I Woke Up

I Woke Up

By Jim Knapp

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright © 2012 Jim Knapp

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1- Summer

Chapter 2 - The Discovery

Chapter 3 - Wake Up Call

Chapter 4 - Money

Chapter 5 - The Article

Chapter 6 - Surprise

Chapter 7 - The Meeting

Chapter 8 - I’ll Buy That

Chapter 9 - Reality Check

Chapter 10 - Party On

Chapter 11 - Cruise Time

Chapter 12 - Knapp’s Law

Chapter 13 - Reunion

Chapter 14 - Awakening

Chapter 15 - I’m Looking for a Few Good People

Chapter 16 - I Should Have My Head Examined

Chapter 17 - Laying the Cards Out

Chapter 18 - Let’s Get Our Ducks an a Row

Chapter 19 - Oh Hell, Here We Go

Chapter 20 - Tell Me This Isn't a Government Run Operation

Chapter 21- Second Time’s a Charm

Chapter 22 - Maybe There is a Little Good in All of Us

Chapter 23 - Never Assume

Chapter 24 - All Aboard

Chapter 25 - Remain Calm, All is Well

Chapter 26 - Pucker Time

Chapter 27 - Good Bye

Chapter 28 - Epilogue

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

To Maria, Tara, and TJ, thanks for keeping faith in me. And for giving me the inspiration, and being who you are. I love you guys.

Chapter 1

Summer

I woke up.

Just like I had for the past fourteen years, not a care in the world and wondering what the future would hold. Would I be successful, would I be rich? There was no time to worry about that now. It was July and I had more important things to do. Like nothing! It's summer, the time in a teenager’s life when you care about nothing, and do even less. I lived in a small community in Northeastern Pennsylvania, where the closest town of any size was eight miles away. The only thing you could do around here would be to get a job at one of the many dairy farms. The problem with that is where I lived, there were nothing but mountains you see, I lived in a valley with a stream and of course hills on both sides, and a piece of junk twenty inch spider bike with hand me down parts. It would have been difficult to travel to any of the surrounding farms. What usually happened in my exciting life is that I would sleep till about noon and then call my best friend Jim. He cherished sleeping even more than I did. I'd usually wait till about twelve-thirty to call him because he'd have lunch every day at noon. While watching the clock slowly move to where I could finally make the call, I looked down at my left thumb that I had cut the year before when I accidentally put my hand through our chicken coop window. It left the neatest little scar from the skin being folded by the sharp glass. I had my share of injuries that usually required stitches, but this time my father said it would be alright, so we just bandaged it. Most of the time for my father to feel the need of a hospital, a bone would have to be puncturing through the skin. Besides, it was 1974 and I don't think we even had ambulance service yet. Although we did have two fire companies within a mile of my home.

Finally, it was twelve-thirty, time to call my friend. Everyday was the same thing, I would call him and either he'd come down to my house or I'd go to his. Today was a little different because it was really hot. So I decided to go to his house because we would undoubtedly take a walk through the woods to the stream and wade through the water. The creek was actually the start of the west branch of the Lackawaxen River, not very wide or deep so we could walk through it with ease. The worse part of the hike to the creek was walking through the blackberry bushes which scratched the hell out of us. Well, minutes later I was on my way to Jim's house on my bike. He lived a little over a half mile away, and it was pretty much all uphill. But at that age you didn't care about things like that, what you cared about was having fun. As I figured, we decided to take a walk to the river or crick as we called it. I loved going there, it was a place to talk and dream. Dream about our future and what would happen in our lives.

Of course, there was a war going on at the time so we figured as soon as we graduated from high school, we'd be immediately drafted into the military and swept off to Vietnam, where we would probably be killed instantly. Fortunately, the draft ended the year before in 1973, so another lethal bullet evaded. I pretty much knew at the time that I would not do well in the military. As a child, I was pretty much an introvert. Come to think of it, I still was. That probably wouldn't have affected my being in the military, but to tell the truth, I always had a problem with authority. I was never disrespectful, I just don't like to be yelled at, and I'm fairly certain that they do that in the military. So that was quickly crossed off my list of future endeavors. Unfortunately, I should have just sucked it up and joined the Navy or some other branch of the military so I could have retired from it, and by now I could have been doing something entirely different.

Well we finally arrived; the walk was pretty much all downhill because we were heading to a river valley. You could always tell when you were getting close because it got really steep, and you could hear the calming and wondrous sound of the flowing river. Now, I am not claiming to be a writer, this is just one of my ways to grab the person that I hope is reading my story. And that's what I hope to do, tell you my story. Anyway the spot that we aimed for was this gigantic rock that sort of hung out over the water. We used to sit on it and just dream, or you could climb down around, and make your way under it to the water below. I am not lying when I tell you that this rock is massive. It made the perfect place to go on a hot humid summer day.

