The Road Not Taken

 Tom was one of the first people I met after I moved to Cheboygan.  We shared a common interest in the three basics: beer, women, and song.  Most of my knowledge about construction jobs comes from him.  His father was a medical doctor who was good friends with the owner of a local large construction company, so Tom definitely knew somebody.  He had been away to college for awhile, but soon decided that he would rather be a carpenter when he grew up.  

Shortly after I started working at the paper mill, Tom offered to set me up as an apprentice carpenter on the big union job where he had been working.  It was the opportunity of a lifetime for me, but I decided to stay at the paper mill because it was a more steady job.  Construction jobs are temporary by nature and, when the job is finished, there is no guarantee that your employer will hire you on his next job.  Even if he does, there is no guarantee where that job will be, you might have to travel and camp out near the jobsite for the duration.  After my army hitch, I was tired of traveling and camping and wanted to stay put for awhile.  There is no way of knowing but, if I had taken Tom's offer, I might have ended up like Arizona Slim.

Slim was a self described hobo who I met in a Cheboygan bar decades later.  At first I didn't believe he was a hobo, so he showed me his membership card.  It seems there is this big hobo association that holds a convention somewhere out west once a year.  I saw Slim on TV a year or two later when he was being interviewed on the news at one of these conventions.  He explained to the reporter, as he had explained to me, the difference between a hobo and a bum.  Briefly summarized, a hobo is a worker who lives on the road traveling from job to job, while a bum just lives on the road and "no way will he  work". Since Slim was about twice my age, I asked him what I had to look forward to when I got really old.  He said, "When you get too old to fuck, and too smart to fight, that's when you've finally got time to do some serious drinking."