franksolich waits for spring in the Sandhills

[franksolich]

franksolich waits for spring in the Sandhills.  The property caretaker was over here this morning, to look at the roof.

After a few days of the usual and standard February weather, we’re descending into yet another deep freeze beginning tonight; I dunno how long it’s forecast to last.

We had high winds a few weeks ago, scattering shingles all around the ground surrounding the house, but I hadn’t bothered the caretaker about it, because there’s been no leaks, and besides, he’s got a lot more things to do than just tend to this place.

He told me what needed done, but being tired, I didn’t catch any of it, just saying “okay, fine.”

I did however remind him he had to be careful.  Whenever happy days are here again, with a Republican-controlled Congress, the owners are going to be confident enough to put some money into this property, tearing down this ramshackle old house and putting up several riverside summer and permanent homes for their grandchildren.

So there’s no point in doing anything fancy.

“And besides,” I pointed out, “if you do too much improvement, that raises the value, and hence the property taxes.

“That’s why in the big blue cities, landlords are hesitant to make improvements on rental properties, even if just a new front door--it raises the taxes for the property.

“A tenant wants things ‘nice,’ but a tenant doesn’t want to pay rent that’s increased because taxes went up.

“So do only the minimum, and I don’t care what it looks like, just so it works--I’m way out here in the middle of nowhere anyway, and nobody ever comes out here.”

- - - - - - - - - -

While we were out on the back porch, looking west towards the river, the caretaker asked, “Are you going to have people here this summer?  Based on all your other summers here, maybe you want to be left alone.”

I do, and I don’t, I replied; “I dunno.

“The river offers a public service, allowing people to camp down there, and to have alcohol, which they can’t do in any of the parks.  And nobody’s ever left it a mess.

“But on the other hand, it’s irksome, always having my privacy and solitude interrupted.

“But then on the hand opposite that, life can become boring without primitives to amuse one.

“It’s six of one thing, half a dozen of another thing, but I can adapt; yeah, sure, if any old hippies want to camp here, just get the details and pass them on to me.”

- - - - - - - - - -

I offered him coffee, but he wanted a beer for a while here, and a second beer to sustain him on the ride home.  So we went out to the garage, where there’s three refrigerators stocked with brew. 

I don’t drink myself, but I have no objections if others do, and so the neighbor and his older brother, the property caretaker, and the ranch-hands who work across the road, on the other side of the William Rivers Pitt, each have a refrigerator here, stocked with beer.

This way, their wives can’t nag them about drinking, because they don’t know.

When he grabbed two bottles, he noticed there something in the freezer (this was “his” refrigerator), reminding me again that if I wanted, he’d take a backhoe and chip a hole into the frozen ground so that I could finally inter the earthly remains of the cat Abbie.

I had to have Abbie euthanized--old age--two weeks ago, but as the ground’s been frozen, even a pick-axe can’t make a dent in it.  So following the caretaker’s own suggestion, I’d wrapped the corpse in one of my old shirts, and then in a plastic bag, and stuck it in the freezer, so it wouldn’t go bad.

Abbie was the first cat I ever had, and Abbie was a wonderful cat.

No, I said; “she was my cat, and the first cat I ever had; out of respect for her, I prefer to bury her among the other cats, with my own hands.”

to be continued

 

[BlueStateSaint]

Abbie will be waiting at the Rainbow Bridge for you, Frank--along with the rest of them.

[vesta111]

Abbie will be waiting at the Rainbow Bridge for you, Frank--along with the rest of them.

OH Frank, up here north of everywhere this is how we do things with our loved ones be it a cat or Uncle Harry when they leave us. Put them on ice until one can till the ground and give them a proper send off.

 Cremation comes to mind, much controversy about the practice with family members but when it comes to pets, some people go nuts and send them to be stuffed, and display them in their homes.  I saw honest to God a Taco Bell dog that the owner had turned into a lamp.  When I showed confusion about the practice the owner with a straight face told me the little fella had been the light of her life.

 

[franksolich]

Cremation comes to mind.....

Oh, but that was considered at the veterinary, because one has to somehow dispose of the corpse of an animal.  All the other cats that died here, were buried near the William Rivers Pitt, on which they had so merrily romped and played, but Abbie was the only one who died in mid-winter.....in the coldest winter we've ever had.

However, since this area's so sparsely populated, while there's tons of veterinaries around here, no one's large enough to have a crematory. If one wants a pet cremated, the veterinary has to send it to somewhere out in the middle of the Sandhills, a couple of hundred miles away.

