mike

The Hounds of the Baskervilles are baying. I can hear them now. The wind is blowing from the west, carrying the sound of their barking from the doggie day care center in the former factory across the river. It’s a sound you rarely hear, except perhaps in a fox hunt scene in a movie. Mike, the black lab, ignores them. He doesn’t realize he’s a dog.

Sunshine Patriot

Elmer Fudd is a patriot. At least he thinks he is.

When he moved into the house next door, the engine of his pickup truck had barely cooled before he began to put up a flagpole in the front yard.

He wore a camouflage suit and a matching baseball cap and had a handgun strapped to his thigh in case he had to defend himself from one of the neighborhood kids tooling around on their bicycles.

He dug the hole himself and wielded his shovel like a weapon.

The flag now flies 24 hours a day rain and shine. Today it hangs limply in a wind driven rainstorm.

Apparently Elmer never learned the rules about paying proper respect to the flag. That would take effort.

The Morning Patrol

A Walk on the Mild Side
Like a mangy old coyote with more limp than swagger in his step, I begin most mornings by patrolling my territory.

I live on a pine ridge in a town I‘ll call Riverdale. My cottage sits on a corner overlooking a river. One street is named after the first European settler in the area. He made his farm on the corn fields of the Native Americans who had their summer encampment on the other side of the river where a milltown now darkens the horizon. The other street is named after the brothers, who operated a general where the ferry crossed the river.

One hundred and fifty years ago there were two general stores at the ferry landing. When a Republican was president the post office was in one store and when a Democrat was in power it moved across the street.The ferry was replaced by a trolley bridge and finally an automobile bridge that crosses the river into the mill town.

The general stores have been replaced by a chain convenience store and the gas station, where I buy the newspaper every morning.

On the walk to the store I stroll past winterized cottages under 80-foot white pines. On the way back I walk along the bank of the river at the base of the ridge. That street is named after one of the town fathers who made his fortune in California during the gold rush. Rumor has it when he was digging the cellar of his home, he had to dispose of the remains of Native Americans buried there.

Nothing that dramatic has happened during my morning stroll, but it the river’s mood changes with the weather.

The Last Woodfire

It was too cold for comfort the morning of last wood fire. The outdoor thermometer trembled in a wind that bent the birch trees when I dropped young Sam off at School.

The temperature flirted with the teens, but I held off. I didn’t crumble the newspaper and arrange the logs in the Franklin stove until late afternoon.

As I poked at the laptop warmth radiated from the iron stove like a warm hug. The smell of the smoke was more pungent, the flames more exuberant that in midwinter.

As I walked to the woodpile, I remembered stacking logs in September. The turquoise tarp stretched over the cord of wood like a tightly-pegged tent at an Army encampment. Now the slack canvas flapped in the wind over a paltry jumble of split oak. We’d made it through another winter.

The first day of spring is a time of new beginnings, but every beginning marks an end. It was also the day of Aunt Dot’s funeral. Time for the brown suit reserved for special occasions and a tie that didn’t clash.

At the funeral home a handful of relatives chatted awkwardly in front of the blue casket framed by floral bouquets and a cork board with a photo array. Aunt Dot the younger in her sun dress and floppy hat. Aunt Dot with her husband, who died long and hard of Parkinson‘s disease in a local nursing home. Aunt Dot with her only son, the Elvis Presley look-a-like who died in a fire on St. Patrick‘s Day more than 40 years before.

But few got to enjoy the pictures. The funeral home was nearly empty. She had lived to be 100 and had outlived all of her friends.

The funeral Mass was said a St. Francis Xavier, the church that I attended before I lost religion. It was the first time in decades that I saw the choir loft, where I had played under the pews with my brother while my mother rehearsed the Ave Maria and the marble table where I served as an altar boy when the Mass was said Latin.

The smell of incense wafting from the priest’s censor, reawakened memories of growing up in the neighborhood when traffic lights were rare. Sneaking into the nature preserve to go camping. Fishing in the reservoir. Ham and bean suppers at the grange hall. Running through woods to the Christmas bazaar on the day that President Kennedy was killed.
As I left the church and loosened my tie, I wondered what memories my 11-year-old son was making.