Dale was damn proud of his driveway.  He had the crew come in and compact the base for two days. It was hard as granite before he had the slab poured.  That was over thirty years ago and there still wasn’t a crack in the cement.  That’s saying something after thirty Minnesota winters of freezing and thawing.  Dale knew the secret to pouring a good surface.  He knew about pouring asphalt when he worked for the Minneapolis public works department for over forty years.  He was foreman on the crew and poured a lot of asphalt in his day.  He probably poured half the streets in Minneapolis over his career.

But turning eighty now, he was suffering the effects of pouring 340 degree asphalt over forty summers.  The fumes were the reason for the emphysema that had slowed him down now.  He couldn’t walk a hundred feet without getting out of breath and having to sit down and rest.  Those forty summers were taking their toll now.  It had been a great job for Dale.  Back then you could work without a shirt in the summer.  If it rained, he knew that his surveyors would be at Stand-up Franks and he could rally them if it cleared up.

The driveway wasn’t the only thing Dale was proud of in his life.  He was also very proud of his Park Avenue.  He bought it new after he retired and it had every feature General Motors offered except a sunroof.  This Buick was more than loaded and Dale pampered it like a new born baby.  And how many cars are six years old and have only 19,000 miles on them?  He just had four new Michelin tires put on in the spring and it cost him near a thousand dollars.  The oil was changed every three thousand miles of course and often more frequent than that.  All the members of the Eagles coveted Dale’s Park Avenue and often made him offers to buy it.  Dale always replied,  “I’ll trade it in first.”  Then he would give a big grin and take a sip of his drink.

Dale had been a widower for several years now.  He missed his wife and always spoke fondly of her.  Dale was always remarking how tiny she was.  She hardly ever showed when she was pregnant with their three kids.  There were some difficult deliveries and they lost one child at birth.  Dale always blamed the doctor for that tragedy with good reason.  But they had many happy years coming to the Eagles for the barbecues, meat raffles, birthday buffets and holiday parties.  It was another family to them.  A lot of life long friends were regulars at the Eagles.  They played pull tabs together adn usually patronized the local neighborhood merchants.  Sopmetimes Dale would go to the Silver Hub, but after it closed he came to the Eagles just about every day for an eye opener.   He didn’t play cribbage with the group anymore.  The Eagles was a diversion now.  It broke up his long retirement day.  In the afternoons he would to the Hexagon if the right bartender wa on and have a brandy before he went home to make supper.