And so it's not cheap; I imagine one could cremate an infant for that sort of money.

So I said no; I'd just bury the body with the bodies of the other cats.

It wasn't until I got back here that I realized, ooops, the ground's frozen solid, denser than iron.

For the first few days, the bodily remains were in a cardboard box (of course the body wrapped up in one of my old shirts) on the front porch.  The temperatures here weren't going to get much above zero anyway.

But then early last week, I saw we were forecast for a hot spell, with temperatures soaring in the 50s and 60s, and wondered what to do, as that would unfreeze the body, subjecting it to stench and decay.

The property caretaker was the first to suggest slipping it into a freezer.  I felt odd about that, but since then, when bringing up the matter with other people, I've learned that everybody does this, even for large dogs.  So I don't feel odd about it any more.

[franksolich]

The femme came here in early afternoon, having battled the snow all the way from Omaha, where she’d been spending the weekend with her sister and her family.  She does that a lot, but I don’t go along because her sister doesn’t care for me, and I entertain a mild dislike for her myself.

She was “sad” because I’d asked her to look for something in storage, among the family archives, while she was there (the sorted archives are kept in storage in Omaha; the unsorted ones out here in town), and she couldn’t find it.  I assured her it wasn’t that big of a deal; she had no idea what it looked like, and so it would’ve been easy for her to miss, and I’ll retrieve it sooner or later myself.

“What do you want with a child’s English-Yiddish primer?” she asked.

I told her that every time I read cousin nadin or my good pal Manny on Skins’s island, I suddenly wax nostalgic for my long-ago childhood.  But what’s even odder is that I suddenly out of the blue remember words in Yiddish that I had forgotten thirty, forty, years ago; they just pop into the head.

And Yiddish being what it is, a very explicit language, I can insult the cousin or compliment Manny with crude coarse, even obscene, words that won’t offend others because they don’t know Yiddish.

- - - - - - - - - -

The “back story,” which of course the femme knows, but some readers might not.

When I was a child and first beginning to read, I developed an interest in Yiddish folklore--the simple children’s versions, of course.  (Until I graduated to Aleichem, Peretz, and Asch in the fifth grade.)

From whence this interest sprang is not known to any human agency; after all, there has never been any Hebraic influence alongside the Platte River of Nebraska and the Sandhills.  And I was raised (and remain) an observant Roman Catholic.  The interest just sprang out of nowhere, and once it gripped me, it gripped me passionately.

Despite the difference in religions, this interest hardly bothered the parents.  Because of my having been born deaf, without ears, I was an unknown quality, others not sure what to do about me.  It was a case of “expecting the worst but hoping for the best.”

No one, but no one, had ever thought a sullen, silent deaf child would ever be interested in language, much less becoming literate.  But it happened, and my parents, enormously gratified at such good luck, catered to my literary tastes.

The Jewish culture being absent for hundreds of miles around where we lived, the parents, when on business trips to Omaha, Chicago, Kansas City, and Denver, always went to Talmudic-sounding bookstores to find children’s books to bring back for me, and they were usually successful.

Somewhere along the line, they found a children’s English-Yiddish primer.

Now, I never acquired any real knowledge of Yiddish; I can’t speak it, I can’t write it, and of course being deaf, if someone were to chew the fat with me in that language, I’d have no idea what was going on.

However, I learned to recognize the meanings of words in Yiddish, at least a primitive vocabulary.

- - - - - - - - - -

“You know,” I told the femme, “I haven’t seen that book since I was about 16 years old, and losing interest in the subject--although it is there, in the archives--the last time I used it being when I wanted to devise ‘pick-up’ lines for chicks.

“You see, all this time I was reading old folk-tales, I was also picking up information about the people and culture that had inspired them, find them to be a rather remarkable and noble race. 

“Somewhere along the line, when still a child, I read a phrase, “if you want to have class, hang around with people with class.”

“This especially appealed to me, because at the age of 12, 13, 14, years, I had the usual and standard male hang-ups about being ugly and stupid and without grace.  I desperately wanted to have class, I wanted to move amidst the best and the brightest, and the most elegant.

“By fortuitous chance, my grandmother lived in northeastern Pennsylvania, not very far from the Catskills Mountains of New York.  And I spent a lot of holidays and summers at her place.

“But no one else wanted to go to the Catskills, and so I’ve never seen the borscht belt.

