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Thanksgiving Storyteller

5/31/2015

We have nearly finished gorging. Talk is desultory and largely focused on gastric distention. The boys are still swallowing, but even they are slowing down. The turkey remains are a raggedy tangle of bones and skin. Frank, the patriarch, is winkling a nugget off the the far side with the carving fork.
“This reminds me – did I tell you about my truck?” he inquires of the turkey.
“More beans?” asks his wife Alice, who has heard about the truck. “Alex? Benj? Helen? There’s lots of squash left. And potatoes. There’s more gravy in the kitchen. Are there any cranberries left?” No takers.
“It all started back in early October with a little clicking.” Frank proceeds, a bit louder so as to be heard over Alice’s desperate offers. “I thought it was something in the heater or the cooling system. Intermittent thing, you know. I would’ve let it go except with winter coming, I wanted it to be in good shape. Well, the best shape you can expect from an old truck anyway, heheheh. Well anyway I took it into the garage next to my office…”
“Could I get the gravy?” whispers Frank’s youngest, Alex, pointing at the jug next to my elbow which is firmly planted in a congealed puddle of the stuff, I now discover. I pass it across the table.
“…and got the mechanic to look at it and he told me the engine was gone – wouldn’t make it through the month, much less the winter. Told me what I needed was a new engine. Well, of course, for such a major repair I wanted to get a second opinion,…”
Helen catches Alice’s’s eye, and asks, sotto voce, if she could get her recipe for that wonderful snow pudding she makes at Christmas.
“…so I took it into the GM dealer and they put it up on the hoist and had a look and told me sure enough the engine was shot,”
“Actually, it’s not my recipe – Maggie brings it – it is nice isn’t it?”
“…cylinders so badly worn no amount of new rings and reboring would help. So I took it back to the garage next to the office to save myself a few bucks on labor,…”
Alex turns to Benj, who works at Killington. “Have they opened the east slope yet?”
“…and they got a reconditioned engine and put it in. Well, a week later, I was driving around town and it just stopped. Just stopped.”
Helen flags down Maggie at the other end of the table and puts her request.
“A brand new engine and it just stopped. Well you may be sure I mentioned this to the garage and they came and got it.”
“Yeah, we’ve been making snow every night this week, and there’s some natural snow too – really good shape,” replies Benj.
“No delays. And agreed to fix it, whatever the problem might have been, and quite right too. A new engine!”
“Of course,” says Maggie “it’s not a family secret or anything, haha. Just give me your address and I’ll mail it to you.”
“So they got it up on the hoist and found something wrong with the fuel pump. Pulled it off and were about to put on new connectors…”
Alex turns to me: “So I hear you’re taking courses up at UVM?”
“…when somebody 2 bays down, who was repairing an exhaust system, fired up a welding torch…”
“Thanks,” says Helen, patting down her pockets looking for a notebook. “I’ll find a piece of paper after dinner.”
“…lighting off the gas that had dribbled out of the fuel pump and lighting off a bonfire underneath my engine…”
“Well, don’t know about multiple courses, but I have found one that looks interesting.”
“…that rose from the floor up through the engine compartment completely destroying all non-metallic parts…”
“Are you finished Alex?” asks Alice.
“…and causing a mess that defies description. All the hoses and plastic fluid tanks, wiring harnesses…”
“Yeah, I’m pretty well done – why?” asks Alex warily.
“…everything melted and oozing down onto the floor. First I knew of it I came back to the office and saw the fire engines out front…”
Maggie, over by a side table, has scrabbled a pad and pencil out of a drawer. “Hand this to Helen, would you?” she passes it down the table.
“…and I thought the fire department had come to get their truck fixed or something, but then I smelled the burning plastic and spotted the smoke…”
“Could you clear off the plates down at that end of the table? Maybe Benj’ll help you. Thanks.” Says Alice, beginning to collect dishes up at her end.
“…and so I went over there and that’s when I found out that it was my truck that had been incinerated. Lordy what a mess.”
Benj picks up my plate and the leftover carrots and sidles out toward the kitchen. “You were done, right?” he smiles over his shoulder.
“Of course there was no question that the garage will fix the mess. Of course my office is right next door so the guy knows I’m a lawyer…”
Helen writes her address on the pad and passes it back to Maggie. “I really love that pudding – perfect after a big meal.”
“…and there’s some advantage in that, and I hope nobody tells him the closest I get to a courtroom is a title search…”
I peer up the table at Maggie. “While you’re at it, could you dash off a copy for me too?”
"…but still there are so many little bits and pieces he needs to find and get there’s no telling when I will actually get the truck back.”
Chairs scrape. Everybody lumbering to their feet, groaning with pangs of overeating. “Sorry about your truck,” I murmur to Frank on my way to the kitchen with the leftover cranberries.

