the spring of one's discontent

[delilahmused]

Good story, coach, with just one glaring error:

The guy who created the "Piss Christ" has more artistic talent than Atman.

If I dipped my dogs paws in paint and had them walk across a giant piece of butcher paper, they would have more talent than Atman! I have no idea what makes him think he's an artist. Maybe his first grade teacher once praised him for his drawing so as not to embarrass him and he's taken that as a sign.

Cindie

[franksolich]

Just before 6:00 a.m. the other morning, I was standing out on the back porch, a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other, enjoying the panoramic view of the meadow, the river, and the Sandhills beyond.

It appears spring’s finally arrived.  It wasn’t a cold winter, although the last half of April’s seen record-setting low temperatures and tons of snow.  It’s been most peculiar; six out of each seven days it’s been like spring, everything growing green and lush, temperatures in the 70s.....and one out of each seven days it’s been like early January.

This week, it was Monday that a blizzard had happened; last week, it was Tuesday, and the week before that, Monday, and the week before that one, Tuesday, and the week before, Tuesday.  One day out of each seven, massive snowfalls, all of which suddenly evaporated the following day.

Because these have been one-day phenomenons, with low temperatures in the high 20s, they didn’t affect anything growing up from the ground, which as been going on since mid-March, although it started a month earlier than that on the William Rivers Pitt, which is “warmer” than the soil surrounding.

Just as I turned to go back into the house, a guy trod out from the back door.

A thin and wiry cowboy, maybe mid-20s, whom I’d never seen before.

He stopped in his tracks, startled, but I managed to re-direct his stare upward, to my eyes.

He told me I was to call the owner, that it was an urgent matter and I needed to talk with him right away.

Well, if it was that important, best I go immediately to town for a face-to-face encounter, rather than using the telephone, so I quickly got dressed and left.

- - - - - - - - - -

An hour later, I was in the waiting room of the hospital in the big city.

Late the previous night, there’d been a drunken-driving accident, and the property caretaker had been seriously injured.  It’d been touch-and-go most of the night, but by the time I heard of it, his condition had stabilized and he’s going to make it okay.

My first thought had been that the caretaker had been drunk and was to blame for this, as he drinks a lot.

But in this case, that wasn’t the case; he’d been cold sober.  The driver of the other vehicle, who escaped unscathed, had been sordidly drunk.

Even though it was early in the morning, the waiting-room was jampacked with people from town.  The caretaker, who’s 67 years old, is a life-long resident, and enormously popular.  He’s a thin, wizened bald little guy with (apparently; I wouldn’t know myself) a high-pitched voice and obviously with a bug-eye that can drive one nuts if one looks at it long enough.

He’d spent much of his growing-up years around this place, being a shirt-tail relative of the owners, and had gone to Vietnam during the mid-1960s.  When his first tour there was up, he re-enlisted for another one, as many of his friends were still in service there.  He came back home, undamaged.

He began working for the steel company in the big city, married, and had a son.  But his wild streak wasn’t purged out of him until he was in his late 20s, and one day ended with himself and his super-duper motorcycle in a ditch.  Helmets weren’t required at the time, and he sustained some brain damage, happily only minor (but noticeable) and acquired the bug-eye.

After recovery, it didn’t keep him from working, and he finished thirty years at the steel plant, after which he became caretaker of various properties the owners have scattered around the county.

- - - - - - - - - -

The caretaker’s wife was there, and I kissed her.  So too were his son and daughter-in-law, and I shook their hands.  But then because there were so many people around and because there wasn’t a thing I could do myself for anybody, I left.

The caretaker’s always called me “young man” when he’s sober, and “boss” when he’s drunk.  (And so usually he’s called me “boss.”)  It’s sarcasm, of course, because he’s much older than I am, and wiser.

He’s been an invaluable friend in that whenever I’ve been full of it, he’s told me so without pulling any punches.  We all need such people in our lives, so as to maintain a realistic perspective about ourselves.