- - - - - - - - - -

“By the time I was 14, 15, years old, I was somewhat more independent, but not wholly so; if I was to mingle with ‘in’ people, it’d have to be in the company of someone older, and with money.

“My ambition was to spend a few days at Grossinger’s, which in my mind was the ne plus ultra of class, of style, of good manners and good taste.  But I couldn’t afford to do so on my own financial resources, and besides, I was still a minor.

“At various times I tried convincing an older cousin, ‘Hey, let’s go to Grossinger’s and hang out.’

“He always looked at me as if I were Bozo from Outer Space.

“’But it’s a big place, a combination Disneyland and Folies Bergere, with a high-class clientele; swimming pools, golf courses, tennis courts…..and good-looking chicks.

“Alas, it never happened, but maybe some day I’ll make it there.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“Why would you want ‘pick-up’ lines in Yiddish?” the femme asked; “I mean, I’m sure they spoke English there too.”

“Of course they did,” I responded, “but with English I’d just be another goyim, not worthy of attention or interest.

“But as a Yiddish-speaking adolescent cowboy from the Sandhills of Nebraska, I’m sure I would’ve caused a sensation, all these good-looking chicks objectifying me.”

The femme and I debated going to town for an early supper, but as the snow’s coming down rather heavily, we decided no, and she headed to the big city, where she lives.

to be continued

[franksolich]

Late last night, the neighbor’s older brother was here, working on a piece of machinery out in the garage.

Every farmer, every ranch owner, of course has his own garages, sheds, and other places to work on equipment, but because of distance and convenience, there’s a few who use this place too, given its amenities and a greater variety of rarely-used (and hence rarely owned) tools and implements.

To be hospitable, I went out and sat in the garage and chitchatted.

The neighbor’s older brother is my age, only about a month older, and one might suppose we have a great deal in common, given that he was raised here, on the edge of the Sandhills, while I was raised in the heart of them.  Coming into the world about the same time, we saw the same things with the same eyes, with the same level of maturity.

But actually, no.

He’s got a great deal more solidity and accomplishment in him; born and raised on a farm, five years in the U.S. Army, not only a bachelor’s degree but a master’s degree, long trips to Africa, Europe, and the Far East, married, four children.

Also well-off; he’s got one of the top income-tax accountants around, but one shouldn’t discount his own knowledge of such things.  He takes advantage of what is essentially a Democrat tax code, putting his income and money into things that the grasping, avaricious hands of Democrats and primitives can’t touch.

It’s meant for his wife and his children, not for freeloaders.

Of course, he works about 100 hours a week, about 14 hours a day.

And then there’s me, who’s whatever it is I am.

- - - - - - - - - -

The neighbor’s the only one here who I knew before I came here thirteen years ago; we’d known each other since he’d been an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Nebraska, and I was the 29-year-old manager of a privately-owned student union.

When I first came here to the eastern fringe of the Sandhills, nobody, including the neighbor’s older brother, knew what to make of franksolich, who seemed most peculiar to them.  In the first place, I was by then middle-aged, and never been married.  As there didn’t seem any reason I shouldn’t be, some even suspected I was something I wasn’t.

And unlike all other red-blooded males here, I didn’t care for hunting, fishing, handling a firearm, or sucking on the bottle.  I didn‘t mind if anybody else did it, but I didn‘t do it myself.

And further, because the deafness, the absence of ears, is disguised, many suspected that I was just pretty stupid, because I got so many things wrong.

It took a long time, but eventually I persuaded others that there was nothing wrong; I was just being franksolich.  It helped that I could outwork, outlift, and outsweat most.

The most important factor, though, was when I, a customer in a convenience store, was caught on camera, being confronted by a gun-wielding felon. 

Two times, about three years apart.

The camera--and cameras can lie--gave the impression I stared down the other guy, daring him to pull the trigger, but the truth is rather more dull, more prosaic, than that.  In fact, in the first instance, I wasn’t even aware a gun was pointed at me, and didn’t know it until later, when law-enforcement showed me a videotape of the event.

But since it makes me look good, I don’t bother correcting that public misperception; if others want to believe franksolich has nerves of steel, who am I to disabuse that notion?

- - - - - - - - - -

The neighbor’s older brother however still thinks of me as a rash, reckless, careless, not-too-bright Innocent likely to come to a bad end.

But on the other hand, if I needed it, he’d give me the shirt off his back, so it’s okay.

- - - - - - - - - -

When he got done about 4:00 a.m., the neighbor’s older brother and I sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee.

It was really cold and windy outside.

