Sidetracked Charley

Junkyard Sculpture by J. Binford-Bell Cars and relationships break. Mechanics exist to fix your cars and inspire you with hope that it will roll again. Lawyers exist to not fix the marriage but profit from its breakdown. I will always need a car and ergo a mechanic. But if I never get married again I will hopefully not need a lawyer. At some incredibly early age I announced to my mother that I had absolutely no intention of ever getting married or having any children. The latter decision came from the infant science of genetics in my biology class and my exposure to raising pedigreed dogs. The first part of my declared knowledge came from my close observation of people. Most of the married ones I knew just did not seem happy. And Mother, when most unhappy, talked about all she gave up to marry my father. But I was married twice. I think of them as huge mistakes. So was just living together with Bruce after college. Tip: When you move into their house (owned or just rented in t...

At one time I worked in contracts for a major construction firm - at the time one of the five biggest in the nation. Every contractor we hired had to sign a contract that exceeded 100 pages at a minimum. General Conditions (that section which generally says it is our football and our field and we get it our way) ran 64 pages all by itself. The most important think I learned dealing with contracts was that the last piece of paper was the right piece of paper. So every dispute with a contractor required a letter beginning with the per-our-conversation-of epistle. Whatever a contractor claimed we had to counter with our version and within a few days. Our hope was that they would not counter what we claimed. That made us right, because to not refute our last letter made that letter law. I try to follow that bit of wisdom in my personal life. But when you are dealing with issues you are personally involved in it can become a bit more difficult. Still I write letters. All the time I write le...