Windshield time...

Pondering at will... more adventures of my mind going down the road...

During the wee hours of the morning while driving down the dark roads, a person has time to ponder things and it does something to your mind. Sometimes I get into a thought that won't let go. It's thinking time. We in the industry call it, 'windshield time'. It's a form of concentration and it cannot be reproduced later. It's deep.

I caught the conversation of two other drivers one night and it got me to thinking. The one driver was recounting the night before, a situation with his mother I believe. She must have had medical problems and he was trying to deal with them and her. The other driver listened and responded, in almost a fixed rhythm, 10-4. 10-4 is the equivalent of saying yep, uh huh, or whatever works, a reply to someone's comments. 10-4 stuck in my head and between 10-4's, a series of thoughts joined in the dance for the attention of my brain. The thoughts speared little jabs of memories and coughed them up into my conscious, somewhat daydreaming reality. Windshield time. They persisted and eventually I could conclude some pertinence in them. It was about how I was raised and how my parents' involvement, or lack of, really influenced me over the years. I must be thankful that I had parents that could be so influential. May they both rest in peace.

Dad died on March 4, 1987 by his own hands and Mom (her grave stone has the epitaph of something like, 'Jim Heafy a good friend' ) of cancer during the winter of 1995...

Thanks to both of them for their love, it taught me much, 10-4...

brain flatulence...