I inquired if there was any “update” to his three-year quest to purchase the property immediately south of here, which is owned by certain Italianate interests in New Jersey.  I’m not sure why he wants it, but probably it’s another means of keeping Democrats and primitives away from his money.

The owners of the property have never been out here to look at it, other than the day it was first purchased, back in 1948.  But it’s all copacetic; two times a year, the county assessor sends a property-tax statement to a legal firm in New Jersey, which by return mail immediately sends a check.

They don’t even use the six-month “grace” period, and wait; they pay it right away.

- - - - - - - - - -

It’d been an autumn day sixty-six years ago, when a big car pulled up in front of one of the local banks, disgorging an attorney from the big city, and two other gentlemen, introduced as “Meyer” and “Alberto” (or perhaps “Anastasio;” I forget) whom no one had seen before.

They wanted to buy this particular piece of land, and had the cash for it.

This county had first been settled back in 1875, and up to 1948, the land had changed hands at least eight or ten times, the owners having drank it away, gambled it away, or gone bankrupt.  Because of that past, it was considered cursed, or hexed, and the bank was more than happy to unload it on two outsiders.

It’s obvious what it’s been used for since then; a manipulation of what is essentially a Democrat tax code, in which productivity is taxed, and idleness rewarded.  If the land produced anything, much of it would be taken by the Democrats and primitives; as long as the land produces nothing, the Democrats and primitives aren’t interested.

Meyer and Alberto (or Anastasio, whatever), after concluding the deal, came out here to this very house, to visit their now-neighbor, a then older-middle-aged widow (who lived here until 1986).  She was the sort who’d had a very tough, spartan, austere life full of disappointment and discouragement, but who still retained her gentility and good manners.

She had them for tea, but after sampling her apple pie, they ended up staying through supper.

At some point, someone down on the river shot off a gun--probably hunting--which startled Alberto, who dropped a fancy fragile Limoges tea-cup, breaking it.

Some months later, there was delivered to this place three large wooden barrels, with straw used as packing for china.  It was a complete set of fine Italianate china, a gift from Alberto, meant to replace the broken cup.

It’s truly exquisite china; I’ve seen it at the county fair, where the now-owner, the wife of the old woman’s stepson, displayed it.  Specialty auction houses in New York and Los Angeles have inquired about it over the years, but it’s not for sale.

However, I personally don’t think Alberto was that munificent in the gift; it all bears the crest of the House of Savoy.  The monarchy was abolished in Italy in 1946, and this gift arrived in 1949.  I suspect Alberto picked it up at a flea market or garage sale or close-out sale.

The old woman however was pleased with it.  She’d spent all afternoon with Meyer and Alberto, more time than anybody else around here did, but never really described what they’d discussed, other than commenting that Meyer was shorter than he should be.

- - - - - - - - - -

The neighbor’s older brother said the sale was stalled, mired down, going nowhere.

“Well, maybe Meyer and Alberto don’t want to sell,” I pointed out.

“Meyer died of old age in Israel thirty years ago,” he replied, “and Alberto, before that, about sixty years ago, had a fatal accident in a hotel barber shop.”

Oh, I said.

to be continued

   

[franksolich]

Last night, Wednesday night, the femme and I went to dine at the bar in town.  The deep freeze starts anew on Friday, and it’s going to be a long haul.

<<<gets withdrawn and anti-social if deep freezes last too long.

While we were there, a reporter from the newspaper in the big city was there, too.  Swede, the cook of Norwegian derivation whose specialty is Italianate cuisine, is popular all around, and people come from scores, and even hundreds, of miles to sample his goods.

But due to some unexpected happening, Swede wasn’t there last night.  Yashoda, the head chef at the country club in the big city, was substituting for him.  Yashoda’s of Japanese derivation, and his specialty is German cuisine.  The femme had bratkartoffeln, hasenpfeffer, kohlroulade, knödel, and kerscheblotzer, while I had my usual, a hamburger well-done, pressed down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease, french fires cooked on the grill, not in the fryer, and a side dish of sour cream.

The reporter joined us at our table, because he was alone, and the femme likes to chitchat and I don’t.  So it worked out well all around.

I complimented him on a recent story he wrote, using the “local angle” to explain the various crises in Ukraine.  Before he’d started, he’d approached me, but as I’m not interested in appearing in the newspapers, I gave him the background on the situation, and directed him to other people similarly knowledgeable, who had no qualms about showing up in the newspapers.

“But they talked as much about you, as they did about Ukraine,” he remarked.

