“The flat gravel lot, an unassuming building. You don’t always know where they’ll reside, keeping a low profile, working longer days than most. Gathered around them, a motley circle of loyal friends, customers, hangers-on and the envious. All in a day’s work when your craftsmanship speaks for itself. Out here, the Dog River runs behind the cornfields, covered with kicked up dust, drenched in drought. On its backside, the road features trailers, old homesteads, farmsteads and horse pastures a mere ghost of what they were. A perfect hiding place for industry and those willing to scramble under and look up into a car chassis, grasping tools & moving mechanisms back into place. To make a living, for sure, but also to make a life. I don’t know how I end up anywhere these days, but I try to look at it this way: kicked out of my life, unable to fix what’s broken, no longer in sync with anyone else’s world, self censoring what I say to dodge rejection & stereo-typing, locked out of any nuclear family: I honor those who have the wisdom to put aside so many things they’d rather be doing; just when I thought I was the one, doing all the giving.”