I’m very grateful he’s going to make it.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The next morning, the neighbor was here.  I’ve seen him only rarely the past ten days, and that for only a couple of minutes at a time, because of the recent birth of his fifth child, a daughter.

“Well, what do you suppose is going to happen now?” I asked; “you can’t tell me because you don’t know any more than I do, but [the caretaker]’s going to be out for at least three months--”

“Oh, but he’s not coming back,” the neighbor interrupted.  “Of course, he’s coming back, and he’ll be hanging around here and everywhere else, especially during hunting and fishing seasons, but he’s not coming back as caretaker.

“When he retired from the steel mill, he’d hoped to relax, but then [the family of the owner of this, and other, properties] prevailed upon him to come to work for them, after their previous overseer went to operate a hog farm in the next county.  Because of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush Prosperity, everybody already had jobs, and it was hard to find a replacement.

"This was an ideal set-up, they thought; since he was family, and knew all the properties, and since he wasn’t doing anything in particular, well, it was just ideal.

“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s taken its toll.”

No, I said; “I hadn’t noticed.  He’s always been as animated as vinegar-and-beans.”

“Well, both of us have a long ways to go, to reach 67, but I imagine by the time we do, we’ll be tired too.”

Hmmmm.  I had no idea.

“They’ll hire a new caretaker,” the neighbor added; "as you and I know, there's lots of people out looking for jobs now." 

to be continued

[Skul]

I hope the DUmpmonkeys are reading this. 

[BlueStateSaint]

About that thing called "spring"--I had to go to Tupper Lake this morning.  They had an inch of snow last night.  It was gone by the time I showed up at 10 AM, but there were still snowbanks still in those hard-for-sunlight-to-get-at places along Rts. 28 and 30.

[franksolich]

The femme was in town late this afternoon, and so the two of us decided to meet at the bar for supper.  I hadn’t been there since my birthday in early March, so it was an “event.”

Swede, the husband of the owner of the bar, he of Norwegian derivation but whose specialty is Italianate cuisine, was cooking, and so we placed our usual orders.

And Swede, as usual, rather than having the waitress bring the dishes to our table, put a towel under his arm and delivered the goods himself, from a large oval tray placed on a tripod near the table.

He carefully and gently placed the femme’s order in front of her, smiling as he put down the plates of calamari fritti con marinara sauce, suppa di verdura, involtino di vitello and vitello parmigiana, pasta quattro formaggi, and goppa gelato.

And then taking a single plate of a hamburger, pressed down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease, and French fries fried on the grill rather than in the fryer, he slammed it down in front of me so hard the plate wobbled.

- - - - - - - - - - -

As the femme and I were finishing up, Swede came back to our table and wiping his hands on a towel, grabbed a chair and pulled up next to us.

This time, he was cordial to me, thanking me for having given the tip that the counterfeit $10 bill had probably been passed by someone from Oklahoma.  The problem had been, there’d been so many customers coming through the bar, and so many employees of the establishment handle the cash, so no one could remember accepting the bill, or anything about the culprit who’d passed it.

Even though by now three generations separated from it, Swede has an Old World sense of honor, and takes such things personally.  One can get into a lot of trouble, for example, passing the bar a $10 bum check (and hence the bar hasn’t gotten a bad check since, well, forever).

“However,” he told me, “there’s been some old hippies from Oklahoma seen around here the past few days.

“[a regular customer of the bar] was in the big city earlier this week, and saw them.

“Oklahoma license plates, an Oklahoma Sooners bumper-sticker, and an 0bama bumper-sticker.

“On an old Snap-On Tools van that’s been converted into a funeral hearse; ‘WILD BILL & BROS., TULSA, OKLA., WHOLESALE UNDERTAKERS, QUANTITY DISCOUNTS.’

“The grey-haired pony-tailed one and the stout drab tired-looking woman in a muu-muu were inside Ace Hardware there, buying 150’ of hemp rope.

“He thought he also saw two other people waiting inside the van, but wasn’t sure.  They were just shadows.

