A Day in the Half Life of munk

M

munk

Joined
Mar 22, 2002
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Roads are closing again here in MT. My wife is stuck in a friend's trailer 70 miles from here. That means Baby won't have milk tonight. Uh- my child; not me.

He can gnaw on wild animal parts like the rest of us in this house.

But this has been a strange Winter. Cold, yes. Snow? Yes. The old Timers say the weather is like that of their childhood...

I've started Beater truck in the drive. Just to keep him in touch with what it feels like to be warm, in case we need him, not that there's anywhere to go.

A neighbor is driving my son home from the little one room school house. He'll have to walk up the final approach- no one wants to try and risk being stuck in a vehicle.
The same neighbor called me several minutes ago now, to ask how I was and told me of the weather. I called my wife at work and reached her just in time to prevent her leaving. The roads are emergency travel only- but that was a while ago. Who knows now with this wind? Mail truck got stuck on the way to town and had to be bladed out- but the County Blade is long since gone.

My auto mechanic down the street tells me he's located an old Ramcharger that was rear-ended. It's sat for 10 years. We might get the motor running and put it in my own- engine seized last winter.
He told me this in response to the question: "Could you get my wife out if she gets stuck on __________ ____ road?"

He couldn't- his truck lost its transfer case a couple days ago. During the phone call I told me wife the good news the Ramcharger might run again. Very strange timing. She hates that truck. Who can blame her? It's drank down nearly as much of our money sober as I ever did drunk.

I'm sitting here wondering what I'll serve for dinner. Better check the freezer. As long as there's a jar of Peanut Butter in the house, me and the boys are OK.

I'm sitting here wondering what kind of life this is? I haven't done anything. 47 years old, most of you are thinking of retirement. I left gainful employment so long ago I have no real career to reflect back upon, and no rationale for a mid life crisis.

Nothing like the wind to make you wish you were crazy again. (thanks Rob)


munk
 
Retiring at 47? I could only think about that if I were willing to eat cat food for the rest of my life.
 
I hope it is going to be better soon. We have some snow again since yesterday too - but it is nothing compared to your situation. If it was summer I would go out and sleep outside. Had so much work lately that I rarely caught some fresh air - and the government starts to change the circumstances of education in bavaria. They will really mess the thing up. Makes me want to leave the country and teach at a foreign school for some time (Italy, Skandinavia - or if any German schools over there need teachers - Britain or the USA). I will find an opportunity - maybe in a year or two.
Time to get more spontaneous again (or even "crazy" - I do not want to end up as a boring established teacher...).

I will go out running now. (it is 11.30 pm here).
wishing you luck ans strengh in your situation.

Andreas
 
Mmmmmm...wild animal parts and peanut butter. Sounds like the perfect Atkins meal:D

Being stuck in your home because of weather can be a drag, but as long as you are warm and there is food, why not make the best of it? Sounds like a perfect time to curl up next to the woodstove with a good book. It sucks that your wife is stranded 70 miles away in a friend's trailer, but that's better than being stranded 70 miles away in a snowbank. Hang in there, munk; I hope you get some decent weather soon. Snow is fun, but too much can be a real hassle.
--Josh
 
I'm not worried about the snow. The break in routine was startling.

I went to the little store in Beater truck- almost went sideways on the road. Turning to ice now the temps rising.

When I got back there was a message on the phone from my wife. It was the number of the trailer, and she wants me to call and discuss which cell phone service we should have.

Does that make sense to anyone? I guess about as much as me telling her Ramcharger may live again.


munk
 
Each day at work I thought I was good as dead. Then a little God juice, a little humor seeps in. But still, years of mindless robotic toil. Now I have some time to do interesting things. I still wonder if I'm good as dead.


Oh- Raghorn, I don't curl up around books anymore- I have to be available for emergency services with the kids. I just took out a splinter. I did not use a Khukuri.

It has been over ten years since I read a book. ( I think-)


munk
 
The clock keeps ticking and I wonder how many "healthy" years I have left.

Not how long I have to live but how many healthy years I have.

If I knew the answer to that question, I would know exactly what to do. But I don't and no one does.
 
Munk,

Winter can make everyone pissed off and lowdown. Its that time of the year.

My mother lost both parents in the month of Febuary. 20 odd years apart to the same day.

I never met my grandfather. He drove trucks and one day his jack-knifed...every major trucking firm in England sent someone to the funeral. Some measure of the man he was. I never heard a bad word spoke of him.

He died a few months before my mother was married. If he hadnt, I probably would never have been born. The old man was violent in his drink and I dont think my grandfather would have stood for that. Hows that for a catch 22?

