coming down a mountain

drove down palenville mountain, which is as it sounds as easy as falling off a mountain, though thankfully not one of us did. hopping an insubstantial 'guide' (not 'guard'...) rail and plunging down a gorge in a 44,000 lb bus is not something that anyone wishes to do and still live to tell the tale about, asides from various new jersey drivers who had death wishes apparently... no, driving down is hard, but coming up, by comparison is simple and full of the false bravado that you get when you first go up, think, not so bad and then coming down realising the snorting behemoth underneath you, like riding a clydesdale who thinks nothing of taking a hurdle or two at speed with you clinging to its mane. its power underneath your feet and your only control is the engine brake, the jake brake as you want to stay off the real brake as much as possible and downshift to live the ride of your life as you are twisting some 45 foot section of steel and aluminum glass and plastic like a caterpillar down a road that it doesn't want to twist upon. but like i say, like a veritable amusement park ride everyday.
my dad would have liked to know that we have driven so much in oneonta that he would be proud to know that my driving faculties in and among the town of oneonta from whence he began teacher's college at yon suny and then dropped out when they told him that he would have had to cut his new long locks of dylanesque mayhem. fuck you, he said and then 40 years later, his kid cuts off his goatee to get the job with the bus co. while all along thinking of how much he'd always have that fuck you in the back of his head while tooling through the suny oneonta campus in a 45 foot bus, because his kid is as much the rebel in training that his old man was. a cultured barbarian as my dad was.
slip the surly bonds of earth young men while you have the chance. my advice to my kids will be something like it as i am still learning that cultured lesson in atypical fashion, learning to drive a snorting steed at 33 years of age. age, but with a bit of wisdom thrown in thanks to my dad, enough to at least not let the fuck you part slip from my lips, but be in the back of my head as i am driving. do everything that you think is possible or not possible and see what happens to your youth. it may grow old, it may lose its wrinkles, but it will never not change the debauched gentleman inside.