Lynn Carey before his GAS malfunctioned
Spending the better part of 40 years working in a sawmill I've been exposed to some memorable turns of phrase and malapropisms in addition to a daily butchering of the English language. For example, I now know that the past tense of the verb "skin" is "skun". As in, "I skun out my buck and hung him in the shed."
If something is merely adequate it's "close enough for the girls I know." Changing software is "using a new floormat". A no-win situation is a "Catch-21".
One of my all-time favorites is the "give-a-shitter". When someone reaches the point of not caring his "give-a-shitter is broke".
Unfortunately, it's my solemn duty to announce to the Nordic world that Lynn Carey's give-a-shitter is broke. In all honesty, my own give-a-shitter is unreliable and fading, but Lynn makes no bones about the fact that his is totally beyond repair and he is not shy about telling anyone who will listen. Being a long-time sawmiller himself, lately Lynn freely makes use of the phrase with disturbing frequency.
He's announced this multiple times in the past month. So much so that our pal Bruce, true to his Forest Service background, has assigned an acronym to Lynn's condition: GAS. Lynn's GAS is broke. And he has no intention of repairing it.
When a couple of our regular groomers went way overboard with their assigned grooming, rather than being bent out of shape, Lynn's response was "I don't care. Don't forget, my GAS is broke."
A minor flap over the biathlon this week elicited this response: "Doesn't matter to me. My GAS is broke."
And so on.
Lynn post-GAS breakdown.
Suspenders with Carhartt jeans are never a good look for anyone, under any circumstance, but evidently when your GAS is shot so is your fashion sense. No one ever accused Lynn of having an overdeveloped sense of fashion, but these days Lynn's accessory of choice for holding up his pants is a worn out pair of greasy suspenders. Some things are unacceptable on the most basic of levels and suspenders that pull your pants up over your navel fall firmly in that category. It's incomprehensible that his wife lets him out of the house in that condition but I suppose Rose has to pick her battles.
For the past 30 years Lynn has been the OSCR race director. He's been doing it for so long that he never breaks a sweat getting it organized and seems to pull it off effortlessly. Now that his GAS is out of order the question becomes how will that impact OSCR? Compounding this dilemma is his announcement that after this year someone else can do the work, he's retiring. With one foot out the door and his GAS six feet under ground what becomes of our signature event? We can only hope that he has enough pride and ego tied up in OSCR that he'll go out on a high note. On the other hand, the OSCR motto has always been "the only constant is change", so maybe his idea of "change" will be to let a few details slide. Like who needs aid stations or course markers?
I guess we'll find out January 29th.
Lynn after the 40th OSCR.
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