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Fawn

5/25/2015

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One year the road crews got a deal on brilliant white marble chips and used them to disguise the potholes and washouts along the road as soon as the mud stabilized in the spring. The result was that our lumpy little road suddenly became a fairy tale lane aglitter with sparkling gems and alight from within. One sunny afternoon after this dazzling transformation and before the dairy farm’s industry dulled its luster, I was driving down one of these never never stretches, when I spotted a dark blob silhouetted up ahead in the middle of the lambent road. “A pox upon this agricultural residue, and the cows it came to town in,” I thought as I approached. And then I thought the blob moved. I slowed down in case my mind was suddenly gone. And then the blob changed shape. I slowed some more. And then the blob resolved itself into a deer standing in the middle of the road. Now I was down to a dead crawl. I was almost upon her.

She twitched and dithered and finally soared into the woods next to the road. I was nearly at the spot where she had been, but there was still a blob. A very small blob, which finally staggered to its tiny wobbly feet and staggered in the direction its mother had gone.

I stopped the car on top of the blob site and got out to look. There was a pretty good sized berm beside the road here, beyond which was a deep ditch. Then the hillside rose steeply into the trees. There was no sign of the deer. There was also no sign of the fawn. I couldn’t believe the little creature could have made it up onto the berm much less down into the ditch and up the other side. I walked up and down the road peering into the ditch, looking behind bushes, parting the grass. Nothing. I was standing on top of the berm about to throw in the towel. I looked down to find a foothold. There was a big leaf there. I lifted it up and there was the infant, folded neatly into a tiny speckled mound, like an exotic dessert, absolutely motionless except for its long velvety nose. I studied it carefully, its little legs folded up like carpenters rulers, its velvety ears pressed close to its neck, its long, soft nose moving almost imperceptibly, just as it was in utero.

Jim would love this, I thought. It was only a quarter mile back to the house. I backed away and studied the trees, the bushes, a mossy rock, so I could come right back here, and then went home.

We returned in minutes. I had no trouble finding the trees, the bushes, the mossy rock, but I could not find the fawn. I couldn’t believe the little fellow would have sprung to his feet and scampered off so soon. The both of us walked up and down the road looking into the ditch. Then I saw my big leaf. I bent double and looked under it. It was still there, still immobile, with its waffly little nose still probing its small world.

Now, I have read about cryptic coloration allowing moths and lizards to blend into their surroundings. I have seen photographs of zebras under trees and leopards in them, but it is my belief that this went far beyond that. This was not optical trickery. This was pure witchcraft.

