Mike’s Corner: Got some good news and some bad news

By Mike Wagoner
Reader Contributor

I was raised in Walla Walla… a nice town to grow up in… I still venture back there now and again to sing in a couple of the many wine rooms that line the main street. There aren’t any TVs in ’em and most of the clientele are way over 21, so findin’ myself surrounded by smartphone zombies just doesn’t happen, therefore an interaction with the audience can usually be established just like the ol’ days.

I had an uncle… my dads’ brother who lived near us… who had a fair piece of land up in the Blue Mountains and after he and my dad both retired, they started a little firewood business… not a lot, just a few cords here and there. I was in town when they got goin’ with it, teaching at the old school where I had attended years earlier, and if they went up after a load on a weekend, I usually went with them. They had grown up on a small farm on the outskirts and were real use to workin. It was two good ol’ country boys and me.

Some years passed and as time really started to bite at their heels… the operation slowed down. They were in their mid-80s at this point and this was when I really began to marvel at their old guy strength. No wasted movement… no hurry.

When we would arrive on the mountain in the mornings, they moved pretty good… as the morning turned into early afternoon it was sorta like The Matrix. Like I said… no hurry… but eventually a respectable pickup load would develop and we would head back down that old mountain road… me sittin’ in the middle between them like always until we finally arrived back at my uncle’s place to the wood stash. Sometimes this would be the hardest part of the day for me, ’cause it was time for them to get out of the truck after workin’ and then sittin’ a while. There I’d be trapped between them with a screamin’ bladder about ready to burst. The truck doors would slowly open with a tired creak… one leg would eventually touch the ground… they both would gingerly swivel… bring the other leg over and down… slide closer to the edge of the seat and then that final lunge would happen. “Free at last… thank God almighty… free at last.” I would disappear between a couple spruce trees.

I stayed in Walla Walla right up until the end… doin’ the best I could to keep both my folks out of the nursing home as long as I could. My dad outlived both my mom and my sister… so, in the end there I was livin’ in the old house I had grown up in with a roommate… my dad. 

It was during this twilight time when he began to tell me things about his life I had absolutely no knowledge of, and it was at this point that a whole new type of love developed between us.

One evening… a man of 93 years, racked with back pain, sat across from me and said… “I got some good news and some bad news.” “What’s the good news?” “With your genes you’ll probably live a long time.” “What’s the bad news?” “With your genes you’ll probably live a long time.”