olds

When Bruce came up to the shack in Phillips to visit while I was there, he drove his mother's Oldsmobile. I think she was probably nervous about letting him take her car on such a long trip. She made him promise not to drive too fast and to be very careful. I think Bruce was a little bit amused by that, but he seemed to be conscientiously keeping his promise, in fact, a little too conscientiously. We'd be driving down some gravel road at 20 miles per hour and it seemed we were just crawling along. I would get impatient and encourage him to speed up, but he would remind me that it was his mother's car and he'd promised to be careful. I had gotten used to driving the same roads much too fast in Carl's VW Beetle, sliding around on the gravel, seeming to barely stay on the road, but getting to our destination in the shortest amount of time possible.
I suspected Bruce enjoyed my impatience because he could act like there was nothing he could do about it, though we both knew he could if he wanted. It was a small matter. We had a good time visiting the logging museum and seeing the world's largest muskie in Hayward. We stopped in at Back Roads Coffee & Tea and enjoyed a cup of coffee (roasted on the premises). Fred Smith's concrete park in Phillips was a nice diversion, and an opportunity for a few silly photographs. We did a little bit of mycological research and found an Amanita Muscaria or two.
All in all, it was a good visit. Then it was time for him to leave. I helped him get ready to go and stood out in front of the shack as he pulled away. He pulled away fast. Very fast. Dangerously fast. I chuckled as I watched the Oldsmobile speed down the dirt track, bouncing, swerving and slapping the overhanging tree branches.