Wednesday 9th December 2009 - Povery and Bibles: Luke 15:32

        I always load up my pictures to a Google site for backup.  So although I said I'd lost my backup computer, I didn't mean I lost any of the data.  But I was starting to write something about Montana, and I remembered virtually the first "Glasgow" picture I took, the one, just across the Montana border which said "Glasgow 118 Miles".  And I couldn't find it: not anywhere. 

          When I started, I wasn't as disciplined as I should be.  I thought it just another lesson: you have to remember what you see, you can't count on the pictures.  I passed on, got on with what I was writing.  And, d'you know, it suddenly popped into my head, some time later, apropos of nothing at all, that it might be on the flash drive I keep on my key chain.  And it was!  All the early photos I took were. 

          So I just had to celebrate.  For the more rusty Bible scholars, Luke 15:32 says "It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found".  (That's the 'King James version, of course)

 

           I went down to see if the man with the used car lot could help me with the Rozzie problem.  Despite one of those big red cabinets up the back of the garage, he couldn't.  Well, it was a difficult problem.  But last night, at the bar, he had been telling me his sure-fire way of winning at blackjack.  Today he was flat broke, without even money for gas (that's really, really broke in America).  Not all Americans are rich.

           On the way back I stopped for lunch at one of those chain restaurant-bars.  It was very quiet, but I could hear a young man behind me droning on-and-on, in high management.  I had to sneak a peak.  He appeared to be the manager (or under-manager), and he was interviewing an anxious young lady for, by the sound of it, a waiting job.  I had thought he must be reading her large tracts of the company bible, but he wasn't reading anything at all: he had clearly memorised it.  I'm sure in present circumstances, she would be happy getting any job, but would you want to work for someone like that?

 

          Later that night, I visited the bar that's in walking distance.  Its curious claim-to-fame is the ritual humiliation of its female staff.  They have to wear the briefest of hotpants, and the tightest of vests.  The shift appeared to be changing, and some of them appeared briefly, properly dressed.  Suddenly, from being tasteless and vulgar, they looked quite nice.  I asked the young lady behind the bar what she looked like with her clothes on.  The chill chamber claimed it kept the beer at 21 degrees (that's F).  That would, of course, be solid.  But they didn't really need it, anyway: the barmaid could have frozen a bottle solid at twenty yards.