The Resolutions Machine

Higher Resolution - Photo by Joe

I am frequently asked by no one why I don't make my NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS until late January (if I make them at all). I never answer, but if I ever do, I'll probably say it's because I've never made a New Years Resolution to make my New Years Resolutions earlier. I resolve not to make such a resolution anytime soon.

I know how boring New Years Resolutions can be - especially someone else's resolutions. With that in mind, let's hit ctrl-atl-del on the ol' drivel generator, and see if that helps...

[ctrl-alt-del]

For starters, no more of this:

• This year, I will publish one of my twelve little novels. BOOOOO... We'll believe that when we see it!
• I will finally locate my Ebn-Ozn t-shirt. BOOOOO... We know you've never had an Ebn-Ozn t-shirt - probably because it's a safe bet that such a shirt has never existed.
• I will be more positive. Oh, please don't.
• I'll drink more water, reach my target weight, write a blog post every week, read a dozen books, blah blah blah... We're bored!

I resolve to say this whenever I leave a room...

Okay, cheese bags. That was just a few examples of what I'm NOT going to do. Onward! I hereby resolve that in 2024 I will:

• Take the Christmas tree down
• Make mac & cheese
• Shovel snow twice
• Pet a dog
• Deposit 130 checks within 24 hours at work
• Get home from work at 8:30pm or later
• Increase my 401-K contribution
• Not eat any charging cables
• Use, fewer, commas,
• Be courteous, kind, and forgiving
• Be gentle and peaceful each day
• Be warm and human and grateful
• And have a good thing to say
• Have a martini
• Incorporate one verse of Steve Martin's "Grandmother Song" into a blog post
• Turn the oven on
• Shout words of advise and encouragement at [Maris] as she completes this year's tax returns - earlier than ever!
• Be doomed
• Watch cartoons
• Repeat

HA!! Guess what? All done! I have achieved a 100% success rate on the above rebooted resolutions. 

Damn, I'm good.

Stay fresh, cheese bags...

 

See, What Happened Was... (A Toast, Probably A Short One)

Here's to you, 2023. You could have been worse.

I've done this sort of post several times before, so I guess it's a tradition, at this point. My favorites were 2013's See, What Happened Was... (which includes the origin story of that goofy title, and 2017... It's Not Me - It's You, one of my many breakup conversations with the inanimate. We have just under three hours of 2023 left, so let's be brief. 

Here's to January, which is mostly a blur of overtime and end-of-year gift processing for Beloved Employer, aided by my trusty endangered black-footed helperferrets...

"Is this really only one day's worth??"

Here's to February, the first half of which [Maris] and I spent with COVID. Yeah, I know. We were at least two years late. All the cool kids had caught it ages ago. What can I say? We've both spent our lives being unfashionably late for every fad or trend, ever. Why would COVID be any different? Our cases were relatively mild, which was still BLEAH, but made us grateful for all those shots.

February was also the month in which we learned that not only had Beloved Employer sold our dingy-but-cherished HQ building (5ish minutes from home), but they had also changed course and would not be finding another suburban space for us in-office personnel. We would be asked to commute to the fashionable but 75- to 90-minutes away "West End" of DC, where we maintain another mostly-empty office. I'm not exactly "cheers-ing" that... yet.

Here's to March, with its requisite Madness, made all the madder by the rapid preparation for leaving our HQ. If you've ever moved out of an apartment or house, you're no doubt familiar with being fully overwhelmed at seeing how much STUFF has accumulated and needs to be packed or thrown away/given away etc.. Yeah - try that with an office building that once held several hundred employees who apparently never got rid of anything over the past 35 years. So that was fun - and it was just beginning.

Wait - you know what? No cheers for March, either! I forgot Mom dislocated her shoulder for maybe the 30th time, and sat in an E.R. waiting room hellscape for about 13 hours. I was literally searching for an open walk-in clinic when they finally called her name. Next time, we're just going to slam her into a door frame, a la Mel Gibson's character in "Lethal Weapon."

Hmm... Cheers withheld for April, too. I grudgingly started shedding cubicle stuff in preparation for a downsized and not nearby cube in DC. Started taking wistful pictures of the old, rapidly-emptying office...

See? Sad.

Here's to May, because I feel bad not clinking glasses with one month after another. I worked my last day in the office right down the street...

Bye, cow painted by famous guy whose name escapes me...

...and worked my first day at the beautiful but distant DC office. To be fair, I love it there. There are some fabulous colleagues who, like me, actually come in to the office quite a bit, so that's been fun. The commute isn't even really that bad (when the weather is good and Metro's not broken). It just takes so LONG to get there. I marvel at you people with two-hour commutes for years and decades on end. Here's to you!

