RiverScape: Head East, Young Man
Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille
I lifted my eyes from the computer screen. I gazed past an insane co-worker watching YouTube videos of a man brushing his teeth with a stick. The words on my screen had stopped making sense. Getting out of the cubicle was the answer. But why not keep going? Why not, say, turn in that draft letter of resignation in your bottom drawer. Drop it off at H.R. on the way down to the street. Head to the Army Corps or Barges R Us. Apply to be a deckhand on a coal barge, plying the Ohio, the Monongahela, the Mississsippi. Sight your long ship downriver, trying not to take out a bridge or plow into the University of Charleston. Walk the barge with a steaming cup of joe as the sun burns the morning mist off the river. Pee off the side (OK, this is a guy fantasy). You’re content in a job well done. Finally! Sing along with me:
Dat ol’ man river. He mus’ know sumpin’
But don’t say nuthin’, He jes’ keeps rollin’
He keeps on rollin’ along…
