A week of big transitions means blogging slacks. This week I returned to the classroom after a summer off. I wondered if I could still do it, still stand up there in front of those kids, still do my little song and dance.
After a few minutes teaching, I was back in the groove. Like riding a bike, I guess.
This is also the week I start classes as a doctoral student at the nearby State U. I’ve had to drive down a couple of times to take care of administrative trivia, registering for classes, trying to get my parking permit.
Soulessness pervades the place. The endless lines, the inhuman architecture, the acres of pavement, the blank faces–everything hints just a little too strongly of hell.
At least, after this Friday, I’ll have only 155 weeks to go.
Early in Spring 2007 I found myself nailing together a few big rectangles. It was our first full spring in our first house and the Mrs. wanted a garden. So one day in April I moved the CD player out onto the deck and spent an hour listening to Benny Goodman and building the frames that would mark off the growing plots.
The first year we overestimated. We planted multiple tomato and pepper plants. We planted other crops I’ve now forgotten. What I remember is nearly drowning in a flood of fresh vegetables. We were overrun. We would go to shower in the morning only to find tomatoes hunkered down in the tub, move to put on our shoes to find a pepper resting just inside. At night we could hear them rustling around under the bed. Sometimes, I’d wake up to find I was sharing my pillow with food.
People who don’t garden, the kind of people we had always been, have a hard time grasping how great is the bounty of the earth.
Our plants started producing in the early summer and were still going strong deep into October. We eventually just stopped harvesting and surrendered the rest to the rabbits and to the coming winter.
This year, we took a different approach. We planted a wider variety of crops but fewer total plants. The result has been much more manageable. This year we put down a few onions, all of which have now been pulled up, their spicy white bulbs ready for salads and sandwiches. A lone pepper plant has more than sufficed.
On the other hand, the tomatoes went wild. We put in only two plants but there was a lot of rain early in the season and they took off like rockets. At their zenith both stood five feet tall. Every morning in June I’d step out into the yard to see they’d gained another few inches while we slept.
It took forever to see some fruit. Unlike last year, we had no tomatoes until August. By that time the plants were so large they could barely support themselves in spite of the wire cages we stuck around them to hold them up. Right now they are comfortably slumped against the side of the house offering up a few slowly ripening specimens.
The real rogue this year however has been the watermelons. They were intended as an experiment. They turned out as a success, almost too great a one. From the tiny little buds that seemed sure to falter, the vines have grown into a monster which threatens to take over our yard. The tentacles of this plant begin in that little box I built and disappear in the distance. I’m convinced an old woman in Maryland is in her own backyard right now picking a watermelon off our plant saying, “Where did this come from?”
I don’t want to sound as if I am complaining about being blessed too richly. I’m not. We have more than we need. Along with our plants, we’ve cultivated a fair bit of gratitude and almost more than anything else what I’ve gotten from our garden is not so much food for our table but a sense of the wonder of how great is our provision.
We’ve had a house guest this week, one of the Mrs.’ former high school students.
She came to visit us after graduating from college, before starting her first job. Talk about a sense of the passing of time. Once she was a kid; now she’s a nurse. Funny how things happen.
As a result of her visit, we’ve been out a little more than we might normally have been. On Saturday, we took her to Frankfort to show her the Commonwealth’s capital city. We scaled the innumerable stairs up to the majestic cupolaed stone structure. We stood before its grandeur feeling dwarfed. We tried the door only to find it bolted tight.
It was quite a disappointment. I had so wanted our visitor to see the soaring marble staircases, the gleaming hallways, the stately statuary beyond those doors.
As we toured the outside, we nearly stumbled into a crowd gathered for some kind of military ceremony.
The speaker addressed a group of soldiers and civilians from the platform at the top of the state house’s back steps. Had we continued on our trip around the walkway we would have traipsed right through the ceremony in front of everyone.
We backed up, took a short flight of stairs and approached the crowd, this time from the rear. From there, we watched the last few minutes of the goings-on. A class of graduates from the National Guard’s Officer Training School were being awarded their stripes. One by one they were pinned and received their first salutes.
