Smashed

I just can't pass an auto graveyard - one of those acreages with hundreds of smashed, flattened old Family Trucksters piled up everywhere - without thinking of the day the first owner bought each of those vehicles, and came home to show it to family and friends, and Pooch and Edna from down the street and everyone went to Dairy Queen to show it off.

What happened after that day, between purchase and smashola, is a different story for each car.  You might call them autobiographies, but you'd be using a very old, very corny joke.

But I saw this picture online.  Look at this old house - a veritable mansion.  Think of the work that went into building it, and all the grand parties and events that must have taken place underneath this now-tattered roof.  Think of some rich kid coping with life just as you and I did, only with more money.  Think of how it must have been when the last of the clan that lived here finally moved out, and let the manse fall into disrepair and dereliction. 

While you think about that, also consider why this is:  Peggy took me to the mall yesterday so I could stretch my leg and back muscles.  Plus I had to drop off Girl Scout cookie money.  But how does it come that each and every 14-year-old boy who sauntered by me, snickering at my cane, back brace, and slow gait, all looked like Jake on Two and A Half Men?