Yeah; I’m not exactly unknown.  When I was over there, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I’d been featured in the Omaha World-Herald too many times to count, in stories written by their late humor columnist, Robert McMorris.

Right after I’d gotten back, I was the last “human interest story” done by the columnist, who died shortly thereafter.  No one could possibly write about franksolich the way Robert McMorris, who’d known and done stories on me since I was nine years old, did, and so after he left this time and place, I decided I didn’t want to be in the newspapers any more.

And besides, it was all so very long ago.

- - - - - - - - - -

“What prompted you to do what you did?” the reporter asked; “it seems you just got up and went over there.”

True, I said; it was a whim.  â€œBut look at my situation as it then was,” I pointed out; “I was mired in a dead-end job, bored to death.  The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) was about to be passed, which didn’t harbor well for my future.

“I decided if I couldn’t have a financially-secure life, I could at least have an exciting life.

“And to, I was devoid of any connections and responsibilities that would’ve held me here; no wife, no girlfriend, no children, no house payment, no car payment, no bills, nothing to tie me down.

“I was as free as a bird, to take off.

“Which is currently my situation,” I pointed out; “if I ever get uncomfortable around here, all I’d have to do is shove the cats into the car and take off.”

“And it wasn’t only that--” the reporter said.

“Yeah, I know,” I interrupted; “the money thing.  I was in a hurry to get over there, afraid that all the excitement would be gone before I got there--and alas it was--and so I left with only $187 in American dollars, with no prospects of getting any more.

“The only ‘asset’ I possessed was an open-date return airline ticket, which I had to renew two times.

“But I managed.”

“And it wasn’t only that--” the reporter interrupted.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Because of a transposed telephone number, and because the American embassy wasn’t set up yet, I got “lost” my first six days there.  It was as if I were on the dark side of the moon, out of all touch and communication with anybody and anything I knew.

“But I don’t like to talk about that,” I said; “it was a combination of Alice in Wonderland and Heart of Darkness, mostly the latter.  

“However, I survived; not only that, but I survived whole and intact, including the $187.

“Wonderful people, the Ukrainians.”

“But because of my distrust for the cuisine, when I came back here much later, I was down to 137 pounds, having subsisted about half the time on weak tea and mahorka.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

I had supper with the retired banker’s wife; she recently had to put Grumpy, her husband, the guy who always wore his polyester pants hiked halfway up his midriff, in the local nursing home.

It’s pretty dangerous, getting old.  One’s okay up until one reaches 80-85 years, and then suddenly there appears a swift decline, and by the time one’s 90, well, it’s all over with.

She seems to be bearing up with it well, though. 

The retired banker’s wife was born in 1930, meaning she was 18 years old when Meyer and Alberto showed up in town to purchase the property next to this.  As it’s always been a mystery to me, and since obviously the abrupt appearance of a short stranger of Hebraic derivation and a tall stranger of Italianate derivation caused a stir when it happened, I inquired if she had any memories of it.

The neighbor’s older brother has been trying to buy that property for three years, getting nowhere.

In her opinion--and she does know things--he’s never going to get it.

She recalled--she was in high school at the time--that Meyer wasn’t of much interest, because the town had seen someone of Judaic derivation before, circa 1900 or 1901.  Alberto was much more fascinating, because as far as anyone knew, no one of Italianate derivation had ever been seen around here before.

For the record, this place is kind of out of the way, off the beaten path; despite that there’s no high mountains, it’s very reminiscent of an isolated Swiss village in the Alps…..which is all the more appropriate, because while there’s lots of people of Danish, Norwegian, and German derivation around here, the largest ethnic group is the Swiss, originally from Indiana and Wisconsin (in the 1870s and 1880s).

The Swiss were not a major people emigrating to the United States, but it would be a most natural thing, that those who did come, they came here, given that it’s an important dairy region (or at least used to be).

“Alberto was everything we expected an Italian to be, to look like.

“Poor, poor man, meeting his end getting shaved in a hotel barber-shop in New York City.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“[Her husband] was in college at the time, and working part-time at the bank when they showed up, but he wasn’t ever told anything.  And then when he became president of the bank in 1965, and got curious, he looked around, finding out that no paperwork existed any longer in the files, about the purchase.

“It seems the attorney from [the big city] had taken all that with him when the land was purchased.

“And by 1965, he was dead.

“But the property taxes on it get paid promptly twice every year, so I suppose it’s okay.”

