Working for old Geo. Jungebluthe from the top of his hill looking southward over the Bristlecone Pines subdivision. 900 thousand dollar homes in the german farmhome style arranged out before us in a vast acreage of development. "You see all those wood shingles on those buildings " he cried, "they're all tacked down by regulation to plywood and can't breath or swell. They'll be rotted out in only a few years." There in the cold wind atop the hill, farrowed for hundreads of acres beyond him, the southerly gaze overtook the curvilinear snake paths of the new roads and the replanted lineaments of fir and pine, spruce. There in the distance he proclaimed the white light of Lapham Peak. "Is it white boys?" "yeah its white we told hime" "Sometimes its red" he said.
Old George had worked for the DOT for many years and he now said "can't run this on ethanol, boys, nope not even possible." He was 89. "I was trained by the Jesuits at Marquette in 1935 to thirty seven." He was bespectacled in Hunter Thompson style shooting glasses. An old ski jacket from the seventies clad his shoulders and his trousers were light blue jeans. On he went, then, making his case. He was lifting the last of the twigs into the oil barrel, now roaring with fire from the litter. In his shed, ladders were visible. "unbelieavable" he said, "un-believable." The irises of his eyes flashed a light wheat color in the twilight. " You guys were real ....whats the right word.... 'efficient' , you guys were real efficient." he said, "no one standing around. I like that." He handed me his card, which read,
George j Jungbluth
"when I think of work, I lie down again till the thought passes"
He was a real man of leisure, a true scholar. I took him at his work. The oaks were pruned. He was happy and Greg got paid.
