For Your Reading Pleasure

“Excellent Gojo! Thanks for sharing!”

“I try to visit Heather's grave as much as possible - especially when I am anywhere near Stark - but the weeds Monday indicated that it had been longer than I remembered. I sat on the coping and began uprooting the grasses as I spoke to her aloud. The flora offered little resistance in the four inches of pea gravel above the quadrupled layer of polyethylene. Within 15 minutes the gravel was clean and smooth, and once again Heather had the prettiest gravesite in the Macedonia Baptist Church cemetery. I never knew Heather, but I have had more conversations with her these past 15 years than with most people I know.

I throttled back on the 40-horse Johnson - causing the Party Barge to lunge forward as she began coasting ever slower in the calm, flat-as-glass water. Just short of the dock, I killed the switch. The boat drifted silently in the still morning air.
"Ahoy mateys!"
There was no response from the cabin.
"Ahoy I say - ye scurvy dogs!"
The screen door swung open - seemingly on it's own. The deck rail conceals the bottom half of the door, as well as anyone under three-and-one-half feet in height. The door slammed back shut as a white haired, tan faced head popped up above the benchrail. It was Zachary - one of Heather's little brothers. His pacifier could not conceal his ear-to-ear grin as he waved almost frantically. There was nothing shy about this kid. The door opened again revealing Heather's mama.
"What are you doing?!" she shouted.
"Come aboard, swabbies - it's a beautiful morn that beckons our wake!" I yelled in response.
"Are you crazy? Where did you get that boat?!"
"Aye, pirates never tell - gather ye things and get aboard! I have all ye need but ye swimwear!"
Zach wasted no time. He was at the dock in a matter of seconds. I met him midway up the catwalk, then helped him aboard. I was fitting him with the extra small life vest I made sure to bring from the marina when movement caught the corner of my eye. Heather's mama was at the dock, making her way down the catwalk with a natural slink and swagger that would be the envy of the super-est of models. She appeared to be wearing only the tee shirt that concealed her two-piece bikini, yet left exposed her slim, muscular legs and well-toned arms - all of which were a bronze, August complexion in late May. She was also wearing that smile of hers that causes her to tilt her head *just so* - suggesting a certain shyness. In truth, she was ashamed to smile; she could hardly bear it this close to Heather's death. Her most prominate feature, however, were her eyes - her horrified, hazel eyes.
The day before, I visited some old friends for the first time in quite a while. Bud was dying of cancer, I heard, so I stopped by after mass. Bobbie told me about their cousins that were now living in her parents' lake house. Her parents, Fred and Adel Friddel, lived lakeside on Friddel Road - just a couple coves from where I was raised on Jackson Lake. I developed a close friendship with their grandson Mike. Mike was the son of Bud and Bobbie. They told me the story of Heather - the car crash - and about her mama and two brothers living in the old home place. They suggested I visit and introduce myself. I did - that afternoon. I walked into their home as if it were my own. It had been a home away from home for me for many years, and it had not changed a bit. The rocky driveway, the fence with the creaky gate, the wooden walkway - even the furniture; nothing seemed changed whatsoever. I was no stranger to it, or it's three new inhabitants. It was as if we had all known each other forever. I wonder. We visited for a few hours, then I left - stopping by the marina to reserve a pontoon boat for the next day.
I unfolded a lounge chair on the front deck of the boat, beyond the railing.
"This is yours" I told Heather's mama.
She stretched her big towel across it, then stretched herself across the towel.
"These are yours, too" I said as I handed her a Playmate cooler and a small paper sack.
The cooler contained a couple cokes and several beers. The sack contained some snacks, a box of Marlboros, a lighter, and a smooth, snugly rolled joint. I closed the little gate behind me, released the lines from the dock cleats, and began shouting orders to an imaginary crew:
"Weigh the anchor! Swab the plank! Spinnaker the mainsail!"
The passengers smiled. Within a minute, we were plying the waters eastward toward the shiny new sun, and into the fresh, rising breeze.
Zachary sat on the side bench nearest to me and the console. He studied how I controlled the helm long enough to gain an understanding of it's workings, then, without any warning, took the controls. It would be the first time I saw him without the pacifier. He took his self-assumed role as first mate seriously. I knew we were in good hands. I told him to turn left around the next bend - up the Alcovy. He nodded. I opened a beer. We went a couple miles up the Alcovy, then reversed direction toward the Tussahaw. A few miles later, we reversed again - this time back to the main lake toward the dam. Jackson Lake is small. Though when it was completed in 1917 it was the largest man-made body of water in Georgia - in fact, the dam was the first in human history to raise the water level by 100 feet. Yet that day it was so small... so constraining.
We were back at the cabin in time to meet Joshua - a kindergartener - at the school bus. He was one year younger than Heather. The four of us loaded into the car to go visit Heather's grave. It was an appalling sight. It was not even actually in the cemetery - exactly as Evanston, Wyoming is not in Utah. The headstone was slanted toward a large, gaping sinkhole that had developed in the ugly red clay above the vault. It was a paupers grave. Heather's mama began to cry.
"We'll fix this" I said.
I stopped by Ralph Wilson's office the next afternoon. He quoted prices for the various types of coping. Rather expensive.
"I'll do it myself" I told him.
Ralph Wilson raised his eyebrows slightly as his head swayed forward the backward with his eyes fixed toward the side of the room.
"Oh brother" he must have thought.
I gathered form plywood, polyethylene, bricks, and rebar from the jobsite where I was working and bought several bags of Sakrete from a local supply house. Bud had retired from the county road department, so the truckload of pea gravel was an easy jank. In a week's time, Heather had a splendid gravesite.
"That will last forever" Ralph Wilson said - acknowledging the well built, overengineered construction project.