“And then yesterday, [another regular customer of the bar] was out at the lake north of town, and saw the same van; apparently they’re camping there.

“He said he saw the other two, making them four in total.  One was a little guy with both eyes on the same side of his nose--he thought he might’ve seen that one here in the bar--and the other was an old crone with a big eagle-like honker, some hairs on her chin, and--”

Swede looked at the femme, and seemed gratified she wasn’t paying attention, instead talking with someone at the table behind us.

“--a pair of jugs that sagged down almost to her thighs.

“He was freaked, watching them.  As the old crone walked around, one of them flopped one direction, and the other flopped the other direction.

“She didn’t have anything on under her muu-muu.

“Old hippies.”

Then Swede looked at me, concern oozing all over his face.

“Now, does this sound like anybody we’ve seen before?”

- - - - - - - - - -

Well, yes, I replied; “I vaguely recall some people like that camping on the river near my place, oh, maybe three years ago.  But you know, I get so many people it’s hard to remember anything distinctive about most of them.

“These, I recall thinking they were rather pleasant guests, but nobody else did.”

“It’s because,” Swede said, “the rest of us see things you’re not paying attention to.

“I swear, you’re the luckiest son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever seen in my life.

“I want my ten bucks back, but I’m more concerned for you.”

Yeah, yeah, I said; “I’ve heard that theory, but there’s nothing to worry about.

“They’re ostensibly after franksolich, but they got a problem.  They’ve actually met me, and several times, but they don’t have the slightest idea I’m franksolich.

“The pony-tail thinks I’m just a clumsy retard, a wallflower nobody, a harmless idiot, and couldn’t possibly be franksolich, and so pays me no attention.

“He thinks franksolich is some good-looking, athletic, articulate witty smart guy, and is obsessed with the notion that [the business partner] is franksolich.  Mistaken identity.”

“Well, you should warn him,” Swede counseled.

“No need to,” I replied.  “He’s gone for ten days, down to a horse show in Tulsa.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

This morning about eight, the son of the owner dropped in, along with the new caretaker.

He’s the same guy who’d come the other morning to tell me I needed to contact the owner regarding the previous property caretaker, who’d been injured in an automobile accident the night before.

I assume he’d already been “briefed” on me.

With him standing there, the son of the owner gave me the details of his skills and past work experience, but I caught little of it, figuring I’d ask the neighbor about him later.  I know the name, and that he was born and raised in this area, and that was sufficient for the moment.

(It’s easier to grasp and understand what the neighbor says.)

The son of the owner explained the “function” of this isolated place to him.  This is ground zero for all the properties, of which there’s seventeen scattered all over the county, and is the only one with a human person actually living on it.  I noticed he did comment how “good” it was, having a person living out here after almost twenty years of nobody living here, to watch over things.

My role around here is rather vague and ambiguous, but I guess I’d call it “inventory management and maintenance.”  I really work for the cattleman who owns the property across the road, watching the inventory of cattle and horses kept there in the meadow, which fits that job-description.

Here on this side of the road, I’m merely the tenant, but informally I watch the inventory of machinery and tools kept around here.  If someone wants to use something, I’m the guy who knows where it’s at, and whether or not it’s usable.

Neither are exactly arduous jobs, and so I do other things too, but this is the job that pays the rent.

- - - - - - - - - -

The son of the owner is my own age, and works for the steel company in the big city.

After the coffee was made and offered, he told me that there’d been some excitement at the lake north of town the previous evening.  “There were some old hippies camping there, and once everybody heard of it, they grabbed their lawn-chairs and cameras and thermos chests and headed out there to watch.

“Somebody even called the radio station, who sent a reporter out.

“Three boys set up a popcorn stand, and were making out like Rockefeller.

“The hippies wouldn’t talk to anybody, though; three of them huddled inside the van, while the pony-tailed one waved a machete around and cursed anybody who came near.  Once in a while somebody’d sneak up behind him, and poke him in the back with a stick, to get him all worked up again.

