Is it a road? Is it a journey? Is it ambition? Is it the long ball struck cleanly with a three wood, rising against a blue sky? 

My father says, ‘Hey, let’s go for a drive!’ What that really means is ‘Let’s journey’ It’s 2;30 in the afternoon, no suitcases, so it can’t be far, but it might mean dinner at a restaurant before coming home. That means restaurants near the destination. Everything will flow from the first few blocks of driving the car. Technically we have the four cardinal points And everything between. Each turn he takes eliminates choices, but the turn do not define exactness.

After three blocks we are going west to the bay. No more than thirty minutes away, could be the old fishing grounds near the Butler plant, or perhaps under the Bridge. Maybe the Naval Station and the ruins of the Whaling Plant.

We pass the Butler turn off, the choices narrow. We slowly pass the Bridge, so we are heading to the Naval Station, we went through and the road dead ends at the Whaling Plant.

This is where my father changed everything. He made a sharp right turn on a very bad road that climbed the ridge. At the top it wandered a bit before it descended to the Point San Pablo Yacht Harbor. We walked about looking at boats and houseboats. My father told me about John Wayne making a movie here. It was winter, a warm day, but the sun was setting.

And the harbor had a restaurant.

That was the past…

I finally had a chance of a full-time job. As a student I had my share of seasonal work. Seasons are not always based upon the tilt of the earth, there are seasons of production, seasons of selling, and seasons of travel. I explored most of them.

Now I was locked into being a staff member at a college, with seasons of semesters. I suppose I could have treated it like the other jobs, a way station while heading to somewhere else. I didn’t. I liked it here, but I didn’t like the job I was hired to do.

Unfortunately I didn’t have the degree, training, or experience for the other jobs. So I had to develop a ‘drive’. It had not been something that I did normally. Not in school, not in factory jobs, and not even in the military.

I knew the ‘proper’ drive was to get certified for the areas I was interested. I thought perhaps that my drive might skip that part.

Strangely enough it did. For the next five positions, I obtained them without the standard qualifications. I just did the work. And when I found a position that required a four year degree, I made it work with 1.5 years. I was driven, with a 50 hour work week.

I did that for thirty years.

My father-in-law was a golfer. Yes he had an official job, but that was only to provide for his golfing.

He also had a son, slightly older than Sherry, so he had a partner. But he living states away from his condo surrounded by his 18 hole course. He looked to me, ‘Do you golf?’. ‘I play racquet ball. Golf can’t be that hard.’ , I replied.

That started months of the driving range work, short game putting green work. Finally I was ready. I was deadly with a two wood. Even more deadly with a three wood. I didn’t have to try very hard, I had a natural slice to right. So intense that most I landed in the adjacent hole, scattering the golfers there.

In compensation I did have a fiat long 2 iron, but my most accurate was a 7 iron. I could hop skip and jump to the hole it five drives. Maybe then a two putt?

My father-in-law never asked me to play on his course again. To many friends on his course, too many potential friendly deaths. We did go to several courses nearby, where we were strangers. I left my drivers at home and used irons to get close to par.

No.

This is about something found loose in a drawer. A hard drive.

It is an assembly in Thailand, made of parts that have parts that have parts.

Beneath the aluminum cover are platters. Upon the platters are magnetic domains. Within the domains are patterns.

Within the patterns are photographs, letters, accounts, arguments, dreams, and shopping lists.

Somewhere in that hierarchy is a younger version of me, waiting patiently in a folder.

Maybe something written about my father, some secret roads in the Sierras.

Maybe something written about the transition from military to civilian, something about the two divorces in marriage, and the lack of direction.

I hope there is not a treatise on facing the little dimpled ball. So easy to hit, so easy to drive.

I need to power it up. I need to see I different me responding to life back then.

Will I accept the spark and whine of a dying drive?