We're *DC* black-footed ferrets, now!

Here's to June! Nothing happened! Worked on my commuting skills, did some cooking and grilling and got a teensy idea for a possible twelfth novel, and a friend said, "do it," and [Maris] said "see you in August..."

Here's to July, during which I managed to crank out over 56,000 words, several of which might actually go together in ways that make sense. I don't know. I haven't reread it, yet - or finished it. I just kind of kept going. I can do that. It's a gift.

Here's to August! Nothing happened! It was hot, or something. Probably humid, too. Kept writing. Got a little bogged-down, but stayed in the fight...

Cheers, September. I'm sure you were a nice month. I appreciated learning of my promotion, which came a mere eleven months after I took on all that important, time-sensitive work. And the continuing wordiness that had my little novel #12 at over 80,000 words by month's end. Also, I was pretty much finished decorating for Halloween by then...

"Help!"

Here's to October, because vacation. 'Nuff said...

That'll do, OBX. That'll do.

Hi bird! Could you just scootch a bit to the right?

Here's to you, November, when I inexplicably decided to have another go at "National Blog Posting Month," and write a new post every day (which here means night) for the entire month. Actually, it's pretty explicable - it's because I am some sort of masochist. I did it, though! And one of those 30 bits of drivel was MY 300th POST!

Is that a lot? Also, do you dig our hats?

Also in November, we found The Last Spider. You can read about it in one of the "Thankfulness" posts from that month...

Hi. I'm not even hiding, dude. Sheesh.

Here's to December, still echoing in my exhausted ears. There was the Trans-Siberian Orchestra...

((Christmas Devil Horns))

There were [Maris]'s gnomes, and their 12 days of shenanigans...

They had a lot of help, this year. Merry Christmas, fellas.

There were downs, there were ups. Sadly, there was NOT peace on earth (not enough, anyway). But in my tiny sliver of the planet, the month ended strong.

So let's raise a glass to 2023, and eat, drink, and be merry. Most of us are keenly aware of what kind of show 2024 promises to be. I'll regret saying this, but tonight I say BRING IT. The good people of this country and others will find our way through this. We shall breathe in, breathe out, and stay in the fight - together.

Cheers...

Mad Max And The Goose And Not The Goose: A Christmas Story Sort Of

With snow and everything! Photo by [Maris]

Mad Max was in no mood. His feet were soaked and nearly frozen. Much of the rest of him was likewise damp and/or painfully cold. His sidekicks were fussing and bickering, which was not helping matters at all. "I am in no mood, you two!" he spat. "I gotta find us some shelter from this freezing rain - I'd settle for an awning, about now. I can't handle another Christmas like this. I wish I'd taken your advice and headed south a couple of months ago, The Goose."

The Goose growled out a low sequence of throaty sounds that could be approximately translated to, "Told you so." Under his breath, he added, "I'm just happy to be waterproof, tonight."

Maxwell Small hadn't always been mad. In fact, he wasn't at all fond of the "Mad Max" moniker his hobo brethren had bestowed upon him in the early 1930s - mostly because he didn't see himself as even remotely crazy (or angry, if we're going to split hairs). He'd had a normal childhood in Bedford, Indiana. He graduated high school and started work as an apprentice mechanic, repairing everything from Model A's to the newest farm equipment. He buried both his parents (double-fatal yo-yo trick accident), joined hobo nation, acquired a clingy Canadian goose, and later a German shepherd-golden retriever-half-albino Labrador mutt who thought she was a goose, and like it or not he became Mad Max.

The Goose and the dog, who came to be called Not The Goose, were best friends from the moment they met. It was often hard to tell whether The Goose thought he was a dog - or Not The Goose thought she was a goose - or both. They chased each other. They mimicked each other's speech patterns and dialects. They slept together, curled up like a pair of kittens. They stole each other's food and fought and made up and vied for Max's affection. But one of them... was a goose.

Most of the time, this fact was not a problem. It was cute. "Oh, look at that crazy hobo," they would say, "with his odd-looking dog, and his goose that thinks he's a dog. So cute." But Halloween would come, and then everything from St. Louis to Atlantic City would turn brown and dead, and just like that it was open season on critters that looked like The Goose. Getting past Thanksgiving in one piece wasn't too hard, but soon after, he'd start hearing the words "Christmas" and "goose" together, and things would take a turn.

"This is ridiculous," Mad Max groused, "We're going south, next year - if we live that long."

