The Road to Our Place

"We serve hod Licka to hod men who wanna get drunk fast."

That's Sheldon Leonard as the bartender in "It's a Wonderful Life." It popped into my head this morning because my son Todd does a fabulous impression of Sheldon using that very line. I can hear him in my head. Today is Todd's Birthday. Happy birthday buddy. Stay away from the "hod licka."

We hitched up the buckboard...buckboard? That's an interesting euphemism for wagon. Must have had some frisky horses back in the day...and went into town for supplies. You know, sack of flour, dried beans, some gingham for curtains and like that. They're building a new road out to our place on top of our old dirt road in small leaps and even smaller bounds. They being the Panamanians in charge of road building and the strange disappearances of road builders. What happens is, as you wander down the mountain, you pass a crew of 20 or 30 guys working diligentemente - one of my favorite Spanish words - creating gutters, grading, spreading gravel and all the stuff that goes into making roads. When you wander back, they're gone. Sometimes for weeks at a time. They also don t seem to be caught up in that silly start here and go to there concept so prevalent in other countries. You can find them working anywhere along the old road at any given time, so that the effect is stretches of smooth road followed by stretches of whoa Nellie pull back on the reins road followed by more smooth and then I know there is a road here somewhere road. Muy interesante. During the strange disappearances of the road builders the rainy season takes its toll and much of the road returns to where it was before any work had been done at all. I'm thinking job security. And I also know what many of you are thinking. It's a third world country what do I expect, but personally I blame Bush. He wants us to buy four wheel drive buckboards because they use more gas. Definetly a right-wing plot. Like suits and televised dart tournaments.

"Wah Wah Wah Where's the money Uncle Billy, you silly old fool." That's Jimmy Stewart in the same movie. My other son, the skin head, does that one. I can hear him too.