Afterward, someone opened a back door and we were able to enter the capitol building. An enormous brass statue of Lincoln occupies the center of the rotunda. Off to his left and behind him, standing in the corner, is Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America.
Davis, of course, lived a big chunk of his life in Kentucky, graduating from Transylvania University. I pointed out that his alma mater almost never lists “armed insurrection against the federal government” among her alum’s distinguished achievements.
That doesn’t bother me, but something I noticed during our visit disturbed me deeply. A sign printed on a plain sheet of white paper and taped to the door of the men’s restroom chided those stopping by to mind their manners.
“Please flush,” it said.
Really, I thought, is this kind of paternalism necessary? In the state capitol? For whom is this sign intended? I mean, you’d think if a man has what it takes to be governor, he wouldn’t have to be reminded about such things.
Anyone who’s visited New England knows the landmarks that make the region distinct: the lighthouses, the Boston skyline, the rocky beaches. Anyone who’s lived there knows that part of the landscape that is truly at the heart of modern New England life: the blazing multi-colored Dunkin’ Donuts sign.
DD shops are everywhere. There’s hardly anywhere in those six states where you can be more than a five-minute drive from having a hot cup of coffee and an old-fashioned doughnut in your mitts.
I once went Christmas shopping at a mall near our Massachusetts home. In the parking lot was a free-standing Dunkin Donuts store. In the mall’s food court, perhaps half-a-mile away, was a small DD store. Just in case some hapless customer lapsed into serious doughnut withdrawal between the parking lot and the food court, DD had installed a temporary truck selling coffee and doughnuts just outside the mall entrance. In the Northeast, the presence of three DD outlets within 2500 feet of one another is considered perfectly natural. Most New Englanders would happily rent DD space in their bedrooms for a standing 20-percent discount.
You can imagine our shock then when upon moving to Kentucky, we found nary a DD witihin driving distance. We are firmly in Krispy Kreme Kountry. Their sticky, sickeningly sweet forces dominate the competition. The only DD outpost we’ve so far managed to find is a full hour up the interstate.
That was, until Friday. Driving up a main artery near downtown Lexington today the Mrs. spotted a sign and gasped.
“Future home of Dunkin’ Donuts!” she was almost yelling.
We did not turn around immediately, but we’ll sure be keeping an eye on that spot waiting for the doors to open. When they do we’ll be near the front of the line ordering up a taste of home.
In high school, it was pretty clear who the popular kids were and who was on the outside. But figuring out the exact degrees of admiration and alienation was mostly guesswork.
As our twenty-year reunion approaches, a member of our class has built a Web site that lets us all know exactly where we stand.
After logging in, members of our class can create a profile and start forming connections. Every profile is equipped with a counter that tells how many times it’s been viewed.
The popular kids’ profiles, not surprisingly, have the highest number of hits. Even after twenty years, it seems a lot of people want to know what they’re doing.
Other results, like my own, are less predictable. I’d been viewed 144 times as of yesterday afternoon. The number puts me squarely in the middle of the pack–not jock-level popularity certainly, but certainly not exiled in Geekville either.
Restaurant serving portions have grown so much in recent years that the same amount of food that was enough for what the Bible calls “the feeding of the five thousand” would now probably be called “dinner for two.”
After tonight’s meal out with mom and dad, I can report that the trend seems to be going strong.
The Retroist’s mother ordered as one of her scrumptious sides, a baked potato.
When it arrived, that starchy tuber had promoted itself from the supporting role to star of tonight’s plated drama. The thing was the size of the Titanic and, quite probably, more seaworthy. Split down the middle, its halves were nearly flopping onto the table. Of course, to dress this monstrosity, the waitress delivered approximately one quarter-teaspoon butter.
The Retroist’s father captured the moment well when after considering the potato’s size he quipped, “Well, that must have been grown in Idaho–and Wyoming.”
Fed up with dropped calls and only being able to dial out half the time, I gave up and called T-Mobile support yesterday.
There is little I dread more than calling a corporation. I know what to expect: endless menus, instructions on which buttons to push, topped off with a long period of waiting on hold listening to what sounds like 70’s easy listening played on an old Casio.
