Bruce

A Love Letter Postponed

The news always hits me hard. It shouldn’t. We have been married 48 years. I have been through this too many times to be unprepared. It starts out with a favorite meal and then small talk. Somewhere buried in the small talk a little “Oh, by the way” gets dropped in there. This “Oh, by the way” was very succinct. “My Bible study girls are coming over to our house for lunch next Tuesday.” Translation: you will be washing every window in the house, cleaning clean stuff, hanging pictures and doing something massive in the yard. (This time the yard “needed” 150 cubic yards of mulch spread in the planters.) I was being transported emotionally and physically to the gulag of chores.

The reality is I don’t mind physical labor. In fact, I love it. My body just doesn’t recover like it used to last week when I was younger. I am aging faster than dogs these days. The five trips to Home Depot, the jaunts up and down the ladder, the non-stop searching for tools, in combination with a record breaking heat wave, made for a fun weekend. The good news was I probably sweated off 2 or 3 ounces over the three day death march. Now to be fair, my bride did all the really hard stuff. She has the gift of hospitality like no other. She makes Martha Stewart look inhospitable.

The only mishaps were when I managed to literally stir the hornets nest and got stung twice. The ladder has also become an enemy as I age. I now look like one of the Flying Wallenda’s with an inner ear infection every time I get anywhere near the top. Certain death is just one misstep away.

Tuesday was finally here. I got up early to work so I could avoid flipping all the rugs over and vacuuming the underside. I needed to bury myself in my work and to allow the 12 Advil to kick in. I was still in the recovery mode and not all of my pain centers had reported in yet. I knew they would soon. The plan was simple. I would grab my laptop and head out before the ladies arrived. It was a plan that I have executed flawlessly several times in the past. This time was no different. I escaped before I had to be pleasant. Besides, I wanted to hide out somewhere with a good WIFI connection and draft the perfect love letter to my bride.

As I mentioned, we were bearing down on 48 years of marriage. It has actually been an amazing ride. Five kids, seventeen grandkids and two great-grandkids. More laughs than tears and more joy than sorrow. Although, like most, who have lived for a while, life has had its bumps. She was a warrior last year battling breast cancer and I have never been more in love with this woman I met when we were thirteen. Tested love is the best love. She passed all of life’s tests with A’s and I managed to to squeak by with a C-. I wanted to take this alone time and make sure my Patti knew just how special she was and how much she meant to me. Thus, the love letter. God had other plans.

As I rolled into the local Wendy’s I spotted “my” table in the corner. I could write the perfect love letter in peace. All that I needed was 30 minutes of quiet. As I plugged in the laptop, I noticed an older gentleman with a slow, deliberate pace head to the new “Order Here” kiosk. He stared at the kiosk and then turned to me. “Fuck it”, he said in my direction. And then heading to the counter he exclaimed: “I need a real, live person to take my order!” They obliged him and soon he sat down at the table next to me and announced: “$15 an hour minimum wage is what has brought us this automation bullshit. I just wanted an effing baked potato and some chili!” I liked him instantly.

Old guys have a secret language. We can tell what the other old guy is thinking by just knowing what we are thinking. It’s always the same. “Yes, that’s a cute waitress”, we all agree. “Yep, that boy broke his dad’s heart the second he saw that Liberace tattoo!”, our eyes tell each other. My kiosk hating, suspender wearing friend and I connected instantly.

I looked at my computer, and then I looked over at him. I closed the lid on my laptop. “Damn automation”, I said. He nodded. I looked at him closer. The leather suspenders were well worn. They had a custom “holster” for his cell phone. (Which apparently didn’t work all that well based on the condition of his phone.) These weren’t the suspenders of a farmer. Perhaps, a former teacher. The one thing I did know, they were not the suspenders of a former banker like myself. They were too functional. Too interesting. The love letter could wait.

The conversation started simply enough: “Those kiosks are the future, we are the past”, I stated. He nodded in agreement as he heaped the side of chili he had ordered on his potato. “It will all be drive-thru and these damn kiosks soon”, he lamented. “I miss the human interaction even when they screw up my orders 90% of the time.” He was sincere. I asked him his name. “Bruce”, he replied. “Yours?”, he asked. I stood to reach over to shake his hand. He had a firm handshake. Definitely not a banker. Too many honest callouses. We exchanged pleasantries.

He had lived in the area for 40 years. Moved here when it was just a gravel road and one stop sign. Most of the area is now under development. New tract homes replacing family farms and ranches. Southern Idaho is a favorite destination of many fleeing the liberal politics of their home states. We were no different. He was not bitter about the change, just reflective.

The conversation about the current heat wave morphed into something I had not expected. He spoke about how he had just hauled a load to the mid-west. He supplemented his income retirement income and Social Security by hauling freight. He put his hand behind his back and made a grabbing motion. Old guy talk for some guys paying him cash so he could afford to live on what he made. This was his second career. He was a mechanical engineer for Con-Agra and had traveled the world. He was 79 and that was years ago. I was listening intently. He then explained that the truckloads were only to ensure he had an extra $5,000 a month to pay for the memory care facility his wife had to live in down the road. Medicare doesn’t cover that. “If I were on Medicaid, it would be covered!”, he exclaimed with a flavor of bitterness. “It doesn’t seem right, but it is our screwy system and I need to make it work”, he said as a matter of fact.

More small talk about his truck ensued as I was curious what he used to haul his loads. He enjoyed sharing the details of his “rig”. Then I noticed something I had not expected. The express on his face changed. There was an overwhelming emotion tormenting him. “I just got back from Phoenix where I went to bury my brother”, he said softly. “I’m sorry”, I replied not being too certain exactly how to respond. His eyes moist, he said: “The hell of it was I was there to help settle his affairs and get his wife to northern Arizona to live with her son, my nephew.” His body motionless now: “I had her all settled in my truck and we headed out”, he continued. “She fell asleep about an hour into the trip”, he said. “She never woke up”, he whispered.

He then began to clean up and stood to leave. I stood up, shook his hand. He said: “Well, I am off to see my wife. I never know if she will remember who I am but I go every day I am not on the road.” “Good for you!”, I said. “You are a good man. I am honored to meet you!” He held my hand firmly, looked me in the eyes and said: Fucking kiosks!” “Fucking kiosks”, I repeated. We knew what each other meant.

I felt as if I just lived the love letter I had intended to write.