This is silly but, there is something about going to the dump with your son. It's a ritual by now. We get a trailer full of junk and off we go. The stinky dump with the huge tractors on sheepsfoot wheels climbing over the pile of American over-packaging castoffs and old broken toys and shower doors. CRASH! The squeaky sound of the tractor, the gaggle of geezers unloading trailers of yard waste and couples with their remodeling demolition piles so proud of their working together... High Five! Adorable, right?

Today was oddly fun. [teaserbreak]We dug up the floor jack and some 4x4s. Jacked up the trailer and got it on the ball. With him doing the standard gesture, standing in front of the thing to get me lined up with the "look at my dick" two-handed chop. Then the two hands that get closer as the hitch finally hovers over the ball and done. We topped off the load of crap I have been gathering for a year and threw a sheet of plywood on top followed by a big blue tarp.

Then we stood there, father and son, stage hand and rigger, on opposite ends of the same rope and we traded knots. I showed him my latest and he showed me his. We remembered together a midline alpine butterfly and settled on a bowline loop with a yosemite tie-off on the loops, sheepshanks on the tarp line and trucker hitches for the load lines. Bullet proof...

and one of those memories I'll keep.