“The county sheriff finally came and broke up the party, but there were some difficulties, since this was public property, and anybody who wanted to be there, could.  People insisted they were out there to fish or picnic or enjoy the nice evening.

“Once the crowd was gone, the sheriff advised the hippies they should camp on private property, where crowds couldn’t gather if the owner didn’t want crowds there, or better yet, they should just move on, to some place where they weren’t an ’attractive nuisance.’

“As it was dark and they really didn’t want to move on just yet, and as the sheriff pointed out the lake was on the regular hourly runs of his department--and so someone could be sure they weren’t being bothered--they decided to spend the night there, and head out in the morning, to find another place.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“You know, I’m not so sure about this new guy,” I told the neighbor later in the morning.

“He seems awful young for the job.”

The neighbor assured me that even though he’s only twenty-six (married, one child), his credentials were sterling.  Born and raised on a farm on the other side of the county, he’d gone away to college (the University of Nebraska-Omaha), but not really caring for that sort of life, had come back here.

I agreed that was unusual common sense, and common sense I wished I‘d had, rather than sticking with it to the bitter end, delaying the start of my own life; I’ve spent all these years since then trying to catch up, and am still behind.

Usually what happens to such people, if they don’t go into farming or start up their own business or drive a truck, is that they go to work for the steel company or the tire company in the big city, where they make enormous bucks working their asses off.  Both enterprises are very large, and despite their being non-union, they pay-and-benefit better than unionized jobs in blue cities and states.

This is one of the few places in America where a high-school graduate can pull down a six-figure (admittedly, low six-figure) paycheck.  But it’s not easy work; I wouldn’t do it.

However, as the neighbor explained, this one didn’t want to be shut up in a factory; he likes the outdoor life.  His old man is still reasonably young, about my age, and is probably still going to farm for some years yet, and so there’s no room for him at the farm.

“It’s ideal for him,” the neighbor said; “good pay, his own hours, and mostly outdoor work.”

- - - - - - - - - -

As the neighbor and I were talking, a creaking ancient white van pulled up into the front yard, ‘WILD BILL & BROS., TULSA, OKLA., WHOLESALE UNDERTAKERS, DISCOUNT FOR QUANTITY,’ and out emerged the pony-tailed old hippie, who of course I’d met before, about three years ago.

Wild Bill, the hippywife primitive Mrs. Alfred Packer’s hippyhubby.

He ignored the neighbor--he hadn’t liked the neighbor the first time around, either--and spoke with me, asking if they could camp down on the river, like they had three years ago.

Before I could say anything, he recited the woes of the previous night, in which the Packer clan had been a sport for spectators from town, and pleaded that they wanted to be somewhere where they wouldn’t be bothered.

I said yeah, sure, fine, no problem, whatever.

Then Wild Bill said he’d give me ten bucks if I kept my mouth shut, about them being there.

“Keep your $10 bill,” I said; “I don’t need the money.  Nobody’ll know you’re here.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

As the sun was starting to come up, around 5:00 a.m., I stood on the back porch, coffee in one hand and cigarette in the other, looking west, at the hippycamp down on the river, about 500 yards away.

They too were early risers, as two older heavy-set hippywomen in muu-muus puttered around a fire, over which stood a tripod, and hanging from that, a cast-iron kettle.

Looking towards the southwest, near the Italianate real-estate but still on this property, I saw the guy with both eyes on the same side of his nose aimlessly loping around in the grove of walnut trees; one of Wild Bill’s younger brothers, short, with arms reaching halfway down his shins, and his head twisted to the side so he could see what was in front of him.

God, I asked, why do you allow such helpless creatures to be born among bitter angry hate-filled cretins who withhold You from them so that they never know they’re just as good as all others, crooked and ugly in this world but to be made straight and aesthetic in another Time and Place?

Not knowing Hope, they know only self-loathing, and live short lives of confused desperation, never knowing that it’s all okay, all this will pass.

I looked over to the side of the porch, and was startled to see hippyhubby Wild Bill sitting on the top step, sharpening one of the cadaver-carvers he’d gotten at a surplus-property auction at the county coroner’s down in Tulsa.