"Honk honk, hisssss, honk," said The Goose.

"Aroo rowrowooo," Not The Goose Agreed. And they shared a good long laugh.

The Goose had put on a pound or two since the previous December, so apparently he looked more appetizing than ever. As Mad Max had led his anserine and canine charges east from Dayton to Zanesville to Wheeling to Morgantown, they were harassed by a dozen cleaver-wielding maniacs, bent on turning The Goose into the centerpiece of Christmas dinner. Max and Not The Goose had been extra vigilant since Thanksgiving, and had fought off every threat, but they were exhausted. 

"I love you, The Goose," Mad Max groaned, "but I think if we find a fella with a campsite - or just a proper fire - I might let him have you, just so that I might warm my toes before they die and fall off. I'm sorry."

The Goose laughed it off, as if Max was obviously joking, but he shook his feathers from neck to tail, and hunkered down defensively.

They passed a shed along the B&O main into Cumberland, and found themselves bathed in a warm glow. "Say, strangers," a gravelly voice called after them, "care to share a fire?"

They turned. The Goose hissed reflexively, then relaxed a bit. Not The Goose growled reflexively, then stood tall and let her tail wag - just a little. Mad Max braced himself for another attack on his plump waterfowl, then likewise eased up. "Great day in the morning, guys - it's JACK SKUNK, working his way as far east as he can get before New Year's! Jack, ol' buddy - you're a lifesaver and a saint - a true gentleman. We can't repay your kindness, this cold and rainy Christmas Eve, but we will gladly walk the rest of our days in your debt..."

And the three wet, frozen travelers huddled around the fire of one of the smelliest hoboes ever known, and were welcomed and warmed and not eaten, and it was good.

Mister Torso, The Legless Wonder Hitches A Ride

 

I failed subject-centering class. Photo by Joe

I think by now it's been well-established that life was hard for America's hoboes. We've probably also touched on the added difficulty of hobo life for minorities and women (I'll check later to confirm that). But to all of the above hoboes, tonight's 'bo says, "Hold my beer..."

Try traveling the country and hopping freight trains whilst having zero legs, and presumably just as many feet. How would that even work? Some sort of wheeled conveyance, and a ton of upper-body strength? A horse? Cyborg legs? For Mister Torso, The Legless Wonder, it was mostly the wheeled thing. 

In late 1940, he lost his job as a side-show attraction in the Cruel Horrible Circus, and became a hobo. He did indeed use a kind of homemade cart to get around. It was a lightweight plywood box with oversized rubber tires. It operated much like a simple wheelchair; he sat on his leg stumps and worked the wheels with his hands. It worked great on smooth, flat surfaces, but for obvious reasons, it was rubbish on railroad tracks and the gravel ballast in which they rested. He could steal rides on trains, but they had to be very slow-moving trains, and it really only worked if he was on a train-adjacent freight or passenger platform, as said train rolled past. Even then, it was incredibly challenging to grab one of the train's iron ladders with one hand, and the cart with the other, and then not die (or drop the cart).

The cart-dropping bit happened, one miserable, rainy night in 1941 - in Gary, Indiana. He rode the train until it stopped in Cleveland, racking his brain for ideas, but apart from "build a new cart," ideas wouldn't come. He was summarily evicted from the train by an unsympathetic yard cop, who recommended that he find a shopping cart and a gondolier's pole, for the getting around. Mister Torso pulled himself through the jagged ballast and out of harm's way, next to the tracks, and felt the weight of his disability. Woe was him. Some hours later, the rain dried up and the sun warmed everything just a bit, and he noticed a big, square silhouette stomping purposefully down the yard lead track toward him. The figure stopped when it was perpendicular to Mister Torso's trackside moping spot.

Atlas Flatshoulders was huge - at least six-foot four and 270lbs. - and he stood for a moment assessing Mister Torso and his situation. "Brother, where you bound?" he said at last.

"Pittsburgh," Mister Torso replied sadly. "Or, that is, I was - until I lost my wheeled cart. I'll never get there, now."

Atlas thought, scratching his big square chin. "Well, brother... How do you feel about heights? You okay sittin' up high?"

"I guess so," Torso speculated.

"I ain't had a traveling companion in I don't know how long," Atlas said. "And I've always wondered what use I'd ever have for these oddly flat shoulders of mine. What say we try an arrangement?"

For the next seven years, the two hoboes were inseparable. Atlas Flatshoulders had a friend, and Mister Torso The Legless Wonder had a ride - and a great view. And a friend.

The End.