Still jet lagged, I found myself surreally surrounded by dark, viscous puddles and the disassembled brains of machines. My friend C___ balanced a clove cigarette in the corner of his mouth as he simultaneously grinded the inside of a power head and talked at me simultaneously about a new performance engine idea and the evils of socialism. He is, by both trade and interest, a mechanic. He runs a boat repair shop with his father that bears his family’s surname, which has always been both a point of pride and responsibility for him in the nine or so years since I have known him. In fact, I would say that this particular point of pride is what defines him most as an individual. He spends 15 hours a day on an oil-stained concrete floor surrounded by aluminum walls in meditative examination of boat motors. Is he happy doing it? I’m not sure, but he has already accepted this as his fate and he doesn’t seem too upset about it. He may be attached to the security it provides financially for him, or he might actually like the work. Whatever his motives are for doing what he does, seeing him for the first time in a year made the fact that I was in a town that has defined the way I think and who I am to a significant extent.
I intend to talk more about this friend in a later post, but I would like to use this post as a sort of introduction to a series of posts about North Webster, Indiana—a place that is both magnificent and monotonous, and of utmost importance to my development as a human being. I hope the writings to follow are of more interest than this one is.
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