Grampa Dodd claimed he could only think right when he was behind the
wheel of his truck. He'd take it out mornings and weekends, and he'd drive,
and think, and park when he needed to write something down. I never knew
him, he heart attack a year before I was born, so a lot of this I'm just
going on what Momma says.
I did see some of what we wrote once, though. I don't remember much
of it, I was young when we found it, and it was aall yellow and coffee-
stained and crackly and illegible. All we could make out one part where he
was saying he was parked on the side of a back-road highway and a state
trooper or something came up and asked him if he needed help. When Grampa
explained himself, the cop stepped on the running-board and peered all
inside the cab.
Grampa wrote, "A man can't do anything, else he gets noticed for it."
I wrote that down in a school notebook when I saw it. Now, I got it
written on a paper stuck in my wallet.
Momma says she's like me, she didn't know him too well, either. She
says she didn't ever see him, he was always off writing, and now, if you
find some, you can't read none of it.