Now to put some questions to rest, in 1972 Hurricane Agnes had blown its way through Northeastern Pennsylvania, making the small stream a formidable river, which I feel to this day changed my future. You see the summer of 1974, two years later, was the opposite. That was an extremely dry year, so the mighty river had been reduced to a calm cool babbling brook. Which best explained what happened next.

Chapter 2

The Discovery

As I stepped around the gigantic rock to work my way under, I noticed how calm the water looked. Sometimes you could move one of the stones under the water, and uncover a small crayfish. It was always a treat to capture the small crustacean, with the hope that when you handled it, the little claws wouldn't pinch you. I started turning over stones, which stirred up the dirt and sand, naturally obscuring my view in the water, so as I turned to my left moving under the massive protrusion, I noticed something as the cloud of sand was moving just in front of me. Naturally, the swirl covered what caught my attention. So, I stood there and waited. I could have tried to clear it off, but even at my early age of impatience, I knew that it would just make it worse. Suddenly, as I stared down on the muddy water, it began to clear as if a broom was sweeping the very spot I had focused my attention on.

What I saw was a rectangular stone that was sticking partially out of the water. It looked like a picture, in the top left corner there appeared to be some sort of writing, but more like some kind of hieroglyphic. Then I noticed there was a drawing carved into the stone of a mountain range and the sun between them. Now remember, I was a young teenager, making it through school one year at a time, oh, maybe I should be more clear, I was barely, making it through one year at a time. So, now that I've clarified that, I did what any fourteen year old would do, not having any formal training in the field of archeology, I ripped the stone out of the water. At the same time yelling to my friend who was still sitting on the large outcrop above, I yelled, Holy Shit!! Look what I found. excitedly rinsing the rest of the silt off my discovery. It was about nine by twelve inches, by three to four inches thick, and weighing approximately forty to fifty pounds. It indeed had writing carved into the top left corner, mountain ranges, the sun, and little evergreen trees lightly carved into it. The trees were so light that you couldn't see them until the stone was completely rinsed off by the stream. Jim had made his way down to me, and always being more objective than myself, he already felt that this was some sort of a prank.

Who would go to all this trouble? I asked trying to defend my new found treasure. He said he wouldn't put it past his older brother to pull a stunt like this, having done things to us in the past. Well, I certainly wasn't going to let that rain on my parade; this could be my ticket to easy street!

Now examining the find closer, it looked like the writing was cut short on the top left corner, as if maybe there was another piece of the stone which remained to be discovered. So, we started stirring things up in the water trying to look for more. As I said earlier, we at that tender age never had any formal training, but never the less; we did try to be careful. We searched and searched but our efforts were fruitless. Finally, we decided that it was time to make the trek back. The real drawback now was the laborious task of carrying this rather cumbersome find, all the way back up the hill. Well, being fourteen and slightly overweight but strong, we started our journey back. Up the hill we walked through the blackberry bushes, through the high ferns, over the downed tree limbs and brush. You know, it’s funny how I didn't notice all these obstacles on my way down the hill. Finally, we arrived back at my friend’s house. Now I faced a new problem, How in the hell am I going to get this thing home with my bike? Well, being rather resourceful for fourteen, I remembered that I always carried baler twine under the seat of my spider bike. So I carefully placed the stone on the back of my banana seat, and secured it with the rope. Then having said my, so long for the afternoon, I jumped on the bike and began the downhill ride to my house. When I think about how I transported my find today I cringe, undoubtedly along with the rest of the scientific community.

As I arrived home, I noticed how the weather was starting to change, it was still rather humid but a fast southern breeze was whipping up and the clouds were moving in. Just another stupid thunder storm, I thought to myself. When you're a child, you always remember when it rains, pretty much because it screws up your outdoor fun. The one thing I do remember is the storm seemed more powerful than other ones. When I was young I hated the rain but I always loved the lightning. I knew that it was dangerous but I was always fascinated by it. It was later on in my years when I began to hate the weather, and all of its power and cost.

Chapter 3

Wake Up Call

BOOM! BOOM! Rumbled the mighty thunder, as it had happened to me for so many years of my life, shaking me to consciousness. I looked down on the floor where I kept my alarm clock. Now, I'll bet you’re wondering why I keep it there. Well I find it's a lot easier to get up in the morning if you have to struggle a little in trying to reach the clock to shut it off. Unfortunately, I rarely need it. My internal clock works just fine, actually it works too good. If I set it for five-thirty A.M., I generally wake up at five. Looking down I saw that it was four-thirty A.M., but what was really unusual, is that it was December first. I rose out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom for my normal routine. Luckily the window was positioned behind the toilet so I could gaze out it and observe the lightning as it danced through the sky. I had been working for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for over twenty two years as an Equipment Operator, but this year was going to be different. During the winter months, the department would split the crews up into two shifts. This year I was going to have my own crew in the capacity of Acting Foreman, on the B Shift. We would usually go on our winter shift in the middle of December. This year we started the week of Thanksgiving, because of the early snow. That's why it seemed so crazy, thunder and lightning on December 1st, 2008. I had worked till midnight the night before because we had a snowstorm, now here I am waking up three hours later watching lightning reflecting off the fresh snow. Way to damned early to get up, I thought to myself, I had been on the noon to eight shifts for a week, so I was still used to getting up early to be at work at seven in the morning.

