Tricks and Manners

Overheard: On a trail at Hartwick Pines forest, a young boy and girl rushing down a hill together: 
     Girl: "I don't want to run, but I'm running! I don't want to run, but I'm running!"
     Boy: "I know!  Our feet are running automatically!"

Overheard: At a craft store, examining t-shirts with Husky dogs on them :
    Woman: "Gawd, I'd love t'git Butch one o'them."
    (Me, unspoken: "Is Butch a boy, a teen, or your husband? Your brother? Does he own a husky dog? Would he really like a t-shirt with a husky on it or is it only part of your illusion of Butch that he would like a t-shirt with a husky on it? How well do you know Butch, really? Would you like a husky dog t-shirt yourself? Or are you actually saying that you wish Butch were the kind of person you could give a husky dog t-shirt to?"  My brain contains an extra nosiness nodule or two, apparently.) 

Observed: From a picnic table by a parking lot, as I elected to sit quietly and knit in the sunshine instead of visiting the "Mystery Spot."
     A sea gull walking along the road. He glanced about with rapid eye, like Emily Dickinson's bird, but he did not hop sideways nor hop anywhere. He walked straight on and on, with no visible emotion, the whole length of the parking lot, at least five car lengths. Then he stopped, looked both ways, and walked across the road.

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And now, a real snapshot from my vacation, of an activity which prompted this essential question: When digging in beach sand, do fingernails get dirty or clean? 

BenAtLake

I breathed in a most evocative scent today. For a moment I didn't know where I was.

I'd been walking back up the mall toward the library at lunchtime when I passed a young woman going the other way. While she was still in view I noticed that her nonchalant air was being undermined by one's sense of its being assumed--I don't think deliberate nonchalance ever works, do you?

But then all that was forgotten as she passed me and I breathed in, in her wake, the exact, long-forgotten scent of the hand soap that was used, in the 1960s, in the ladies' bathrooms at White Cloud State Park. I recognized it immediately, as if forty years were nothing. Oh, it wafted me back to that park and to my childhood, and it made me want to laugh and cry, because I used to own that smell, I used to carry it away with me on freshly washed hands, and it was part of me. It was a nonchalant part of my world, uncherished and almost unnoticed, because we camped there so often, summer after long summer as I grew taller, and how can something that was a part of me be so gone? So gone.

And what was that smell? Is it really gone forever again, so soon after rushing back to me out of nowhere? Should I have run after the girl crying, "Wait, Wait!"?

Last night I finished reading Moby Dick. It was quite an experience and I would read it again, cetology chapters and all. Was expecting Queequeg to dive from the mast into the sea though... Ishmael said something early on about "Queequeg's last long dive," but the last I saw of him he was climbing up the masts with the others, presumably to watch Moby Dick coming at them. Maybe Ishmael meant the last long dive under, not into, the water.

Well, now I can say I have read "Moby Dick" and "War and Peace," two novels considered among the most intimidating. Though really they are not difficult at all, they just take perseverence. Being obliged to read them for work helps too--otherwise it's easy to keep putting them aside to finish later. Or the library book goes overdue, and you can't renew it anymore, and so you return it and then somehow it doesn't find its way home with you again. I've done all that.

Still, Moby Dick is a good read in spite of being famous. Umm, that's not quite what I meant; let me try again. If you start to read Moby Dick for any reason--because it's a classic or because you just feel like reading about whales or because you hate books that come to an halt too quickly--there's a good chance that you'll like it just for itself, without any critical essays or literary appreciations or Harold Bloomisms paving your way. It's just good.

Geordie

My dear brother-in-law and friend George Graham died of pancreatic cancer this morning at the age of 61. 

Geoge had only one sibling, a brother, so when he married a woman with two younger sisters, he took us straight to his heart. He even liked to call us "Sissy" to remind us of his affectionate "adoption" of us.

That happened over forty years ago, and in all that time, Geordie was there for us in good times and in bad. If we were doing well, he was very proud but never surprised, because he thought we were the greatest. If we weren't doing well, there was no problem we couldn't bring to him, nothing he wouldn't help us with, just as if the problem had been his own.

I remember once when I was still in college and had been struggling to take off some of the "Freshman Fifteen" pounds I'd put on, we went to visit George and Mary. He immediately noticed the difference, but he didn't make an embarrassing fuss about it; he just came up to me quietly and said the perfect thing: "It's so nice to see someone you love taking care of themselves. Good job, Sissy."

Another time in college, I was taking a golf class to fill the phys ed requirement, and had to bring in scorecards of rounds I'd played outside of class as homework. Geordie, a dedicated and talented golfer, took me to the course with him--but I had a terrible day and couldn't get a single wood shot off the tee! He was unfailingly encouraging at every attempt, no matter how many times I had to swipe at the ball, and he praised every shot that went well. At the end, he took my scorecard and wrote a note on it for my teacher to see. "Ruth has the ability," it said.

As I grew to know him better over the years, I saw more and more of one of his greatest gifts: when he was going to spend time with someone, he loved to create special, meaningful moments, just for them. You could tell he had thought carefully about what would be really nice to do together, and he planned it flawlessly. When we visited them in Canada, there would be a lovely home-cooked meal, the family around the beautifully appointed table--and then he'd slip out a minute to put some relaxing music on too. And there'd be a dinner out together at a favorite restaurant, usually one with unusual qualities to talk about, like being positioned high above an old millrace, or serving the best filet mignon in town.

