Under the Wire

Being good at something doesn’t necessarily mean you are good at doing it. Yeah, I have been pretty confused by that myself for a lot of years. Nevertheless, I have found evidence of this twisted fact several times in my life.

My first observation of this came at least 20 ago, during my rodeo days. In addition to being a calf roper, an event requiring yourself and a semi-cooperative horse, I also team roped. This event required a partner and I was fortunate to have several very good ones. Good at roping that is. My longest running partner taught auto mechanics at a community college. Turned out hundreds of well-trained students in his long career. On his days off we traveled far and wide, nearly always in my pickup. Had to. His was usually broken down in his garage at home. Now are you starting to understand my point here today?

In more recent years I make an almost daily trip to town to get our mail at the post office. Literally hundreds of times I have passed a large brick building. Never gave it much notice except that it had the worse roof on it of probably any building, commercial or private, in town. At least a quarter of the asphalt shingles designed to cover the roof were missing. I know the manager quite well. A very nice man who runs one of the best roofing businesses in the region. Another proof of today’s storyline.

Not meaning to make fun of other’s short falls, I must include myself on this list. Obviously, I am a “writer.” Have made a major portion of my living getting paid to write. In spite of this confirmation of my writing skills, I am close to the worst “writer,” as in putting letters on a page in a legible manner, that you will ever see. No computer keyboard for me. It’s a Uniball, fine point, gel pen in hand placing nearly indecipherable words on a yellow legal pad . Sue may be the only person in the world who can actually read my scrawl covered pages, two to a story. She makes me keep the originals. I suppose as proof of how hard she has labored to provide these stories to you.

One final example of this good/not so good phenomenon is one more rodeo traveling partner example … actually two examples. For several years my traveling companions were two professional fire fighters. Both long time employees of large Colorado cities. While both were as good as they ever made to travel with, after recognizing how this situation worked, I tried to get them to supply the pickups for our travels. I knew that if whatever vehicle we were traveling in happened to burst into flames, somebody was buying a new pickup. The old one was toast. Very badly burned, toast!

That is just how it works. Still don’t understand why.