I knew my two dogs, Sassy and Rusty would be cowering in a corner in the other room, and they were terrified of thunder. So I threw on some clothes to take them outside so I wouldn't have to clean their accident up later.

Both of my kids, TJ and Tara were grown and moved on to other places. TJ had served actively in the US Navy and was now in the Navy Reserves. He had lived in Virginia Beach since 2000, and worked for a private contractor as a jet mechanic at the Naval Air Station he was assigned to during his enlistment. Tara, graduated from college last year and was working as a bartender, she lived with her boyfriend Mike. Maria, my wife of twenty eight years was still asleep. She'd graduated from college the same year as Tara, and was working on her Masters Degree in Special Education. We had great hopes of her graduating and landing a job as a teacher at one of the nearby schools.

I opened the door and walked outside with my two frightened pets. Man, this is some screwed up weather. I laughed and spoke out loud to the dogs, Must be some more of that end of the world crap. They both looked at me like they understood. But I figured what they really wanted was to finish their business and get the hell back in the house and hide under the bed. I have to say, it was really weird standing in the middle of a thunder snowstorm. I brought the freaked out mutts back in and let them in my bedroom. If they were with us during a storm they were a lot happier.

As I lay there heading back off to dreamland, I counted my blessings. We didn't have a lot, but we were healthy, I had a great job, which did have its demands this time of year, but I knew that when I signed on. This part of Pennsylvania didn't have much to offer in the job department, especially secure jobs that paid a decent wage. I'd never attended college after I graduated High School, and I was starting to grow restless with my present employment. My plan was to run for public office in 2010. I had tried for several management positions with the department, but was unobtainable because of not being in Civil Service Status, I aimed to be elected to the State House, where maybe I could change some of the Civil Service Laws, if nothing else I wanted to make the process fair.

I have a question for all of you, Why do you get up and go to work? Answer, survival. We work to get paid. We get paid so we can survive. We work for our future. I always said we spend most of our lives at our jobs, its true, especially the one I have. The rest of the time is four or five hours with your family and then seven or eight hours sleeping and then back at it again. Is it really to much to ask to be happy and comfortable at your job? I didn't think so, and that was the message I'd always tried to spread. Deep down I think we all relish the thought of leaving our mark, or doing something great. I know I've always wanted that. Those thoughts kept swirling in my head as I dropped off to dreamland.

Chapter 4

Money

Let's face it; money does make the world go around, as I've become well aware, probably because I have never experienced the pleasure and security of having it. I've always said, It's easier to pick yourself up after losing your money if you've never experienced the luxury of having it. Not so much of a climb to get back on your feet.

The beauty of me telling this story is that I can jump to wherever I want. Moving ahead, I was forced to leave my career of twenty fives years with Penn Dot, because I had chosen to run for a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. I was told by Human Resources, or HR as the bastards like to be called, come to think of it, that name is an oxymoron. They are neither human, nor do they concern themselves with properly overseeing the workforce, or resources. I really do believe that if you look into the development of HR, it probably was a course taught by Heinrich Himmler, before he came to fame with those fucking Nazi's! OK, enough of my feeling on that subject.

Anyway, I had to resign my position, or bow out of the election because of a Potential Conflict of Interest in my performance of duties with the Department. Seeing I've always been a shoot first ask questions later type, I decided to retire from my job to pursue my dream of winning the election. The sad part was that I had done everything legal, checking with the Pa. State Department making sure that I was not violating any State or Federal Hatch Act laws. They told me that because I was not a Civil Service employee I was not breaking any rules but to check with my HR Department, and file any of the necessary paperwork that they required. That's where the Shit hit the fan I really thought that I had a shot at winning the election; unfortunately, I was a Democrat running against the House Caucus Chairperson, a Republican. I discovered during the 2010 election that if Adolph Hitler was running on the Republican Ticket and Jesus Christ was a Democrat, Hitler would have won by a landslide.

