today was (probably) my last day of work for the summer. I worked no less than 851 hours in these 11 weeks. I've been tiredly looking forward to this day for a while now, but now, (made apparent by my posting this) I'm afraid I'll have nothing to do. Since I spent nearly half of my existence the last three months obeying orders as a laborer, it seems a little overwhelming to be my own master again.

some of the highlights from work this summer

1. the 1/4 in. plate steel car battery sized ash tray in the break room at the industrial powder coating factory that had written on the side of it, "PAIN PAIN PAIN"
2. the sign in front of joe and ed's drive through junk food store that reads,
"UNITED WE STAND
COFFEE & CAPPUCCINO"
3. coffee by the quart, cigs by the carton, chilled espresso shots, energy drinks, power bars...
4. The guy in the industrial powder coating break room that said, "I've worked in this hell hole through 3 marriages, raising 6 kids, paid child support for 17 years now, but you know what, now I can do what I want, get drunk when I wanna, get laid when I wanna, and I ain't got no bitch to rag on me 24/7, it's f---ing great man, I'll tell you what, there ain't no such thing as love, 'love is a trick of nature' to get us stupid f---ers to reproduce, there ain't no such thing man, I'll tell you, when she says, "I loooove you" she's really bangin' some other dude, there ain't no such thing, I'm serious, I kin tell you don't believe me, but you should, I wish someone 'ud've told me when I was young, it's not though, I'll tell you that, when...if one of my kids tells me "dad, I love you" I believes that, but some whore, nuhuh. . . . caught 7 catfish last night, man, it was awesome, couldn't get f---ed up though, cuz I had to come here in the morning."
5. The windshield banner on the mexican's car at the produce farm that read, "Don't hate master...well um, yeah
6. seeing nine rainbows (two double), saying, "that's the most beautiful sunset I ever saw" to myself at least a dozen times, and meaning it; seeing the sun rise and set. every. single. day.
7. winding up the chords
8. swinging a sledgehammer, full swing, as hard as I can, completely soaked with sweat,with no shirt on, in a four foot trench, 92degrees and sunny, for 45 minutes straight, it was awesome, that was yesterday
9. getting up at 4:30 to pour concrete, two days in a row
10. putting bales in the barn, 8:00 pm, looks like rain, so we pow wow-ed and stomped out an improvised but effective farmboy's imitation of a rain dance.
11. Get 'er done
12. Do it right
13. running a New Holland Bale Wagon while a coyote nonchalantly trotted along about twenty feet away waiting for me to kick up a rabbit
15. smoking cigars with grandpa
16. wearing a pony tail and bandana every single day
18. thinking of nothing but the task at hand (really, nothing at all, it's nice)
19. I don't know if it had something to do with the current political climate or Dr. Reist, but I started flashing the peace sign instead of the normal blue collar two-fingers-lifted-off-the-steering-wheel-wave (and, even better yet, with persistence and a strange sense of humor, I kept it up, and by the middle of this month I started to notice it cacthing on, all the kids that I work with always wave to me with the peace sign, but even old farmers and people that didn't know me, only the place I worked for, even though they were probably just trying to humor the hippi looking kid, well, it worked
20. laying in the shade, content, letting the sweat dry