I have not seen Heather's mama since the Fall of '94. She, the boys, and I had a wonderful summer that year - but alas they moved away to stay with Heather's grandmother.
But I do see Heather - as often as possible. As I am sure her mama does. I keep the grave as presentable as I can for those occasions when her mama visits. I want Heather's mama to sit on the coping as I do. I want her to talk and smile. But mostly I want her to cry - but only for the right reasons.”

“That was a good one, Joe.

Doug”

“It was a miserable day. It was windy and wet - sleety but for a couple degrees fahrenheit. It was perfect weather for generous mouthfuls of steamy waffles and scrambled eggs between sips of piping hot Huddle House coffee. I was grateful to be hunkered down at the warmth and din of the busy counter as the chill gradually dissapated from my stiffened, middle-aged bones. It was certainly no weather for a lady to be left standing outside the door - especially one much my elder - so I hastened to bring her inside.
A late model luxury sedan had pulled up near the entry doors. A woman about my age exited the driver's door and scurried around to the other side and opened the door for her mama. She helped her mama get out, and patiently escorted her to the doors - returning quickly to the car so she could get it properly parked. Not waiting for anyone else to do the honor, I sprung from my stool and into the vestibule. I extended one arm as the other held a door open.
"Get'n this house, ma'am, before we both freeze!"
She took my arm as she looked at me with extrordinarily bright eyes and a warm, sincere smile.
"Why thank you" she said in a clear, vibrant voice.
I escorted her through the vestibule and into the crowded lobby, leaving her standing, at her behest, near the entrance to await her daughter.
Oh, how she reminded me of my grandmother! I fondly remember riding with Mama Blanton in her two-tone Edsel as she made her Avon rounds about Sand Mountain. I remember how she practiced what she preached; never leaving the house without first fussing over her hair and fixing her face and getting dressed up. I remember the soft skin of her cheeks - that soft, velvety, skin. I remember it well. That is who this lady reminded me of - Mama Blanton. She was petit and pretty and dressed. She had that certain glow of confidence about her. She even had an Avon fragrance - surely that was Avon I smelled. I wanted to give her a hug and kiss her cheek.
Her eyes. The wisdom they evoked. They had that look of having known things that we will never know - especially things from the old Jim Crow days. I was more than happy to bring this old woman in from the cold - it was the least a true Southern gentleman would do.”

“When did you hit her up for $$?”

“You don't have the hots for your grandmother, do you?”

“Thanks for reading my thread, guys :)

You don't have the hots for your grandmother, do you?”
No. But I was away in Idaho when she died, and was not able to get home in time for her funeral. I deeply regret that. I was grateful to have been able to spend alot of time with her in her final months, though.

You should try a grandsoning sometime. It's the s#it!
last edited: 11/04/09 9:37:20 AM”

“Joe, we all do the best we can with what we were dealt.

Doug”

“Joe...Yeah....ok”

“Nice!!!!”

“Here's to the land of the long leaf pine,
The summer land where the sun doth shine,
Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great,
Here's to "Down Home," the Old North State!
~North Carolina state toast



We are drawn to music. We listen here and there in our never ending search for the comfort or inspiration that it offers. Some have collections in which they have invested thousands of dollars - not only for records, but for the equipment by which to play them. We make music. We gather by hundreds to produce sound loud or gentle, or sit alone with a guitar or a flute. I have a guitar. I actually built a banjo. I barely know the former, and the latter is even more alien. I played clarinet in marching band, and bass clarinet during the concert season - simply to join with others to produce noise with a rhythm.



Yet our efforts fall short of the sounds of nature. Who could ever replicate the babbling of a brook, or the whistles of a songbird? Or better still - the symphony of the long leaf pine? The long leaf - nature's ultimate woodwind. Maw maw and Granddaddy had several in their South Georgia yard. I would often spend hours lying in the warmth of the lush centipede lawn and listening to the never ending symphony borne of the wind - sometimes being lulled into a deep slumber under the cloudless sky.