- - - - - - - - - -

After that, while walking back downtown to my car, I noticed the light was on at the local used-goods store, and curious, went into see what was up.

The owner was at the computer, reviewing eBay listings for a toy popular during the 1950s.

“Electric football,” he said.

Whoa.

There suddenly popped out of the brain a memory buried circa 40 years or more.

When I was about four years old and my younger brother two, we were exploring underneath the bed of one of our older brothers, and found a flat box containing a miniature football field.

It was from the 1950s, before our time, and somewhat cruder than the illustration above.

We took it out of the box, but not knowing what to do with it, manually manipulated the players, until we got bored, after which we put it away, paying no attention to it after that.

As I was in a hurry, I never got around to inquiring of the second-hand dealer exactly what it was, one did with such a thing, how one played it.

to be continued

[franksolich]

The neighbor dropped by this morning, to check and see if I’m all prepared for the deep freeze that’s ostensibly to last until…..March 20.  I was, but I’m not too happy about it.

“You know,” I whined, “according to the Omaha World-Herald, this isn’t even in the top ten of bad winters the past hundred years--that list includes three winters before I was born, and seven in my own lifetime.

“The newspaper’s wrong--the seven that occurred within my own memory were nothing as bad as this.

“Constant unrelenting without-interruption cold, unbroken streaks of below-zero days since…..Thanksgiving.

“I happen to remember winters quite well, and Nebraska’s never had a four-month deep freeze.  At least in my lifetime.

“I’m tired, tired, tired.”

The neighbor commiserated; he has to deal with it more than I do.  If he needs help, I’m Johnny-on-the-spot, right there alongside him, and he’s needed a lot of help this winter.  However, the hours outdoors I’ve put in with him don’t come near to the hours he’s been out there alone.

“It’s depressing” I added.

“And my situation’s rather singular.  There’s no television, radio, videocassette player, stereo, that hearing people use for diversion and amusement when imprisoned indoors.  They wouldn’t do me any good because I can’t hear.  The point being, there’s nothing to divert me.

“So I have to just sit here, twiddling my thumbs, growing comatose…..and melancholy.

“Well, there’s the primitives on Skins’s island,” I said, after thinking.  “But one can’t be amused by the antics of the primitives twenty-four hours a day.  Twelve, maybe, but not twenty-four.

“There being no other sort of stimulus, I just sit here, vegetating.  It’s not a good situation.”

- - - - - - - - -

The neighbor gazed out one of the large picture windows here, watching the snow cascade down.

“You know,” he finally said, “I wonder if part of the problem is that you sit inside here, and can see the whole wide world outside.”

This house, based upon the square footage of the exterior walls, is circa 60% windows, on all four sides.  This house has tall ceilings, and many of the windows stretch from about six inches from the floor nearly to the ceiling.  And none of the windows are small; in houses in the corrupt congested blue states, they’d all be considered unusually large panoramic “picture windows.”

The only exception is the bathroom, with a floor-to-ceiling “window” that’s made of 4”-thick glass “blocks,” where light shines through, but nothing else.

“I wonder,” the neighbor continued, “if you had shades or draperies hiding the world outside, it’d be better for your mood.”

This place had window shades when I first moved out here many years ago, but I immediately took them down, having all my life associated pull-down shades with trashy people; a holdover from my childhood or something.  Respectable people had draperies.

I’d meant to get draperies during one of my trips to the big city, but it’s been a very long time ago now, and I prefer nothing obscure my view of the world outside.  So the windows, all of them, remain uncovered.

It’s not a big deal; this is way out in the country, and nobody’s around to see inside the house.

“No way,” I replied; “I always considered the windows here one of the very best things about this place.  I’ve lived in too many places with small windows and dark curtains.

“I’d just as soon be able to see the great big wide wonderful world.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

note: this part of franksolich waits for spring in the Sandhills was written for, and is especially dedicated to, the screeching she-women of Skins’s island, especially the nearly-incoherent seabitch primitive; it‘s somewhat bawdy and tawdry--the miserable wretched she-women deserve nothing better--but after it‘s told, readers may be assured that all to come after will be again suitable for even small children--

- - - - - - - - - -

With the harsh descent of the newest deep freeze, I went to bed last night with no thought other than that when I awoke in the morning, the world would be locked in ice; it was bitterly cold out in the dark, and surely no one would be afoot in this most barbaric of weather.

I was wrong.

About one in the morning, I blinked awake when someone abruptly turned on the ceiling-light of the bedroom.  When I stopped blinking, I saw it was someone I knew (sometimes it isn’t), a woman friend from the big city.  She was “happy drunk”--i.e., drunk but not sordidly drunk.

