Tangier Sound

Our CD/DVD printer broke down last week and the replacement didn’t get here until Tuesday. As a result I had a huge backlog of orders to ship out this morning.

I got to the Post Office just before they opened up. I was sitting on the hood of the Dodge watching the seagulls when a little old man with an oxygen tank hanging over his shoulder wandered over and asked me if I could give him a ride.

I asked him if he could wait for me to get this stack of orders in the mail and he said that was fine.

I guess I should have told him how many packages I was sending out.

So I go into the Post Office and the gal behind the counter starts wading through the stack of stuff I have to ship out. There was so many packages that it took a long time. By the time she was halfway through the little old man tapped on my shoulder. He looked a little pale. When I asked him what was wrong he said that his oxygen had run out (deep breath) and that (another deep breath) he needed the ride (another deep breath) to get a fresh bottle.

The gal behind the counter heard this and without saying a word started weighing and stamping my packages faster than I’ve ever seen anybody move in a Post Office. She got my order out in record time. I bundled the old man into the Dodge and dropped the gas pedal to the floor. We tore through town faster than Jake and Elwood Blues tore through Chicago and the old guy loved every minute of it. He hollered out directions with one breath and marveled at how well they built cars in the old days with the next.

I got him home and helped him inside to get a fresh oxygen tank. Once he was back on the lung-fuel he asked me if I had to be anywhere at the moment because he could sure use a ride to the bank.

So it was back into the dodge. I started to head over to the bank within the speed limit, but the old guy kept asking me to gun it. He said he wasn’t in a rush, he just liked going fast.

“Man, this baby can go!”

So we went to the bank, and then we ended up spending the rest of the morning running errands around town. We got groceries, lottery tickets, paid his rent, read the bulletin board at the Laundromat and even hit the Post Office Again. We even went down to the new highfalutin’ condo development and had some fun making the rich folks nervous as we weaved through the parking lot.

Through all of it, we never got around to introducing ourselves to each other until his errands were finished and I dropped him off at home. He thanked me for taking the time to help him out, said that folks around town called him Bones and offered me a few bucks for gas.

I didn’t take his money. I shook his hand, gave him my phone number in case he needed another ride and and headed for home.

I spun the tires on the Dodge as I took off and he waved his cane in the air and cheered.

All in all, it was just another day in Crisfield.