Bygones..........

I hoofed it down to the theater tonight to watch the 3rd installment of "Pirates of the Caribbean"...........I loved it. I've enjoyed all of them actually, though I know those that didn't think too much of one or the other or both of them. I think the secret is to not view them too critically.........and to be old enough to have been impressed with Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disneyland. I was eighteen when I first saw it.....but I was tripping my tits off so I suppose you could say that I entered into it with a rather child-like perspective.
After the movie I wended my way back home from bar to bar.......
a beer at Marge's, a beer and a shot at Crazy Charlies and a beer at River City.
I cut through the cemetary (as is my usual habit)........cemetaries are peaceful places at night, I don't find them at all creepy or scary. It will probably happen that I will wind up spending a long time in one some day so I figure I might as well get used to it, ya reckon?
When I first hired out on the railroad, there were those of the soon-to-be-retired "old heads" that treated the young guys with a degree of decency in spite of our long hair, wild ways and total lack of conventional regard for our elders. I liked those guys....they took the time to pass along the things they knew and I'm certain that my body and perhaps my life was spared grievous harm on more than one occasion as a result of their patience and guidance. I cherish the memory of those men........most of whom have since passed away.
On the other hand, there were those who figured that,since they had been severly fucked with by the old heads when they were new to the job, now that they were in a position of petty authority it was only fair that they pass along to us the torture that they had suffered in their youth. I didn't begrudge them, this being a common enough trait of humans everywhere in every time...railroading was and is a demanding and dangerous job. Perhaps it was right to bring pressure to bear on the newhire so as to weed out quickly those who truly couldn't cut it. My response to this was simply to steer clear of these piss-ant despots as much as possible.
However, there were two men who were just plain mean to me. they went out of their way to make my life miserable and looked for opportunities to subject me to company discipline.......they tried to get me fired. This I couldn't overlook..............the welfare of my family depended on that job and these men threatened that. They had no cause beside that of just not liking me. In short they were assholes.
I hated them...seriously. When they died I had as regret only that they hadn't suffered longer and that I wasn't there to witness it.
Tonight as I made my way through the cemetary, I happened to spot one of those men's graves. I stopped for a while looking down at the stone and the mound, reflecting on the visceral hatred I had once borne this man and I realized that time had taken much of the fire out of my feelings for him. I couldn't seem to summon hatred for him any more.
Now, this doesn't mean that I had forgiven him, or forgotten his offenses ....but I had certainly mellowed.
In fact, I decided as I stood there that I could even be generous...............
So I shared a couple of beers with him.

I wonder where the other fucker is buried.

Thus endeth the entry...............