More Times Than Not...a day in the country

More Times Than Not

When I get the chance, I like to spend a little time working on my old tractor. It's always therapeutic in someways. More times than not, I have to tinker with it a bit to get it to run. Always a little adjustment needs to be made to wake her up to the fact there is a job to be found.

Well this morning, just as I thought, more times than not a wrench must be found. Now you must know, I am not much of the tinkering kind, but when I do, I usually call my Uncle Rufus to offer a little of his advice. My Uncle Rufus is not real handy with a wrench either, but he has a few skills up from mine so he qualifies as a consultant, and besides, he is one of my favorite Uncles. I don't really call him for his advice, I just like to listen to his b.s. stories and get his opinion on LSU football or baseball, as it was this morning . "I would have never taken the first baseman out,” he says, as he hands me a part and points there. I agreed. Who am I to question Uncle Rufus?

The real reason I always need Uncle Rufus, is the fact that he has the phone number to call J.D....I call him, J.D. The Philosopher, because...he just is. Can fix anything with his hands, especially my old tractor, more times than not. He told me once ”He could have been an astronaut, but who the hell wants to ride a rocket?”

Because J.D. is so good at fixing stuff he stays busy fixing stuff, especially the relatives broken stuff. He lives on his portion of the homestead, raises a garden, drinks a little beer, welds, collects all kinds of shit, but just mostly fixes other people's shit. He has no Fix Shit sign hanging buy his mailbox for others to see...says, “I don't like to deal with the general public.”

J.D. is the kind that studies a problem before he applies his magic. More times than not he will take his welders chalk and draw a few things on a piece of scrap iron, then takes something apart just to see what's in it and of course the thrill of putting it together again. “There, that ought to work,” he says. Sure enough, it did. 

Last evening, about dark, I was visiting with J.D.  We were sitting on his front porch discussing the small challenges in life. He asked me how many bushels of peas would be a good swap for ten pounds of catfish. Seems there was a barter offer from his friend TK. Apparently TK was in the mood for some purple hulled peas and quiet obvious J.D. was hankering fish. I told him I didn't know the relative worth of either one, but guess it depended on how bad he could taste those fish. Said he would have to think about it as he lit the smudge pot and cursed the frogs making racket in the fish pond.

J.D. is the Salt of the Earth, the Philosophers Stone, a true friend and more times than not has to fix my shit…my day in the country…:)