When I grow up...

15 and I were driving the other day (yes~that is all I do) and she asked what I would be if I could be anything at all. I asked her the same question and our answers were the same: race car drivers. She would be probably be an Indy Car driver~fast, streamlined, just her and track. Or maybe a drag racer~head down and flat out. I, on the other hand, would like to be a stock car driver. Not today's NASCAR~pretty boys with all kinds of safety gear driving scientifically proven cars sponsored by big oil companies, big retail companies and big erection companies (sorry...couldn't help myself!) I would be the stock car driver of my ancestors~a moon shiner with a tank full of brew and something to prove. The thrill of speed, with a shot of jail time thrown in just to push the gas pedal down harder. Just me, my car and enough illegal booze to blow bits of my brain matter over into the next holler. If that isn't motivation to git there and git there quick, I don't know what is! It wouldn't only be about the thrill and the money. It would be about braggin' rights the next day as I put on my coal mining gear and headed down into the dark, dangerous places I had to go to feed my family. As I sat surrounded by dust, gases and millions of tons of rock all just waiting for the chance to take my life and tear apart my family, I would know that later that night...that county hussy Freedom would call. A fast car, a cool breeze and moonshine~both in my trunk and over my head~would carry me to a place no one ~not the revenuers, not the coal dust, not my wife and kids~could catch me.