I Like Big Trucks, I cannot lie...

 "There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million."

---Walt Streightiff

My children aren't children anymore, they are young adults, but back in the days of Matchbox cars, training wheels, and playdates, my oldest had to have a daily matinee of a video called, "Road Construction Ahead." Some genius filmmaker made an entire 45-minute video of the construction of a new highway, from blasting the ledge, to steamrolling the tar and painting the lines. There were almost no words in the film, just some catchy stock music that, at least for a little while, was burned into my brain. Andy loved to watch the dynamite blow up, the dump trucks roll and the jackhammers pound away and no matter how many times he watched it, he never got tired of it. Also, it bought me 45 minutes to cook dinner or at least find a takeout menu and dial.

He's a grown man now, living on his own, gainfully employed and completely independent, but I'm betting that now and then if he's sitting in traffic near a construction zone, he looks over at all the trucks, and the equipment and remembers the movie that has to be burned into his memory as well. My middle boy and my daughter were not much different. George loved to tinker with cars, and he'd watch the factory show, "How It's Made" in long binges to see how jet engines were built and furnaces were welded. My daughter loved to watch the trash truck come and smash up all the bags of garbage while the workers hung on to the handles and waved at her. It seems that children just love to watch big machines at work.

So, imagine my surprise the other day when I was sitting at my dining room table, tucking into some work, and a nice blueberry muffin, when I heard the air brakes of a very large truck just a few feet from my window. I have neighbors that are remodeling the home they just purchased, so there's often a crew over there. They've cleared the brush away, put in new windows, a roof, and some other work, but like any construction site, they have a dumpster, and it needs to be emptied regularly. The truck that comes and hauls it away has these pneumatic pumps that slide up, with a system of cables and pulleys that I would probably understand if I hadn't slept through physics class.

 I thought back to when my kids were little and how much they would have loved to watch the dumpster get hooked on and hauled up at a 45-degree angle and then set down, flat, without one single piece of trash falling out of it. Then I realized that I'd been gawking at this truck and dumpster for ten minutes and hadn't gotten a bit of work done. There was a deadline looming (when isn't there?) but honestly, the truck and the dumpster were way more interesting.

See, the yard is kind of narrow, and dumpsters are big. This hauler thing had to back into a very small space, precisely in the correct spot to line up the tracks of the dumpster with the bed of the truck. My nose was practically smooshed up against the glass of my kitchen window where I had moved to get a better look. 

Yes, it sounds very Gladys Kravitz of me to be noseballing into my neighbor's yard, but it's kind of hard to miss a ginormous truck hauling a dumpster on a wire. Who wouldn't stop to watch that? It went off without a hitch (ha, hitch, see what I did there?) and it was back to work for me, but what a nice break it was. Close order maneuvers with big vehicles always impress me since my parking skills are nearly nonexistent. I couldn't parallel park one of those little kid Cozy Cars; there is no way backing up a 25-foot truck and latching onto a half-ton of dumpster debris would happen for me. A good friend lives in Vermont and has a very long driveway with a lovely lawn on both sides, and it bends a bit towards the end as you get to the street. In the 20 or so years she has lived there, I have never managed to back my little car down the drive without running over the grass on at least one side, usually both. My car has a back-up camera, a rearview mirror, two side mirrors, and a bunch of crash sensors and my tires are still tearing up the grass.

Maybe that's why little kids like to watch big trucks and construction machines? Because it's something they can't do, so it seems magical to them? Who knows, but it kind of makes me want to look for more opportunities to slow down for a few minutes and watch something happen, just for the sake of watching it. Not to fix it, or change it, but just watch something like a boat docking and unloading lobsters at The Landing, or someone flying a drone over Seaside Park. No goal, no task, just sit and look at a cool truck, or a nice boat, or even just the blue jays that dart around my yard and try to dive-bomb the bunnies. I think taking a break and staring at something other than a screen can be a way to wind down and de-stress, so that's going to be my goal. Oh, and if anyone is having a dumpster hauled away anytime soon, call me!