And often there'd be a trip out to some interesting near-by place...a horse farm, a driving park, a Blue Jays game, a day at Ontario Place, a promenade near the Blue Water Bridge and the best French fries you ever ate... That was our last outing together, before he was diagnosed: fresh air and warm sun and a brisk breeze...idyllic place just to dream a bit, but more too, because Geordie knew the stories of how the bridge was built, and how long and wide the spans are, and why there's two of them, and all about the memorials around the base on the Canadian side...

He didn't have to get cancer in order for me to understand that he was deliberately creating memories that would last. I knew, as we all know, that we all go "someday." I just wanted to go on making more of them, enjoying more visits back and forth, and never think ahead to the day when spending more time together became, finally, impossible. Now Geordie's "someday" has come cruelly soon, and now I can only cherish those memories, and the effort he went to to create them, and the depth of caring that made him take the trouble. The time has come to recognize them for the treasures they are.

I could end this tribute just with that--what Geordie was like before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. But listen what he was like afterward, to understand the character of the man we have lost: he made his peace with death, and he went on living every day to make it the best and most he could. He spent time with friends and family--laughing and playing cards and watching hockey and gardening and having a rum & coke once in a while. And celebrating his 60th birthday, and then his 61st birthday, and traveling to see my niece graduate from high school, and helping my son battle Nintendo monsters ("Show no mercy!") . And driving elderly people to their doctor appointments and hair appointments. And to keep in touch, he'd send all manner of jokes and videos to us in emails--all of them conveying two messages, always: "Laughing is Good" and "Life is Good." And when he was well enough, he'd start them off with a note to his dear Sissies. 

His dear Sissies, who are going to miss him very much. 

Another look at a most enjoyable book. This selection appeals to me because when I lived in farm country, I knew every bump and hole in the ground too. Kalish is describing the hole to China in she and her cousins were digging in the back woods and how her uncle happened to fall into it.

Little_heathens

     "Now, you have to understand that farm people know their surroundings in a unique way. Before the advent of Roosevelt's Rural Electrification, most farmers did a lot of their chores in half-darkness. The consequence of this was that we carried around with us a cognitive map of every building, every plot of land, and every tree in the vicinity. Young and old alike would remember the location of a depression in the field, a gap in a fence you could crawl through, a tree branch that had fallen, a rut, a gopher or groundhog hole, a stone partially submerged on a path, even a nail protruding from a board in the cow barn. Farmers who have lived in one place for a long time literally know the place as well as they know the backs of their hands. And so it was that my uncle, confident that he knew every inch of the woods, tore after a pig that had escaped the pen. The night was falling very fast; it was almost dark, and he could hear the pig but he couldn't see it. He also could not see our pit to China and plunged headlong into it."

From Mildred Armstrong Kalilsh's Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression

"And unless you grew up on a farm, I'll bet you didn't know that by mashing about five slightly overcooked turnips with three slightly overcooked carrots, and adding a bit of butter and salt, you can make a surprisingly tasty dish. Serve hot. The family will love it."

Much of--even most of--the food Kalish describes in this book sounds delicious--I'm going to try making the Applesauce Cake for my book discussion group when we meet to chew over this book.  But overcooked turnips, whether mashed or fully orbed....ummm... how about you try it, and tell me how it is.

PoorOldMaple2

We lost another maple tree this week. A line of thunderstorms blew through Friday night and knocked over this one, but not in the street nor on the house. It was a considerate tree.

We used to have four shady, venerable maples in our front yard, one in each corner. The two in front of a house are traditionally called "bride and groom" trees; we lost our groom about three years ago. It also blew down in a storm; it also fell away from the house instead of on it. When the chain saws had done their work and it was reduced to a stump the size of a child's play table, we counted the rings, but after 200 they were hard to distinguish. I saved some sawdust from it in plastic bags to stuff dolls with, or make sawdust clay from. Haven't done it yet.

I'm not saving anything from this tree except the pictures. It was rotting inside, as you can see, but was still leafing out beautifully--not bad for two-hundred years old. I and you should do so well.

PoorOldMaple1

...Check out Emily's free book giveaway on her vox blog, here.

We recently visited Milwaukee, WI in order to see Marina Bychkova's Enchanted Dolls in person. Downtown there was an amazing bookstore we had to investigate. If you go to Milwaukee, don't miss it.

Fortunately, it's hard to miss. You can see their sign from all over. That's how we found it. When a store advertises itself as just "BOOKS" it has to be good.

Bookstore1

Then you park along the street and get up close to it. It turns out to have a worthy name:

Bookstore1a

Next you go inside. You find me already there, just getting started. Passing though the aisle of cardboard boxes, you give one a jab: Yep, it's full of unloaded books! Definitely a good place.

Bookstore2

You wander through the stacks. This is pretty much what all the stacks look like. Solid floor to ceiling, wall to wall books. There are four or five of these aisles on every floor. How many floors are there? You find a staircase going up and you guess, tentatively, two; but then there is another staircase. And another. And a wing off to the side of one. And also a staircase going down to the basement, where the magazines are. "Assorted magazines, because they are not sorted," says the clerk.

Bookstore3

So you find the fiction section and you check the shelf for one of your favorite authors, the obscure one that even Wikipedia hasn't heard of. You find two books of his that you didn't know existed. They cost under $10. And you find a copy of that old story book you had as a kid and can still remember the good lines from--that's only $6. (Yes, you bought it for 35 cents at your very first bookstore, the one you could ride your bike to, but for 45 years inflation, $6 isn't bad.)

Eventually you leave with five books and your pocketbook $24 lighter--cash and personal checks only accepted, no plastic payments here.

How can you tear yourself away?  Easy: you're coming back the next day.