Me myself I got the bullet from work the last friday of last month. No big loss, except maybe to the ego. I've bummed around and will sort something else out this week or next. Nothing great, but something to pay the bills.

Its better than last January, when I was homeless, living in a strange city and wondering if I would get a job before I ended up bust. Something did, and my god did I understand humility. I saw the people living on the streets, and knew there but for the grace of god go all of us.

It occurred to very recently me how when I was young I understood the important things in life. Getting out of the house on the sunny days, a treasured pocket knife, (Buck White Knight then the Al Mar Talon Hawk), and an airpistol. Me and a friend would go and buy some candy and soda, take a walk down the woods, then stop off at a favourite spot and shoot the empty cans. It wasnt much, but it was enough.

What price happyness? Non. Non at all. Happyness is in the moments, the fleeting moments that come and then go. It isnt careers or money or fame. It's special moments with special people. A smile from the right person, time with friends, that something special because it cant be bought or auctioned or traded. And never will be.

There's a time for reflection for all of us. Most of us tend to do it when we're down. The quiet moments alone when we think 'where did it all go wrong?' There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you have to stop and smile about the good things as well though.

Munk my friend, take up your pen and write. You may not have taken up a book in 10 years but from what I've read you could write a book I would very much like to read. Do it for yourself first of all though. You might just surprise yourself about what you have done and what you do know. What you have to offer as well.

Winter passes and life goes on. One day we'll meet and share a drop of the finest Caledonian firewater and I'm already looking forward to that.

Until then, I dont mind if I have a drop myself ;) .
 
That's a good point, Semper fi.

What's happened to Bill's Father is what everyone always says is about the number one thing they don't want happening to them. Across ethnicities, sexes, politics, age groups, generations- they all agree. Let me die quick, if not, then don't let me suffer, and finally, don't let me live past the point I don't know who I am.



munk
 
Thanks Bex. It is a time of year. But babies get born in Feburary like other months, so it cant be all bad. I just had one grab my knee and point at his mouth. He grunted. He'd like it very much if I'd stuff some more of the chocolate I opened in there.

I have mixed feelings about that. I love his smile, but in 10 or 15 minutes i have to change a diaper. Too late. I hear him grunting now.



munk
 
As many of you may have noticed I have not seen many winters, I hope to see a few more, but may I just offer my best wishes to anyone on here who has problems. I tend to leave threads like this alone because I am a newbie and possibly the youngest forumite so they are not really my 'domain' so to speak (no internet pun intended) but what Bex said set me thinking. I find that what he says about apreciating things rather applies to my life in phases, what I mean to say is that I tend to really apreciate things and people, but as things become 'normal' and one starts to take them for granted, suddenly something seems to happen, an upheval of some sort. 6 years ago it was the death of my grandfather, 3 years ago further problems, this year another grandfather dies. There is one thing I have learned in my brief time on this mortal coil, that life happens and there is little you can do about it. That is why I try to apreciate things as much as I can, apreciating the little things because without them you can not apreciate the big things fully, apreciate things because people die, times change (I am going through such a transition at the moment, gets very thought provoking) and you never know what is on its way.

Maybe that was slightly out of place in the context of the thread, but it is a (VERY) juniors view on things. If it is OT I apologise and Munk I wish you all the best, in my brief time here I have gained respect for you and other forumites, never before have I found such a collection of 'diamond geezers' on a forum (and there is no higher compliment that can come from anyone in Norf Lahndan, that is North London for those of you who don't speak cockney ;) ) and so I wish you all the best because that is what you deserve.

Cheers guys, Bex, have one for me.

P.S. Semper Fi, your point reminds me of my aformentioned grandfather, very active man, born to a farming family, went down the mines in WW2 as a bevin boy and was always rediculously strong (his idea of taking it easy in his old age was to carry 2 sacks of coal instead of 4 and had been known to unload a truckload of coal on his own with a shovel!). He was one of the finest men I have ever known with a deep apreciation of everything that was good in the world, never heard a word spoken against him. His death was fitting, he walked to a point on a hill overlooking fields around his home and the house in which he brought up 4 kids, sat on the ground and died in a matter of seconds. My point is this, I read the coroners report yesterday morning and it appeared that had he not died then, within the next few months/years he could have had a stroke and been sevearly disabled (as happened to his brother) so the way he went was the 'best' way he could. I only hope I can go the way my grandfathers did.
 
There is a Zen saying that goes, 'live each day as if your hair was on fire'. With an intensity and focus on what is happening in the here and now. It doesnt do any good to thing of the past or the future too much. The here and now is where it is at.

