It had been awhile. Time had passed, the seasons had changed, I had changed, my situation in life had changed, things at work had changed, but in the face of all these changes one thing, as I was to be quiclky reminded, had not changed. Not one bit, and that was that moving still sucks. I was reminded of how much more enjoyable an icepick to the ear would be than to move. It doesn't matter who you are moving, how close or how far you have to go, it still sucks.

Last November it was my Mom moving across town. No big deal you say except that Mom is a pack rat. She has report cards from my sophomore year in High School(1975), one of my first paycheck stubs from the Railroad(1979), and myriad other odds and ends, this's and that's, knicks and knacks and then there are still all of the essentials, of which she had many. In all that stuff, I couldn't find one. Anywhere, and I looked! Not one single icepick to jamb into my ear to get out of helping!

In December I made the first haul to get my daughter and grandson back here from Vegas. It wasn't bad. The weather was cool and we only filled up the back of my pickup. We would return another time for the rest of her things. That time came in April when I borrowed my Grandson Ryan's enclosed bike trailer and returned to Vegas with Cassie to retrieve the rest of her belongings. I had planned to get most of her stuff the day we left but I had a blowout just east of Barstow. Not a good omen! It was late when we got to Vegas so I dropped Cassie off at her Mom's(where she had her things), got a motel room, dropped the trailer, parked the truck and rested(after some gambling, of course).

It wasn't until I backed the trailer into the the no parking zone at the apartments the next morning that it dawned on me that we would be moving all her stuff from an unpstairs apartment. Oh joy! Cassies Mom(my first wife)is also a pack rat and it took us quite awhile to sift through the third grade writing assignments and dolls with missing limbs to get down to just the stuff she actually wanted. When we got to the dresser it was obvious that the women weren't going to be able to help. Thank God for neighbors with nothing better to do. I slipped the guy a twenty and he was more than happy to give any assistance he could in between swigs of the forty he purchased on receipt of my largess, but still I was tired and sweating like the guilty guy in a line up. I scoured Nannette's bathroom and kitchen toward the end and was unable to find a razor or a knife sharp enough to slit my throat and end the misery of the zig-zag staircase and the burden of the loads traversing it and the knowledge of unloading it all at home after a four hour ride.

This weekend it was my girlfriend moving from Dustin Acres to her new apartment in Bakersfield. I should have broken up with her on Friday and made up with her when she was all moved in! I am always amazed at how much stuff people can end up with. You never really know just how much crap you have until you have to move it and when it's someone elses stuff I am REALLY amazed! I am NOT a pack rat. My view is that if I haven't used it in six months, I don't really need it and it will soon be at Goodwill or the landfill, and I wish more people felt the same way! She has three daughters, who have all the requisite stuff daughters should have. Then there was the stuff they DIDN'T need, and in many cases, probably didn't realize they still even had! What a great opportunity to toss a boatload of stuff! Three full loads of everything that would fit in her car, the back seat of my pickup, the back of my picup and a twenty foot trailer, and then she realized that it wasn't all going to fit in her new place, so we have to haul a load back to her Mom's place for storage. All of this in 90-100 degree heat. I'm getting to old(or maybe just lazy)for this crap! I wonder if there is any rope in her stuff.