My Robot Is Pregnant theme song!

Chip Hawkins was a stone mason, a strong guy with a neatly trimmed beard. He had dark brown eyes that weren’t mean, they looked sad for you, like he knew you were gonna get hurt real bad and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

This was in the early ’80s, Greenland NH was farmland and forest but Chip loved his front lawn. Unlike our lawn, which was created by years of mowing over poison ivy, sawgrass and goldenrod weeds, Chip had a lawn made out of grass grass. Stuff you bought just for that reason. It looked imported from France, stolen from a castle garden and looked strange set down among the scrub forest bordering their lot.

Other facts we know about Chip:
Recovering alcoholic
2nd wife
Dressed up in a clown suit for Greenland’s annual July Summerfest parade and walked behind a fire truck throwing hard candy at the small crowd in front of the school house.

Chip wore a trucker hat with a specially designed brim, what we called the gable, named after the design element of old New England homes. He took the bill and gave it such a wicked crease down the middle the stiffening material was actually broken, creating the effect of a bottomless pyramid, or a proper snow dispersal system.

Things we don’t know about Chip:
Where he came from. Upstate New York we believe.
Why he came to a small rural town in New Hampshire.
How he talked almost from the top back of his throat, like his neck was pinched.

His son Kenneth, who we all called Kenny, became my friend when they moved to town in my 5th grade. Kenny, trying to establish some order, had pushed me down at the bus stop and threatened to throw me in the irrigation pond. I told him there weren’t a lot of kids around to play with so we might as well be friends. Then we were.

That’s how I got invited into the house (split level ranch, new construction) and had the opportunity to go through Chip’s record collection. Here I discovered an important country artist by the name of Waylon Jennings. Chip had the Dukes of Hazzard theme song on 45, and Kenny said his Dad could play it on guitar and sing it at the same time. No one else’s dad in town owned a guitar.

His father sang the national anthem before the start of important basketball games at the high school too. I was told by Kenny a Capella meant no musical accompaniment, and it was the hardest way to sing. It was looking like Kenny had a cool dad.