From her breath, one could detect she’d been smoking something legal in Colorado, but not in Nebraska.

The former property caretaker, having once caught the two of us in, ah, some embarrassing circumstances, calls her “Madame de Pompadour.”  I remind him that as a male, I have certain needs, and she fills the bill in a way the femme won’t.  “Damn it, you know I love [the femme], but I need something else that I’m not getting from her.  I need this; otherwise I’d go stark raving nuts.”

I dunno if the femme knows about her, but she probably does.

It’s a great deal easier to keep secrets from franksolich, than for franksolich have secrets.

I’ve been asked how one reconciles this with a religious conscience, the answer being that one can’t.  One does the best one can as a fallible human, remembers that God forgives, and maintains a sense of humor about one’s frailties.  It’s a great internal conflict, but life is full of conflicts anyway.

The resolution, at least a temporary one, is that one loves and respects a woman who doesn’t want to be used--which is most of them--and so doesn‘t use them, and uses a woman for whom it’s no big deal being used.

Surely even a women’s-libber should be comfortable with that.

The attraction is strictly physical--one could even call it strictly business, nothing personal in it--given my carnal preference for lithe, svelte women who aren’t top-heavy.  She’s a paralegal, and a Democrat, meaning she’s, uh, about as loose as a screw with stripped threads. 

It was a good thing I had a sheet covering me, as there was a second woman with her, about the same age and with the same understated slender build.  This second woman was drunk too, but didn’t seem quite as drunk as the one I knew.

- - - - - - - - - -

While the second woman stood at the door, the friend sat down on the side of the bed.  As she explained what they were up to--they’d been to a party, and were in the neighborhood, and wanted to see how I was coping with the deep freeze--she began rolling a joint from certain contents of her purse.

Oh geezuz, I thought.  Not this excresence again; it excites her hormones.

But as there was nothing I could do about it, I laid back on the bed as she continued chitter-chattering about all she’d been up to since we last saw each other.   She took a few drags, and then offered it to the other woman, exchanging the joint back-and-forth for a few minutes.  It was a pretty big joint.

“I need an ashtray,” she finally said, thumping me on a, uh, sensitive part under the sheet.

“They’re in the kitchen,” I said, not wanting to get up.

“But I don’t know where they’re at, and you do, so you get it.”

I thought of something, alarmed.  “Are you sure you want me to?” I asked, warily.

“Oh, I know how you are,” she assured me; “go get me an ashtray.”

So I threw off the bed-sheet, and sat up.

She wasn’t startled, but the woman with her was.

“I’m sorry if it‘s embarrassing,” I said, “but I sleep this way.”

No, she insisted, “but maybe you should put on a bathrobe or something.”

“I don’t own a bathrobe,” I replied contemptuously; “bathrobes are for wimps.”

- - - - - - - - - -

I got up, walked into the kitchen, found an ashtray, and came back to the bedroom.

Sitting on the side of the bed next to her, I kissed her on the side of her head, and roamed my hand, first upward, but as she was trying to roll a joint, her arms obstructed, so the hand went downward instead, way down inside there.

“Objectify me,” I said.  “Take me, play with me, have me, enfold me, use me; remember, one of the greatest virtues is giving pleasure to another person.”

In a bit, she said, not right now.

Okay.

Wanting a smoke, but not the smoke they were smoking, I lit a cigarette from a package on top of the dresser, and stood by one of the tall windows across the room.

“Do you think you should do that?” the second woman asked.  “You’re standing in front of the window, and somebody outside might see you.”

“There’s nobody outside,” I reminded her; “besides, it’s the middle of the night, and besides the weather, we’re out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Are you a naturalist?” she asked me.

I blew smoke out of my mouth.  “No, madam, I assure you, I’m not; I’m actually a decent and civilized person.  It’s just that you caught me at an awkward time.

“Between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when people are usually around here, I’m attired in such a way that makes even a dress-uniformed Marine look slovenly.

“But between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., when people aren’t usually around here, I’m free to let it all hang out.  Alone, I don’t have to be impeccably a gentleman.

“No elderly person, respectable woman, or child has ever seen me between ten and six at night, because they’re all at home and in bed.”

- - - - - - - - - -

The first woman laughed.

“Oh now, just because you can’t hear them, doesn’t mean people aren’t around,” she reminded me.  She’d pulled off her blouse, backing up to me so I could undo the clasps on her brassiere.