Yesterday’s call went better than expected. I got an actual human being on the phone after just three or four menus. Arlene asked me several questions:
Had I changed the battery recently?
Do I power the phone off and on every day?
After I answered her, she offered a solution.
“We’ll have to do a phone reset,” she said.
“OK, what does that mean?” I asked.
She walked me through the procedure.
As soon as it was done, I could tell my phone felt better. No problems since.
Just before hanging up, I asked Arlene if I called back, would I be able to speak to her. These kinds of problems are so much easier to deal with if, instead of being passed around from one anonymous voice to another on the phone, I can deal with just one person every time I call.
“No,” Arlene said. “We can’t do that. We’re not allowed.”
Perfect. I can’t help but wonder what kind of company tells its customer service representatives they aren’t allowed to, you know, serve their customers.
We moved to this small town in the South, in part because, as much as we loved living in New England, we felt isolated. We knew many decent people, but wanted something more; something I began to wonder if the culture of New England wasn’t making nearly impossible for us to find.
I wanted to experience a way of living I had known as a boy. I grew up in a mid-sized town in Indiana. That day in September when we rolled up in front of our rented rooms here, in a town not so dissimilar from the one I lived in long ago, I hoped to find what I was looking for.
I’m happy to say I haven’t been disappointed. Last week, I walked from my office to lunch at the local diner, our town’s long-standing social hub. I wondered as I walked the tree-lined blocks on Main Street whom I might bump into there. Half our local government eats lunch there every day. Any terrorist whose goal was to decapitate our little hamlet and leave us leaderless would have no trouble figuring out where to strike.
As it happens, I beat the rush. I sat in the mostly empty restaurant watching the town come and go, families making their way downtown, browsing books, or looking for something Grandma might like. This, I thought, is what we need. Human beings were made for towns.
The pleasure and security that knowing your neighbors brings can’t be overstated. Knowing you live amongst people who see you as one of their own, whom you trust to have your back, to be there when they are needed is the essence of any community.
The tremendous anxiety so many suffer in this age has alienation at its heart. Many of us are alienated from God right on down to the grocer. We’re anonymous, a nobody, a bit of dust drifting on a current of hot wind.
Knowing your neighbors, living in a real town, helps quiet these fears and longings, at least for me.
Yesterday was a perfect example, the Mrs., the Chud and I came home from the church potluck and collapsed for a long Sunday nap. When we woke we elected to take a walk to savor the fine late-summer day. Our first stop was the library. Inside, it was almost closing time. In the few minutes I had to browse, I noticed I knew the name of just about every staff member. I could tell you exactly who it was who came and kicked us out when it was time to lock the doors.
Afterward, our family climbed the hill to the fire station. Firefighter Anne was on duty. We chatted a little while about how her best friend, who attends our church, had put her name on the list of musicians willing to come play for worship some Sunday morning. Firefighter Anne plays the bagpipes, but she’s shy about it. We’ll see if we can coax her into a solo.
Not everyone everywhere enjoys these casual benefits of community. Not everyone values them. But for us the chance to know, at least a little, the people who provide for us, whether that means finding us a reference book or finding us inside a burning building, is priceless.
Back in the early spring, I took a part-time job so we could get ahead. We had some debts a small infusion of extra cash would help us kill, so I signed on at the local chain video store.
Most weekends for the last six months or so, I’ve been riding register there, checking out scores of movies to hundreds of customers. Last night was no different.
Several weeks ago, I found this video of strange happenings at a Blockbuster in Mexico. It appears to show an employee being harassed by a ghost. Said ghost delights in knocking videos of shelves and leaving them on the floor, generally causing chaos in the store, and crushing the employees’ will to live. So, except for being invisible, he’s pretty much like every other customer.
See for yourself:
When the store manager isn’t working, shifts at our store are led by a stable of assistant managers.
After the rush one evening, I described the content of the weird video to that evening’s manager, Mr. E–.
“They say this store is haunted,” I said.
He looked at me knowingly, projected his bottom lip in a gesture of agreement, and nodded.
“Oh, I’ve seen things,” he said cryptically.
