arriving home

The broadcast is over now.  We were happy that it went well and people made nice comments.  I have a few more things to say about it, but for the moment, I will only report on something I found out about upon my return home.  We live in a rural area, and before I left for Detroit, I bought a new pick-up truck.
          By "new," I mean new to us.  We are a bit more flush these days than we have been before.  We bought our first pick-up off a junkyard lot for $400, and it ran just fine for a while before dying.  This one, a '97 club cab with four-wheel drive, cost $2200 from Clayton, who lives around the corner, does agricultural work, fixes up cars and is a friend.  I had him add-on a four wire towing coupler, and he had a truck cap that more-or-less fit, so the whole thing will come to around $2400.  At that price, you don't ask for a good paint job, though this one is in pretty good shape, bright red with a stripe down in side.  I have reminded everyone that you can pick up women in a truck like that, and Clayton, displaying the local dry wit, reminded me that Ellen could drive the pick-up too.
          Because the truck needed a final brake adjustment, it was to be delivered to me upon my return from Detroit, and I had visions of my new life, tooling around in the bright red pick-up, but the beginning of my new tenure as a well-wheeled country gentleman will have to wait.  A thief struck and stole the muffler and catalytic converter off my soon-to-be truck.  There's been a little rash of that around here.  It is a reminder that you can't even drive around in a showy, high-off-the ground '97 without being a lot better off than some folks who will get under it with a torch for the risks and rewards of stealing its parts.
          We are living in increasingly desperate times, and doing the Marathon never fails to remind me how fortunate I am.