Trucking to Seattle

Sometimes God sends me a gift that I refuse to open. I know he sent me Seattle John to prepare me for my up-in-coming trip up north. I opened the package this week. 
   I first spotted John at the Encinitas Senior Center. Every Tuesday, the Senior Center has billiard tournaments. The men are dressed to kill. Some wear wore special cue gloves and own their own stick. A chalk board keeps score of the round-robin  tournament.  The lost soul sits and watches every move of these billiard gladiators. 
   Each of the fifteen players stroked his stick like his life depended upon it. I began speaking to him about six months ago. Something about him reminded me of me three years ago. He, like me, owned a tooth or two. He needed a hair cut, and his clothes reminded me of an old wrinkled prune. Everything about him spelled homeless. 
  Up until this week, we chatted now and then, but always in the billiard-piano room. I also had card-him to the Encinitas'train station. He lived in Oceanside with his trucking friend. They owned one and almost owned the other. He wore a long back pack and seemed somewhat lonely, just like me. 
  The Encinitas' Senior Center locks up at three thirty so I invited him to go for dinner at Keno's off Highway 101. The old iconic restaurant provides one more for the buck than all others. He placed his back pack inside my trunk and we left. I ordered the fish and chips and he ordered the same. It came to $6.42 with all of the trimmings. 
   So John tell me how you got started in the trucking business. 
   "I was a machinist in Seattle in the sixties and made about twenty two an hour, good money then. Somebody named Gates and another gentleman began made  a computer. I jumped at the chance to buy some of their stock. It shot up to the sky and went up ten times in price. Since I didn't have social security, I thought about getting into the trucking business."
   Since I am soon to go to north  in a week or so, can you tell me why I should relocate to Seattle?
   "It is dirt cheap. You can find an apartment there for less than five hundred dollars. My mobile home I bought from the stock. When hungry, all I have to do is dip my hands in a nearby river and steal the largest and juiciest rainbow trouts." 
   Sorry for the interruption but Wheel Chair Mike sits across from me in the library. . The dust man is speaking to his white snack. No matter where I am, he is always there. He is now speaking, scratching his nose and linking up with a computer. You can find him sitting or pushing his wheel chair. No longer do I see him with his dog. His gal sits and watches his every move. He owns a deep growling voice. tobacco and dead sweat add a few pounds on him. 

   Well I know it rains a lot in Seattle. What do you do most of the time?
    "The city owns more book stores than any other. You'll find the people more sophisticated. No Mexicans live here and we have an abundance of people from India and Canadians who come across every day.   They are taking up most of the computer jobs and buying the choicest of homes. The Gates library is second to none. It has several floors and endless computers." 
    Tell me more about your trucks. 
    "They are stationed in Houston. I pay about four hundred a month for insurance. The trucking company makes sure the drivers are reputable and care for my two trucks. Mine skip the truck stops since they carry a special sensor that tells the officials the weight of my cargo. It also tells them if my trucks are being maintained."
    "I hire the drivers and the cargo but my partner monitors the drivers. Our two trucks are hauling loads into Florida this month. Our business is all cash. Once I carried twenty two thousand on me." 
    Tell me more about your mobile home. 
   "It is on four acres and has lots of trees. I cut off a few limbs every year for fire wood. It is about twenty miles from downtown Seattle. By the way, our transportation is great. do you know we have a one dollar bus that takes you to Portland."
    "Well John, it is getting close to five. Let's go so we can catch our train...no, I don't want your potato." At the commuter station he goes south to Oceanside on the Coaster. My 5:20 is packaged with San Diego fans. They play the Dodgers tonight.  

 Nuts and Bolts from San Diego:  Will listen to Mozart tonight at the Broadway Balboa theater. Will leave the library at 12:00 to get to Little Italy's largest Farmer's market ii San Diego...Oh yes, the Padres came back to win in the ninth with some timely hitting.