“It’s Sunday morning; I can tell you’re preaching to yourself, fundie-boy,” he said.

“Whatever,” I said.  “Why do you hate God?  And more so, why do you force others to hate God?”

I was thinking of Mrs. Alfred Packer, whose mother on her death-bed had begged and pleaded her errant daughter to return to God--and hence to all that is good and decent--a suggestion that prompted Wild Bill’s hippywife to abandon her dying mother and rush back down to Oklahoma.

Wild Bill picked up another cadaver-carver, to sharpen it.  In case one’s never seen one, they’re really big knives; one could probably cut a bison in half with one of them.

“God doesn’t exist, fundie-boy,” the hippyhubby primitive said.

Oh, I said, lighting another cigarette.  “I suppose you, with a finite number of brain-cells and a finite existence, can comprehend Infinity and the Infinite.

“Reality is Infinite, and you and I together can’t grasp even a millionth, or a billionth, of it.

“You’re scared,” I reminded Wild Bill; “you’re confronted with something you don’t understand, and can’t understand, and it scares the excresence out of you.  And so you deal with it by insisting it doesn’t exist.

“You’re uncomfortable with the idea than an Entity greater than you controls things.

“God Is, and there’s not a damned thing you or any other primitive can do about it, so you might as well simply accept, adapt, and move on.  It’s not a bad life, being unquestionably borne through it on the wings of God.”

Wild Bill perked up his ears.  “You’re nuts, fundie-boy, but anyway, I just heard somebody drive up to the front yard, and you might not want to be caught the way you are.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

The new property caretaker was out here about suppertime.

It’s a seven-days-a-week job, all these properties, but they aren’t necessarily 8- or 10- or 12-hour days.  One just does what needs done, and while there can be long days, more usually they’re short days, even half-days or quarter-days.  Just so one’s on the job all days of the week.

Barring a natural disaster, one can practically make one’s own schedule.

He advised me he’s already been telephoned by a couple of people interested in camping here next weekend, during the regional small-town garage sales.  These sales are popular, and bring in a lot of people, from as far away as Kansas City and Minneapolis, not to mention Omaha, Des Moines, Lincoln, and Sioux Falls.

They contact him instead of me because I don’t want to be bothered; whoever he decides should be here, is fine by me.

I told him the place isn’t available this coming weekend, as it’s already been taken.

His face fell.

He’d been told to burn the downed trees the previous caretaker had stacked on the Italianate real-estate next to this one (because it’s a better location for burning, than anywhere on this property), and was hoping to make a party of it, having friends from town and the big city and Omaha out for it.

Which makes sense.  One shouldn’t have to just sit there twiddling the thumbs watching wood burn; better to also be doing something else, if one can.

“Well, I don’t see why this should put any crimp on you having a party,” I told him.  “The trees are down over there, and the hippycamp’s up over here.

“Plenty of geography for both your party and their hippycamp.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Who’s going to camp there this weekend?” he asked.

He hadn’t been out to the back porch yet, to see the converted Snap-On Tool van, now advertising “WILD BILL & BROS., TULSA, OKLA., WHOLESALE UNDERTAKERS, DISCOUNT FOR QUANTITY,” so we walked out there to look.

“They had a bad experience at the lake north of town the other night, and wanted to go somewhere where nobody knows where they are.

“I said sure, okay, fine, no problem, whatever, and assured them nobody’s going to know they’re there.

“I’ve been telling people all day long not to tell anybody they’re there.  Mum’s the word.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

When I got home from work this afternoon, there was a crowd here; the former property caretaker’s wife and three guys I’d never seen before.

They were in the annex to this house, rarely if ever used, collecting things to be sold during the regional small-town garage sales this coming week.

- - - - - - - - - -

The first family came here in April 1875, and by September of that same year, there stood the largest and most-durable wooden barn in the entire county, which stood until Sunday, June 25, 1950, when it burned down the same morning the socialists invaded South Korea.