“What do you mean?”
He proceeded to tell me that in his four years of employment, he has seen a little blond girl repeatedly turn up in odd places.
“The first time was by the dumpster,” he said. “I was taking the trash out one night and when I opened the door (to the wooden structure that houses the dumpster) there was a little girl standing there. She had blond hair and a red jacket on. She was just kind of staring at me, well, not at me, but kind of through me,” he said.
I have no reason not to believe he saw something. I know Mr. E– well enough to testify to his basic sanity. He has no reason to lie.
I don’t believe he saw the spirit of a dead girl, though. What I suspect instead is that the girl is someone who lived in the area long ago, when the property was full of houses and fields. Maybe she liked to play, a hundred years back, in the spot where the dumpster now sits.
When Mr. E– saw her that night, I suspect, what he saw was a manifestation of an energy imprint her spirit somehow left on the place or, more wildly, that once in a while a hole opens in the fabric of time and Mr. E– catches a glimpse backward into the life of a red-coated little blond.
His claim to have seen her next to the dumpster bolsters my theories. Surely, he was seeing something in that used to be in that spot and is now gone. If what he saw was a disembodied spirit, an entity with the power to move through walls, to move about completely unencumbered by material obstructions, what could possibly compel it to hang out next to a dumpster full of video store receipts and half-eaten hamburgers from Sonic?
Mr. E– went on to say he’d seen the girl twice more. Once when coming from the back room where employees clock in and take breaks, he said he looked up and saw the edge of her red coat disappear behind a row of videos.
The most recent sighting was about a year and a half ago. Mr. E– was bringing a mop and bucket to the front to clean up after a day of business. As he approached the register, the girl was crouched down looking at merchandise on a low shelf.
Since I don’t believe he was seeing a ghost, I can’t say what she was doing. From her point of view, if indeed she was living in her own time, she could have been crouched down examining a flower, or playing with a kitten. I find this imminently more reasonable than the idea that our our store is haunted by the ghost of a nine- year-old girl who is considering purchasing the complete fourth season of the Sopranos.
If you considered the evidence and pronounced we had over-prepared for the Wheaton event, yours would be a just judgment.
Among the items we brought home were one large aluminum tray full of cooked burgers and dogs (lunch and dinner all weekend), a plastic storage tub still stuffed with raw onion, half an industrial-size keg of instant lemonade that sits at this moment on the mobile kitchen cart. I’ve been taking pulls off the tap all morning.
What we did not bring home is a stainless steel serving spoon we acquired as part of the massive haul of kitchen goods we took in at the wedding.
For me, that spoon has become a symbol of our domestic life. I loved using it to dish out the Mrs.’ Chicken Pot Pie or Shrimp with Feta and Orzo. Some objects just take on that kind of power. Why the spoon and not the salt shaker, or the bath mat?
Because that spoon has been involved in the making and serving of our meals. It has been a conduit of nurturing and nourishment. In my mind, these associations grew all around it.
After dropping last night’s leftovers anywhere when we arrived home, the house needed some serious attention this morning. To give the Mrs. some time to get the house in order, I agreed to take the Chud back to the park to look for the delinquent spoon.
It was not, alas, to be found, not under picnic table, or flopped in the dust next to the grill, not even tossed carelessly in one of the green mesh trashcans. Instead, of my finding the spoon, the Chud found the playground.
I stood by as she pulled her twenty-month-old form up the metal steps of the equipment, watched as she turned the little steering wheels attached to one its panels and said, “Beep, Beep.” This is the sound a bus makes, if you didn’t know.
Later, I put her in a baby swing, the secure kind with holes in the front for little legs to poke through. The weather was still great. It was just before nine this morning. The air held the last tinges of its morning chill. The birds sang. We were almost alone, playing on the sloping hillside.
I watched the Chud’s beaming face moving near, far, near, far in the swing. She smiled but said little, which was fitting for a moment of such peace. These are the moments we live for, these moments of quiet connection. They make the struggle worthwhile. They come as a gift, as life’s best reward to fill our sails once again with a strong wind, to make the losses a little easier to bear.
