It saddens me to announce that the Grumpy Old Bastard across the street has kicked the bucket.
Chuck would have been 87 in April so it’s not like the old fart didn’t live a full life.
I had known he was in poor health for a while, I think the last time I got to talk to him was around Thanksgiving. Then me and the wife were sick for most of December and come to find out something kicked his ass around the same time.
He wound up with a UTI, fucked around with that long enough for it to go into sepsis and that was the beginning of the end. The last time I saw him besides the day they hauled him out on a stretcher a couple of weeks ago was a glimpse of him sitting in the front room on Christmas day, watching his Granddaughter open presents when I stepped out to have a smoke.
The sepsis caused blood poisoning and fucked up a replacement valve in his heart and fucked up his kidneys. When he went into the hospital they did a bunch of MRI’s and discovered he had lung cancer on top of all of it and it had gone into his brain.
Of course he didn’t smoke.
At that point the pill pushers threw up their hands and they moved him into hospice. That was two weeks ago, I just now talked to his ex wife and she told me he had passed away last Sunday.
I am pretty bummed.
He was basically the only one in this neighborhood I would talk to and he used to tell all the stories guy’s his age like to tell.
We had a few things in common like wrenching on old shit and for his age he got around pretty damned good. Kept his lawn mowed and his bushes trimmed, did his own oil changes and all kinds of shit.
I was already missing the old fart but now I’m double sad because I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.
His daughter sold his car before he was even dead and now they are wanting to get rid of his 93 Dodge 3/4 ton 4X4 with 113k on it that he kept up pretty good.
I seriously considered buying it until I just went and spent damn near $90 to fill up the old Chevy.
That Dodge 4X4 would eat me alive as a daily driver.
Just pricing a set of tires for the thing would give me sticker shock so I’m going to give that one a pass.
He already gave me a bunch of his old tools that I cleaned up and put away so I will always have something to remember him by.
Rest In Peace old man, you can be glad you are going to miss the Shit Show coming down the pike.