They of course had first built a dugout in which to live, and it wasn’t until this place was built eighteen years later, in 1893, that they could brush the dirt off their hands.

That they lived so long in primitive conditions while the pigs waxed healthy and fat was the common sense of the pioneers.  Their survival, and eventual prosperity, depended upon the pigs, and so the pigs had to be taken care of first.

This house was built then, and originally six rooms.  But as the old woman who had been born here in 1886, living here until 1987 (and dying six months after she’d been moved to the nursing home in town), grew older and weaker and blinder, she had alterations made, the end in which this house now has four rooms (and a bathroom).

There has never been anything architecturally distinctive about this house; in fact, it’s a rather jerry-built thing, and has been falling apart for years now.  I’m the last person who’ll ever live in it.

Finally, during the 1920s, the family, having invested all their surplus into the pigs and other properties the decades since coming here, decided to put up a “nice” house.

But the temptation to continue putting their money into more pigs and more land was irresistible, and it was decided instead merely to add four bedrooms onto the house (with six rooms, it had three bedrooms; it currently has one, two former bedrooms having been combined into one, and another bedroom made part of the living room).

During the ensuing decades, there was always talk of tearing this place down and putting up a “nice” house, but it never happened.  Better to keep investing in pigs (and after 1950, cattle) and in properties.

The family is now the third-largest landowner in the county, but its original home place remains about as grandiose as something in the rural Deep South of the segregationist Democrats of yore.

- - - - - - - - - -

For me, the annex has always been a nuisance.  I’ve never needed it, and because it’s not heated or air-conditioned, it’s uninhabitable about half the year.  It’s susceptible to significant roof-and-wall damage during rainstorms and blizzards.

The eight years I’ve been here, one of the bedrooms has been slept in exactly two times; usually the whole thing’s just ignored, excepting during a few days in spring and then a few days in autumn, when the former caretaker’s wife came out here to change the sheets and dust the bureaus.

It’s still furnished, with furniture purchased the time it was built; the big brass beds, the dressers with the oval mirrors, the wooden chairs, and other knick-knacks.  It’s all from the 1920s, but it looks nothing more than like hotel rooms of the Wild West in old Hollywood movies.

- - - - - - - - - -

Well, the annex is, at long last, destined to be torn down.

Eventually too this whole house is to go too, but that’s waiting until happy days are here again, and we have adults running the government.

In the meantime, here franksolich is.

As the guys were loading up the beds, dressers, chairs, and other old junk to take to town for the garage sale, the former caretaker’s wife asked me if I wanted anything from there.

I told her only two things; the three-quarters life-sized portrait of the Duke of Wellington that had hung over one bed, and a framed-in-black mourning portrait of Warren Harding.  I imagine a flea-market profiteer would find the 160-year-old frame encircling the Duke of pecuniary interest, perhaps wanting to pass it off as the original frame of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, but I rather like the portrait more.

to be continued

[franksolich]

It’s raining, sleeting, and snowing this morning, here on the eastern slope of the Sandhills of Nebraska.  All is verdant and green, as spring actually came here weeks ago…..six days a week.

And then one day a week each week, it’s been winter.

I telephoned the business partner, who’s down near Tulsa, Oklahoma, looking over horses.  The business partner is half-owner of an automotive dealership, sole owner of a horse ranch, and the two of us together do a third thing,

It was a good thing he was wearing brown pants when I called him; in the eight years we’ve worked together, this was only the second time I’ve ever called him.  Working with franksolich is no piece of cake; my being deaf compels the other person to deal with me face-to-face, or in writing, lest I miss ”hearing” something.

“It’s important,” I said; “do we have anything going on in [the town in the Sandhills where I grew up], as I got another reason to go there, but it’s not enough of a reason to go just for itself.  If there’s a second reason too, then it’s worth it.”

“Well,” he said, “I can’t think of anything right off-hand, but when I get back, I could probably dig up something.

“How come you suddenly need to go there?”

