Life seems to be all about work.  It starts even before you’ve figured out long division:  “What are you going to do when you grow up?”  Finish your education, get going in the world, and then “Is that next promotion coming anytime soon, or should I look for a new gig?”  Even on Saturdays:  “What’s on your agenda today?”  You might think retirees would be exempt, but they’re not.  I’m not talking about washing clothes or dishes, or that most pointless of tasks, making beds.  I’m talking about taking care of your rig, getting up on ladders and handling noxious chemicals, wielding buffers that to an old guy feel as heavy as a M-60 machine gun once did.  We suffer all this so the old rig can gleam again.

Think of what goes into polishing a silver spoon.  Now think of how much more there’d be to do if some fool had lacquered that spoon, and years later corrosion got under the protective film.  And now, let’s pretend the spoon is 28 feet long and 9 feet high.

At least the weather has been good.  We’ve made real progress.  We’ve figured out how to do secure ladder scaffolding.  We have bought most of the necessary equipment.  Most of the lacquer, or clear plasticoat, has been removed, thanks to son Bret, a/k/a Moose.  He did some tough things, and made them look easy, at least to me and Kat.  Thanks to daughter in law Allison, we have the old, loose Airstream logo off, but its glue, in the words of the late, great George Gobel, “stays on longer than poor relations.”  We’ll try Goof Off on it, hoping it’s the penicillin to cure this odd strain of pneumonia.  This afternoon we will begin to polish.

Our hope, inasmuch as we are only working on the badly deteriorated top and end caps of our ‘Stream, is that we can polish those parts up in another day or two.  We realize that mirror finished tops and upper fronts and backs will contrast with the normally finished sides (not corroded at all).  I know that there is a certain NFL player, formerly an LSU Tiger, who has the same look on his head.  Bret gave us another good tip to deal with our home’s probable strange new look:  find a special bumper sticker.  According to Bret,  “The one you want reads ‘HONEY BADGER DON’T CARE!’ ”.