So ends my great political career. I was 51 years old and retired, living the dream... Right??? Hell No. Like I said earlier, money makes the world go around, and now I don't have any. I have a sixteen hundred dollar a month retirement with health benefits taken out of that. I know that's more than some people have, but I really hoped for a little bit more. There were many things that I hoped to do and change in the House, and I certainly did not want to be a career politician. I wanted to bring something new and fresh, instead of the same old, same old of passing down the job from generation to generation. I was someone who had worked hard to provide for his family while barely making ends meet. Many politicians have lost sight of what's really going on in the world. I had a lot of pride in what I did. I know I would bitch and moan, but I always explained to my family, without me and the many people like myself, going out in the middle of the night to plow the snow out of the road, or cut a tree blocking it, or repair and reopen a road that had been flooded, lives could be lost. Imagine if an ambulance couldn't get to the hospital, or even the doctor, not to mention commerce, which drew a lot of attention during the Valentines Day storm of 2007.

One of the many luxuries of being retired is that occasionally we can afford some Chinese food for dinner. This usually happens when Maria gets paid, and brings it home from work. The other night I got my usual, General Tsao chicken and shrimp low mien. We have amassed quite a collection of fortune cookies that are kept in the cabinet until we throw them away, or give them to the birds. I decided to eat mine and when I pulled out the fortune it read, A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he gives up.

Wow, that's the story of my life. I've hung on to that one, and on the other side it has the lucky numbers. Well I figured I'd try the numbers on the Cash Five lottery, and son of a bitch if I didn't win $12.50. No, not really, wishful thinking, I forgot to bring the numbers with me. I checked the next day to see if they had come in and of course they had. I played them a few days later and... You GUESSED IT!!! Nothing. Well, to add insult to injury, I had applied for a management position with my old department and found out that I wasn't considered for the job at all because I was no longer employed with them, and I was not on any civil service list. Same bullshit story they gave me when I worked there. At least when I worked there they showed some professional courtesy and would send me a rejection letter. Instead, some pinhead that was blowing someone or carrying their boss' golf clubs would get the job. The beauty of being on the Civil Service list, it's like being a member of an exclusive club, you don't have a clue in hell what the job was about, but you could move from position to position as long as you were on their list, similar to the movements in a game of checkers. I think a lot of people reading this can relate to how I feel. You know you can do the job, more than likely a hundred times better than the jackass that has it. That's always been the problem with working for the Government; it really is who you know. I, like so many other good people on this world just wanted to leave their mark and do something great, to be remembered. Of course it wouldn't hurt to be compensated too. That's what I'm leading up to.

Luckily, the winter of 2012 hadn't been horrible, must be the global warming. The damn thing is, even though it hadn't been to cold the oil and gas companies still seemed to raise the prices on everything. This made it very difficult to pay all the bills. Why else would I be trying to get a job back with the state? I was good at what I did and hated the thought of having to start over. I had pretty much written my own ticket where I was. To be honest, I had never gone to college or any trade school; I'd pretty much learned everything on my own. Living in the asshole of the world didn't help either. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful place to grow up and live, logistically it sucks, you are miles from everywhere! As I explained previously, Maria went to college in 2001, and continued on through that decade to achieve her Masters Degree in Special Education only to discover that all the Federal and State cutbacks, pretty much screwed her chances of finding a job at a school around here. The great news was that she had over one hundred and thirty thousand dollars of student loans. Whoopee! I'm not bitter, OK I am! Like I said earlier, the state job thing goes the same with getting a job at a school. People wonder why people move. They don't want to, but what choices have they? We haven't come to that yet. We have too many family commitments and obligations and we're just barely getting by with my retirement and Maria's job as a teaching assistant at a glorified day care. When she started there they promised her all sorts of bullshit, of course they lied. That's why I liked being in a Union, there was a contract and you stuck by it. For the time being it would have to do. She had an interview for a job teaching at another place that hopefully she would acquire, but for now this one pays the bills, well sort of.

Chapter 5

The Article

Towards the end of January my sister called and said she had just read an article from the local newspaper about my find from the seventies. I located it on the internet. Reading the article brought me back to a time where I didn't have any worries, not yet anyway. That's right; you're probably wondering what the hell I'm babbling about. Well this is what the article read, written by Peter Becker of the Wayne Independent…

"In 1974...A teenager, James Knapp of Pleasant Mount, Pa. Wayne County found a strange stone. This stone appeared to be chiseled writing and a picture. Knapp found the stone in the West Branch of the Lackawaxen River, near his home about 30 miles from the spot where Donald Ness found his rock.

Fourteen at the time, Knapp was playing with his friend Jim Polivka in July 1974, when he saw the unusual stone in the water under a rock ledge where they had been sitting. He took the stone home where it sat in the corner. In 1977, a friend, Neil Hutton, had heard about the mysterious Hawley Stone and alerted The Wayne Independent.

Dr. Vernon Leslie investigated Knapp’s find, and contacted both Dr. Barry