“It’s important,” I repeated; “I need to go to the cemetery.”

Silence from the other end of the line, and then, “Now I’m confused.  The last time we were there, you said it was the last time you’d planned to go there the rest of your life, leaving the family to lay in peace and tranquility until the last trumpet--”

“That’s the cemetery out in the wilds,” I said; “this time, I need to go to Forest Lawn.”

“Forest Lawn” is my derisive name for the city cemetery, as compared with the cemetery where lie my parents, two of my brothers, and my two nieces.  Where they’re at, one has to use a lunar rover to reach; it’s out in the middle of nowhere, where the weeds grow chest-high, where the deer and the antelope play, where coyotes breed and snakes slither.

That’s where they wanted to be.

“Forest Lawn,” south of the town, is a massive park with manicured grass, bushes and hedges kept neat and trim, flowers all over the place--so help me, even two botanical gardens and an arborteum.  Scenic walkways, drives, and bicycle trails, cul-de-sacs, the whole bit.  Gazebos, pavilions, picnic table shelters, fountains, benches all over the place.  Perhaps by now, there’s even tennis courts.

I told the business partner why I needed to go there, and he said as soon as he got back up here, he’d drum up a second reason for going into the heart of the Sandhills.

- - - - - - - - - -

It’s been quite a week--and this only Wednesday.  People coming to do this or that, telling me what they’re doing, and myself just saying, yeah, sure, fine, whatever, without my bothering to grasp exactly what it is, they’re doing.

I don't care; whatever it is they're doing, they know what they're doing.

For example, when I returned here last evening, half the house--the annex--was gone, demolished.  There was a make-shift wall, plastic and scrap lumber, covering the now-exposed side of the kitchen, where a new wall, and a picture-window to replace the former tiny window, are to be put.

This new caretaker works fast.

Of course, there’s today’s rain, sleet, and snow, but temperatures are in the 30s, so it’s all copacetic.

One can see down by the river the old Snap-On Tools van converted into “WILD BILL & BROS., TULSA, OKLA., WHOLESALE UNDERTAKERS, QUANTITY DISCOUNTS,” but no human activity.

It’s a calm, peaceful day out here, excepting inside of myself.

to be continued

[delilahmused]

frank, you totally nailed them!

Cindie

[franksolich]

The neighbor came over about suppertime, bringing his and mine from the bar in town.

I noticed Swede, the cook of Norwegian derivation whose specialty is Italianate cuisine--he’s the husband of the owner of the bar--took especial care fixing my hamburger, pressing it down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease.

“[the new property caretaker]’s kind of bothered; he doesn’t think he pleases you,” the neighbor said.

I was confused; this property is but a small part of the caretaker’s job--he’s out here so much only because most of the necessary tools and equipment are kept here--and besides, he works for the owners of the property, not for me.

“Of course he pleases me,” I said; “he knows what he’s doing, and so’s getting no criticism from me.”

“But he says you don’t pay attention to him, and when looking at him, it’s as if you’re looking right past him, out to something far beyond.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” I said; “I’m just having a wretched miserable melancholy week, and am trying to keep it to myself, so it doesn’t bother anybody else. 

“I’m a nice guy; I try to not make my private misery public.”

But as he insisted, I told the neighbor the news I’d learned Sunday night.

“You know, with as much experience I’ve had dealing with this sort of thing, I was sure that I’d become a pro at handling it whenever it happened, but apparently not.

“It’ll pass--God heals all--but it’s been only four days, and I’m still working my way through it.

“I’ll get over it; this too shall pass.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“There’s something wrong out here,” the femme insisted when she dropped by in late evening.

“I was in town, and Swede told me there’s something wrong out here.

“He says everybody senses it, and is worried.

“What’s wrong out here?”

There’s nothing wrong out here, I answered; “notice please, all’s neat and in order, everything in its place, the way things are supposed to be.”

“Well, there’s assuredly something wrong.  You have that distant faraway gaze, as if you’re not here,” she argued.  “I know how you get when something’s wrong, and when you have that look, something’s doubly wrong.”