I suddenly felt uncomfortable.  Myself being deaf, I’m not privy to gossip, chitchattery, and “talk,” so I have no idea what people say about me.  It’s awkward, this situation, where others know much more about me, than I do about them.

“Well, whatever,” I said.  “Nobody’s ever been offended.  That I know of.

“Surprised, maybe, but not upset.”  I turned her around and pulled the nuisancesome brassiere off, revealing two perfectly-proportioned petite jugs, leaning over to kiss her throat.

Both women by now were pretty stoned.

”Well,” I concluded, “think of me.  This is my terrain, my turf, and I should be free to be as I wish.  When I’m on someone else’s real-estate, I respect their rules and their sensitivities.

“Turnabout’s fair play; anybody catching me unaware on my own ground should respect that.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“You must work out a lot,” the second woman said, appropos of nothing.  “Being all solid and compact like that--”

“I don’t work out at all,” I interrupted.  “I just work; a lot of heavy lifting and moving around, tons.

“You see, despite a college degree, despite all my qualifications and experience, despite that it’s alleged--accurately or inaccurately--that I’m, uh, cerebrally competent, people hire me for my body, not my brain.

“As one has to work to live, I just tote that barge, lift that bale…..”

She was really stoned.

“But since you don’t have much chest hair, I think you’d look really nice shaved down there, too.”

Uh, no, I commented.

- - - - - - - - - -

The first one was done smoking, and disrobed down into nothingness.  As I said, I carnally prefer slender, svelte women with all things being in proportion, and she fills the bill.  She looks good, really good.

Okay, I thought; we’re going to get started now.

Her cellular telephone rang.

Damn, I thought; we’re not going to get started now, no way.

As she paced around the room in circles, chitchatting away, I sighed.  She’s got a really nice ass, a really nice ass, with no sagging or creases.  I like such things on women, but I’ve never been sure what to do with them.  Some men like to do a particular thing with them, but that’s not my cup of tea, piece of cake.  I hold them, caress them, grasp them, pinch them, but mostly I just gaze at them, admire them.

Then I remembered the second woman; it’d be rude to leave her out.

Standing behind the big antique grey naugahyde arm-chair, I suggested she have a seat, and she did.  I laid across her, face up, trying to suck the skin off her lips, cheeks, chin, and throat.  I wasn’t on her lap, but rather across the two arms; it’s a low-sitting chair with high arms.

I meant to unbutton her blouse, but tried too hard, popping off a couple of buttons.  She wasn’t wearing a brassiere, as she didn’t need to.  If she ever took that pencil test, the pencil would just fall to the floor.  As she lightly stroked my inner thighs, I lost my balance and caved down on her, looking very much like a “v” on her lap as both of us continued kissing and caressing.

“You smell nice,” the second woman said.  “What’s the cologne you have on?”

“’Preferred Stock’” I replied.

- - - - - - - - - -

Somewhere along the line, while we were doing something else, she commented, “You’re the most uninhibited guy I’ve ever met, so loose and casual.”

Uh, no, I said; “It’s just that unlike most men these days, cowed by vicious ball-cutting she-women, I just enjoy being a man.  I wouldn’t want to be anything else.  I delight, I revel, I savor, I relish, I luxuriate, in being a man.

“It’s great being a man, with all the confident competence and sheer vigor, the vitality, of masculinity.  There’s days I want to do cartwheels, hand-springs, somersaults, up-and-down the hills and prairies out of rapturous ecstasy, unbounded exhilaration, that I’m a man.

“All the harping, yelling, screeching, snarling, cursing Hate of the rabid banshee she-women on Skins’s island can’t stop me from liking being a man.

“It’s great being a man.  I wouldn‘t want to be anything else.”

- - - - - - - - - -

I was finally there on the bed, in between the two women, locked in a tight kiss with the one on my left, while the one on my right was kissing and rubbing my chest, and caressing me further down.

“I suppose this is okay,” I said, “but we can’t go too far.

“Remember, I’m spoken for by somebody else.”

- - - - - - - - - -

After playing around for some time, I finally suggested the three of us get cleaned up, and then go from there.  “There’s no hot tub or sauna here, but the bathroom’s supplied with extra-hot water--it has its own water heater--and it steams up really heavily--”

“Oh, I’m ready to get steamed,” the second woman said, tickling me down there, after which I tickled her parallel part.

to be continued, but that‘s enough of this episode, only “G“-rated material on other matters from here on out