This is from a sort-of joke email I wrote to a co-worker about another co-worker—a very mysterious engineer who looks and sounds like he’s lived 100 lives already. I wish he and I were friends…

I love Steve’s coat. I wish that Steve would be my friend and we could drink Jack Daniel’s together and talk about how dumb everyone is and he could tell me about the days when he rode across North America in a box car and traded food stamps and liquor with other tramps and then magically got into university and became an engineer slash business man and started to climb the corporate ladder and how he eats only really healthy food now but that is all counteracted by the fact that he smokes seven packs a day and has a gravelly voice and could be a great jazz musician if he really put his mind to it.

boxcar, businessman, cowboy, liquor, Marlboro man, run-on, tramp