I mulled it over inside of my head, debating whether or not I should tell her, but then decided no.

You see, even though I’m bigger and stronger than the femme, I more than anybody realize how dependent I am upon her, how much I lean on her, to get through life.  I’m not a light weight to carry; I’m sure my concerns and worries weigh far more than the body.

I resent the situation, being dependent upon a willowy-thin petite woman when I’m supposed to be man enough to carry my own weight, my own emotional baggage.

Her help is necessary, of course, and I’m grateful for it, but I’m a nice guy, and wish to keep the burden as light as possible.  Best to bother her only with things about which she can do something.

“I want to be alone,” I said, with that cold voice suggesting argument would be futile.

to be continued

[franksolich]

The neighbor’s wife came over this morning, bearing her infant daughter, who’d been born a month ago, but whom I hadn’t yet seen.  Her next youngest, a four-year-old son, was along with them, and made it apparent he wasn’t fond of this new person, who seemed to have displaced him in their mother’s affection.

Which of course was nonsense, and I tried convincing him of it.

“Speaking as someone from the tail-end of a line of children, I think he needs to have it paddled in him,” I finally said, giving up.  “She’s not taking anything away from him, and what you’re giving her, you can’t give him anyway.

“Greedy like a primitive; expects it all, even though he‘s already got enough.”

“My, aren’t we cheery today,” she said; “actually, you’re not even grouchy.  You have that distant, faraway look in your eyes, as if you’re in a world beyond our reach.

“[her husband] told me what happened; do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” I said.

to be continued

[franksolich]

About noon, up drove a Cadillac sedan bearing four people; the retired banker’s wife, Grumpy the retired banker himself, wearing his polyester pants hiked halfway up his midriff, the woman who’d been my hostess last Thanksgiving, and her niece.

The third, in her late 80s, is about ten years older than the first two, and more than twice as old as the third, and needed their assistance getting out of the car; by the time I’d put on some shoes, they were already walking up the steps of the front porch.

“Hallo,” said the retired banker’s wife, wearing one of those big floppy gardening hats.  “We thought we’d come out to see what’s going on here, if it‘s convenient for you.”

They’re all wonderful people--excepting Grumpy--and I assured her it was eminently convenient.

I showed them the project currently underway; destruction of the “annex” and a new wall in the kitchen, with a much larger window.

“You know, she never liked that,” the woman who’d been my hostess said; “after he died in 1961, she always said she was going to have it torn down, because once built, it was useless, but no one ever got around to it.”

Now, all the visitors but the niece have memories of this place from when they were growing up, so very long ago.  And of the woman who’d lived here before me.  She’d been born here in 1886, and lived all but the last few months of her life here, dying in 1987.

The last twenty years of her life, she’d been blind, but steadfastly refused to move.  Instead, she commandeered the sons and grandsons to make the house more “blind-friendly,” which explains why seven rooms were converted into only four.  Her unseeing eyes were no excuse for stopping tending the colorful flower gardens and lush vegetable gardens.

For security, she had seven dogs--three inside, four outside--four telephones, and two rifles, a shotgun, and two pistols near at hand.  Nobody messed with her; she was left alone in peace and quiet.

“Yes,” I said, as I’ve heard it before; “a most remarkable woman.  I wish I’d known her.”

“Yes,” replied the woman who’d been my hostess.

She’s the exact age my mother would be if my mother were still alive today, and while I treasure her very much, I’ve always been sort of uncomfortable when around her.  My mother, who died at 54 years of age, surely wouldn’t be as old and weak as her, if my mother were still around.  No way.

But of course I’m kidding myself.

“You know,” she continued, “she had a very hard life, many disappointments and discouragements, but it didn’t have to be that way.

“She always said, ‘my miseries are between God and me, so it’s none of your business,’ but I think God preferred that she’d express her sorrows to others, too; after all, she wasn’t a chronic complainer and whiner.”

“But maybe besides God, she didn’t know who’d understand,” I said.

to be continued