Not the loblolly, or some short leafed variation - but the long leaf. It's thick, scaly bark captures the breeze like no smooth skinned tree could ever hope to. It produces a murmuring hum that provides the bottom sound upon which the symphony rides. The needles - thick and long and lush - provide a high pitch whisper as if to be telling a bedtime story. But what sets the long leaf apart is it's massive cones. They produce the signature tone that, when combined with the other sounds, completes a composition like no other sound in nature, let alone from the minds or mouths or hands of men.



"I'm glad there's a breeze - maybe it'll knock these gnats down."
"I'm glad the wind's blowing, too, Maw Maw."

Think I'll stretch out under the pines for a while...”

“I must have been seven years old, making the year 1965 - probably summer. Me and two buddys were deep into the woods of the property behind The Meadows Elementary School. The school yard and my back yard met at a gate. My suburban house was only four years old, and the school half that. But the surrounding land was old - old as the farmer that owned it - and as much a relic of a time when cotton was king. The sunny fiields were overgrown with broom sage and patches of wild plum and blackberry. The fences and hedgerows had become impenatrable partitions accessable only through the occasional burrow or the rutty three-track roadways. My friends and I had explored every acre of the high, exposed land - all the way to the homestead and it's small pasture patrolled by a vigilant, evil mule.

The woods were another story. They were dark and deep and too spooky for most of the kids in the shiny neighborhood. There were surely a few diehards that would venture out of view of the seesaws and monkey bars - so I searched them out, and appointed myself their captain. I invited them to venture deeper and deeper into the darkness not out of some natural leadership quality, but out of fear; as badly as I wanted to explore the three-tracks and creekbeds and ancient hardwoods, I would have never gone it alone.

So finally, there we were - my recruits and I. We found where morning spends the day. Where creeks join hands and leap giggling into deepening gullies - exposing the gnarled footings of sycamore and poplar and yellow pine. Where the sounds of suburbia give way to the whispers of flora and the sonatas of fauna. Where every bend opens another fold of a quilt of greens and grays and browns trimmed in all shades of black. Our courage was rewarded beyond my wildest expectations. I was alive like never before.

Then came a clamour. Beginning first as muffled clanks, then growing into a loud, rythmnic rumble as it drew closer and closer. The mutineers dashed away like rabbits, but I remained still. I am not sure why. I was standing in the road when the mule appeared from around the bend. Then the wagon and it's old teamster. I stepped aside atop a low embankment as the old farmer drew slack and whispered a gentle "whoa". We were eye to eye.
"Wonna ride?"
What? This man was offering me a ride? A wagon ride?! Shaa!
I leapt aboard. The mule knew where to go, and went. As riding a motorcycle compares to riding horseback, so does a car compare to a wagon - there is little in either. The wagon would lunge and lurch to the pace of the mule as we moseyed along slopes and hilltops and muddy bottoms. The seat would squeak and bounce mightily as we crossed ruts and fallen limbs, and the harness clatter where chain met shackle and shackle met metal and rope and leather - all to the pulse of a living creature. A creature not so evil after all.

We must have riden every road on the property. I got a view like never before - discovering the land all over again. We ended up at the big barn of the homestead. The farmer's wife was sweet and friendly and accomodating - fetching ice water for me and her old man. I skipped away home having three new friends that no one else would ever know - not my other friends or my family. I gained a place that always offered the shade of a porch and a cool drink and warm cookies. I also gained free access to anywhere on the property I wanted to venture - even the pasture, for the mule never again chased me away.”

“How can I grasp you
Overwhelming love?
Seems I could better undo
The stars above.

To explain the sight of the bee,
Or the scent of a rose,
Would be easier for me
Than that, I suppose.

Even to leap into flight
And light not for days
Would be more in my right
Than to know your ways.

It matters little what I know or try or say -
It matters only that she will show me the way.”

“gojo, you should have been a writer for sure.”

“change "she" to "He" and it makes a great poem about God.”

“Okay, how do I post?”

“Good one, Joe. It reminds me of my own childhood in a brand-new neighbourhood bordered by abandonned farm fields.

I was also 7 in 1965, BTW.”

“I must be losing it!”

“OOps, it's working again. I was 7 in 1955; I graduated from high school in 1965.”

