Storytelling

It’s true what they say; God really is in the details

For a long time, years maybe, I regarded Jim as everybody else does. As the law. Someone with the potential to slow you down.

He’s managed the Transfer Station out here on the island of Georgetown, Maine, for more than 15 years. If it’s Wednesday, Saturday or Sunday the place is open, which means you must leave the bay on a dump run, and since the bay is beautiful, always, you hate to leave it even for a moment, so when you do, you bundle all the errands together and get after it. Summer days are precious commodities in Maine, for the seasons here are short, and clearly marked. You wouldn’t want to waste a single one.

On such days you thank god for giving you the old-blue-Chevy-all-wheel-drive-pick-up truck-with-the-rhino-liner-and-the-rolltop-and-the-extended-cab-and-bed. Three-time winner of “Best Float” in the island July 4 parade. Man has never been this fast this quietly in all of history. You can reach a fair old lick on a horse but all you can hear is the damn thing snorting and panicking and thudding. In the Chevy, there’s none of that. The Chevy is a world of silent G-forces and a curious sensation in the seat of your pants. This promotes what I call the Vietnamese system of driving. It’s called “anything goes” and the rules are simple: if you do something that doesn’t…