You ever wonder about those people who are diagnosed with terminal illness and then decide to go out and do something remarkable? It is what the Japanese samurai understood when they said a warrior should consider himself already dead. This wasnt said because of a death wish, or because a retainer owed his life to his lord.

It was an understanding that a man who dwells on the future or the past misses out the present. It lifted the burden of worrying about the inevitable. For the warrior, being concerned about anything other than the present was also a sure way to get killed.

For everyone it is a sure way to waste whatever precious time we have left.
 
Originally posted by StmmZaum
As many of you may have noticed I have not seen many winters, I hope to see a few more, but may I just offer my best wishes to anyone on here who has problems. I tend to leave threads like this alone because I am a newbie and possibly the youngest forumite so they are not really my 'domain' so to speak (no internet pun intended) but what Bex said set me thinking. I find that what he says about apreciating things rather applies to my life in phases, what I mean to say is that I tend to really apreciate things and people, but as things become 'normal' and one starts to take them for granted, suddenly something seems to happen, an upheval of some sort. 6 years ago it was the death of my grandfather, 3 years ago further problems, this year another grandfather dies. There is one thing I have learned in my brief time on this mortal coil, that life happens and there is little you can do about it. That is why I try to apreciate things as much as I can, apreciating the little things because without them you can not apreciate the big things fully, apreciate things because people die, times change (I am going through such a transition at the moment, gets very thought provoking) and you never know what is on its way.

Maybe that was slightly out of place in the context of the thread, but it is a (VERY) juniors view on things. If it is OT I apologise and Munk I wish you all the best, in my brief time here I have gained respect for you and other forumites, never before have I found such a collection of 'diamond geezers' on a forum (and there is no higher compliment that can come from anyone in Norf Lahndan, that is North London for those of you who don't speak cockney ;) ) and so I wish you all the best because that is what you deserve.

Cheers guys, Bex, have one for me.

P.S. Semper Fi, your point reminds me of my aformentioned grandfather, very active man, born to a farming family, went down the mines in WW2 as a bevin boy and was always rediculously strong (his idea of taking it easy in his old age was to carry 2 sacks of coal instead of 4 and had been known to unload a truckload of coal on his own with a shovel!). He was one of the finest men I have ever known with a deep apreciation of everything that was good in the world, never heard a word spoken against him. His death was fitting, he walked to a point on a hill overlooking fields around his home and the house in which he brought up 4 kids, sat on the ground and died in a matter of seconds. My point is this, I read the coroners report yesterday morning and it appeared that had he not died then, within the next few months/years he could have had a stroke and been sevearly disabled (as happened to his brother) so the way he went was the 'best' way he could. I only hope I can go the way my grandfathers did.
Click to expand...

You're not doing badly at all. Next time I'm in London you can feel free to buy me a drink ;) .
 
Munk I feel for you.

I was trying to find something prolific and insperational...not in me today.

Been were your at sorta. I dont have kids, so you win by far.

I loved my old '79 RamCharger, and to make it worse...thats the first vehicle I owned, and to date (except for the ones I bought my wives) it was my newest vehicle.
 
Hey, Munk, I'm 47 as well, soon to be 48 next month, and if I can retire 20 years from now I'll be damned lucky. I learned a long time ago not to compare yourself or your perceived accomplishments against others, as you will always seem to come out short to yourself, and to some people in your life you are the best Dad and the most accomplished guy in the world!

It sounds funny coming from me as I am the original "glass is half-empty" guy, but hang in there; it will all get better if you just keep plugging away.

Take care,

Svashtar
 
Originally posted by munk
I'm sitting here wondering what kind of life this is? I haven't done anything. 47 years old, most of you are thinking of retirement. I left gainful employment so long ago I have no real career to reflect back upon, and no rationale for a mid life crisis.
Nothing like the wind to make you wish you were crazy again. (thanks Rob)
munk
Click to expand...

If you are 47 and have had that many years of not having to haul ass out to work I'd count that as a good thing unless it's due to physical or mental infirmaties. Especially if you still gotta place to live and khukuris to play with.;)

I've been working for 20 years driving an hour each way to work and taking care of my farm in my spare(ha ha) time. I'd love to just be able to hang without being on some sort of tight schedule for a while.
 
Bruise said
Retiring at 47? I could only think about that if I were willing to eat cat food for the rest of my life.
Click to expand...

You said that like it was something undesireable...

munk...hang in there...wait till you have grandkids. You get to feed them chocolate and then hand them back to their parents! :D

I also enjoyed the part where I taught them all the wrong body parts. I'd say "Stick out your tongue", and they'd raise their elbow.

Yup...enjoyed those parts...
 
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