“Wildlife encounters are the rule rather than the exception for backpackers. Standing face to face with a wild animal can be quite exciting - downright exhilerating, in fact - especially when one is solo, and miles from the nearest human. There was the bull elk standing in a clearing, 50 feet away as Sarabelle and I came around a bend in the trail descending McGowan Peak in Idaho's Sawtooth Range. It was a typical encounter; we all stood frozen for that milisecond before he crashed away through the dense thicket - sounding suddenly as large as an elephant as he mowed down everything in his path. Then there was the echoed, clippty-clop of padded hooves across the scree field near the top of Iron Creek Point, Idaho. It drew my eyes upward to get a full view of a massive mountain goat ram not 100 feet away. He looked to be chiseled from white marble as his muscular frame flexed and extensored to form shadows that pronounced every contour of his well-proportioned form. My God - what a sight to see as he floated silently ghost-like up the vertical cliffside. And deer, whether they be white-tailed or mule-eared. These antlered friends must inhabit every nook of this great land. They have on numerous occasions waltzed right through camp - sometimes inviting Belle for a game of tag only to prance away priking and bucking when she takes them up on their offer.

Those are but game animals, however. The adreneline does not fully course until the animal is their (and potentially my) nemisis - the predator. The American alligator has caused me to go flush on a number of occasions. While hiking cross-country in the parched Big Cypress Preserve, Florida, Sarabelle and I came across a "gator sink" teeming with quite adult specimens of the South's official lizard. Their scurrying and splashing upon our sudden arrival was momentarily heart-stopping. Needless to say, we quickly went on our way. On one occasion, I was wading Lake Whitney on Georgia's Cumberland Island searching for a canoe I had come across on a previous hike when I suddenly found myself thigh-to-snout with one of those fat-sized gals. I wonder if there might be two species of gator, for some are much stouter than others of the same length. Whatever - this one was massive in proportion to her 7 foot longitude, and her mouth was closer to me than to the tip of her own tail. Cooly, I implemented my usual defense: I froze. She finally submerged and let out a trail of bubbles in the sweetest direction imaginable.

Bears. Oh my. I happened upon a bear's territorial marking in the Tetons of Wyoming. They were fresh claw marks in the soft bark of a western pine - revealing the white, oozing flesh behind. They were as high as I could comfortably reach with my hiking staff. I shuttered. I almost wet myself one night as I laid awake in my tent listening to a mama black bear (I say "mama" because I had heard her grunt commands to her little ones) sniffing the perimeter of my tent. Her snout was within inches of my trembling face whan Sarabelle let out a low but very audible growl. The bears left el haste. I came across a baby bear while bushwhacking in Georgia's Cohutta Wilderness. It turned out to be a huge pile of black-haired scat. There were three more piles - forming a square of about 12 feet. I was in his bathroom, and he was watching me. I know he was watching me. My neck hairs not only stood up, but they leapt off and ran away. I slowly hurried back to the trail a half-mile away.

So how would one react to being face-to-face with the largest and fiercest predator on solid Earth? One can never tell until that moment occurs. And for me, that moment has occured.

The brown bear can reach 1500 pounds, but this one was probably no more than 1000. A mere 800, perhaps. Whatever - he could have closed the 100 feet of hillside between us in two seconds, and would have felt nothing short of tyrannasaur-ish upon impact. How silly of me to move toward him, but a small tree was blocking the better part of the line of sight between us. This movement alarmed him. He perked-up like a dog, and turned squarely toward me. The round head and tufted ears were a dead giveaway - this was no black bear... this was a grizzly.

We stood staring at each other for a few seconds. He was as courious about me as I was about him. I was too excited to be afraid. Then he suddenly snorted a bellow and spun to his left to reveal his hump as well as his impressive mass. This guy was huge, but I was still not even marginally afraid. He then bounded once then twice then a third time. Each impact of his front paws caused a shockwave to flash the full length of his grizzled fur. His muscularture was visible with his movements as he launched with his hind legs and landed on his front - stretching to at least a dozen feet from fingers to toes in the interem. I was absolutely mesmerized. I absorbed every instant to fully understand, process, and comprehend them before filing under "Damn - Just Damn!". In three strides and half as many seconds he covered 75 feet, and vanished into a patch of trees in the alpine landscape.

Back in town a few days later, my brother and his friends laughed at my Southerness - claiming I would be expected to mistake a Rocky Mountain cinnamon black for a griz - especially in a range they supposedly had not inhabitated for 50 years. Frankly, I do not care what they thought. I know what I saw, and that I will carry that vivid memory for the rest of my days. Just as that grizzly has.”

“Nice read.”

“+1”

“gojo, you ever read anything written by Enos Mills? I think you'd enjoy his writings.”

“How can I describe
This warm winter day?
My pen lies still -
Knowing not what to say.

Perhaps a painter,
With canvas and oil,
Could say in her way,
Without much toil.

Or maybe a sculptor,
With chisel held true,
Could bring from his marble
A sample for you.

A singer of song
Might entrance your ears
With such a description
That it brings you to tears.

But me and my pen?
No sir - no way
Could we ever describe
This warm winter day.”

“Thanks for sharing.”

“Thanks, Joe, I'm feeling better now.”

“I don't read.”