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The Joy of Lists

5/16/2015

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Some of the most satisfying moments in life come upon completing something. Anything. The contents of my attic bear mute testimony of my repeated and rarely successful attempts to achieve this happy state. There are a dozen or so half knitted sweaters, boxes of dismantled small appliances, various projects involving textiles, and many many garments with missing buttons or split seams. There are photograph albums, partially filled, and heaps of unsorted photographs waiting to be sifted into them. There are half-done paintings, and apple crates filled with tax records in no particular order either by year, type, or importance. My desk looks like an entropy wave broke on it; there are addresses on postit notes, the backs of order forms, envelopes, and quite a few in my address book, which I can sometimes find.
One day I will resolve some of these things, and I will feel uplifted. But not today.
Instead I will make a list. There is a technique to this. First you need to understand that every list should have a purpose. A grocery list, for example, should display items that you can easily obtain on your next trip to the shops. Such a list should never contain significant items such as “refrigerator” or “sports car.” Major items each need a list of their own noting important features such as “manual transmission” or “upholstery that will not show dog hair.” Also you should never include service needs like “repave driveway” or “repair furnace” since in all likelihood these tasks will involve days of telephone communication, negociation, and scheduling, and other items on such a list stand in peril of being overlooked.
It is OK to make a list of tasks such as “Muck out the attic” which you know you will never do. The purpose of this sort of list is to demonstrate how hard-pressed you are so that you have a ready excuse for not doing something else. For example, your aunt unexpectedly phones wanting you to canvas your neighborhood for contributions to her church jumble sale. You can quickly glance at your impossible list and explain that Calvin will be coming soon (never mind it is next June) and you need to clear out the attic and repaint the woodwork before then so that he can set up his electric train.
This sort of defensive list should not be confused with the purely recreational list which is typically undertaken for its own sake. Birdwatchers, for example, have been known to keep a list of every bird they have ever set eyes on. This list serves no useful purpose, is not suitable for publication, has not the slightest value to posterity, but is of intense and abiding interest to the birdwatcher. I have not heard of people who are drawn to fish or mushrooms or dogs or orchids keeping such lists but perhaps they do.
One year I kept a list of every piece of mail I received from the most exalted personal manuscripts to the lowliest grocery flyer. There were 1940 items, the overwhelming majority being junk that had to be handed straight off to the recycle. This year I am keeping a list of phone calls, an increasing number of which appear to be mendicants of one sort or another. I couldn't say for sure because I don't answer these calls any more than I read the rubbish that comes in the mail. Again, nothing useful is likely to emerge from this, but it amuses me.
But I digress.
The most important list is the list of things that you know you can realistically achieve in a day. This list should be tailored to your mental state. If you are feeling happy and optimistic, then go ahead and include something from the attic, or some overstuffed closet. Make it a short list with items like “Clean garage,” but make sure to include something you can actually finish, like “Empty the trash.”
On the other hand, if you are feeling gloomy and depressed, what you need is a really long list of achievable things like “Hang up pajamas” and “Put away blender.” You need at least a dozen such things; the more the merrier. Take the list with you as you sigh and shuffle through the day, and cross off each thing as you do it. You should feel perkier by lunchtime. If you find yourself doing something that is not on the list, finish it up and then put it on the list and cross it out. By the end of the day you should have a long list of things that you actually did, that are complete. Now you can sink down in front of the evening news in a warm glow of satisfaction, and start on the attic tomorrow.

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Fox Dreams

5/13/2015

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I saw a fox once at a game park designed to instruct folk on the habits and lifestyles of the wildlife that used to be there before the highway came through. The fox was in a large cage with an illustrated placard in front describing what it ate and what it did in the winter. There were some beavers nearby with their own placards, and caribou and a black bear. All these creatures were separated from each other by a chain link fence, and from the viewing public by a moat. There were a few trees in the cage and bushes and rocks and a den carefully designed by a wildlife biologist to simulate a home the fox might once have chosen for itself. It had even been given a companion to share the den with. Everything was provided.

The fox was at the back of the cage when I saw her, pacing along the chain link fence on a well-worn path as she must once have done in some woodland, stopping from time to time to sniff at a rabbit run or scratch under a fallen tree that might yield a plump vole. Always wary, watchful for the many dangers she shared her home with, lynx, wolves, dogs, hunters.

She would scamper along a hedgerow today on the lookout for nests of partridges or pheasants that might harbor an egg or a chick for supper. At the end of the hedgerow is an open field. The fox hunkers down, hidden by brambles, and surveys the vista for a while, sampling the perfumed summer air with its freight of damp grass and fallen leaves. Finding nothing amiss she lopes off across it to a copse beyond, where there is a stream. Safe again in the undergrowth, she slows her pace, stops for a drink, and finally seeks out the cool, musty darkness beneath a familiar stump to rest. Tomorrow she will go up the wooded hill on the other side of the valley.

Then that terrifying day, a moment’s inattention or a single wrong decision, and the trap was sprung. Struggling and snapping in the net, strong hands bundled her into a truck. Terrified and confused by the sharp smells, loud noises, she crouched in her dark cell until she was brought at last to this place where she can live a long comfortable life with her assigned companion without danger, worries, or care. Raw meat and vitamin supplements arrive on schedule twice a day and fresh clean water dribbles constantly into the concrete basin near her warm, dry den where her companion is sleeping.

Such a lucky fox. So why does she spend her days pacing back and forth along the chain link fence and her nights dreaming of voles?

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The View from the Periphery

Thanksgiving Storyteller

Fawn

The Joy of Lists

Fox Dreams

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