CONTINUED: Pit Stop

One Sunday afternoon early in our marriage …which I ordinarily think of as a journey of two children growing up together, one a little slower than the other …  the two of us hadn't gotten very far south on our return trip from Watertown before snow and traffic accidents forced everyone off the road.  But my wife and I were welcomed into the living room of a very nice older couple who fed us cookies and coffee for over two hours.   People were more pleasant back then as well as trusting.

When the siren wailed on the New York State Police cruiser, it signaled the highway was now open again.  We promised the couple to stop back in the future and in fact exchanged Christmas cards for two years.  The Interstate was still closed, but traffic began to move again on the two-lane Route 11.  We were soon headed south from the little village of Mannsville. 

 We crept along at a snail's pace in a long line of slipping and sliding cars and were a couple of miles south of town when Mrs. Dave made her announcement.

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

I should not have been surprised, after the coffee from our visit.  Women were not made to hold a lot of coffee, I think.  When God finished up installing all the equipment needed for carrying, delivering and nurturing babies, plus a temporary amount of space for constantly gaining and losing weight, there wasn’t a lot of room left over.

God’s assistant, the Angel Anatomie, probably told him, “You’re about 0.14 cubits short of the space you’ll need for a decent size bladder.”

“Give her a smaller bladder,” said God, “and build in the  need to fix her makeup all the time with the other girls. At least that’ll keep her near a bathroom.”

“You knew you were going to come up short of space,” said Anatomie. “You should have made her as large as him.”

“No, he will need to carry her sometimes,” said God.  “And she will need to be short enough to listen to his heart beneath his bluster.”  

My wife suggested I take her back to  Mannsville and find a bathroom. 

“Hell,” I said, “we’re in the middle of a blizzard and I don't know if I can do a 3 point turn in this line of cars.  And when we go back we'll be at the end of the line and that will add hours to the trip.”

 I was exaggerating, as usual, to impress the lady with the importance of my point.  It didn't work then and it doesn’t now.  You'd think I would have quickly learned that, but fifty odd years later I still haven’t. 

Spotting a Greyhound bus up ahead, I suggested she just walk up the line of cars, bang on the bus door and ask to use their rest room.  You can imagine her response.

“No problem,” I said. “I’ll personally go handle the negotiation with the bus driver if you’ll take the wheel while I walk up ahead.” 

She said she had no intention of getting on a bus full of strangers just to use the crapper.  I pointed out strangers were probably the best kind of people to do that among. 

“You’ll never see them again,” I said.

“This is crazy,” she said.

“No, no, this is perfect.  The people on the bus won’t even know why you boarded.”

“Until I head for the rest room.”

“Tell them you’re a fireman,” I said, “stopping to check the inspection date on the fire extinguishers.”

“In the middle of a blizzard?”

“Overtime!  You needed the overtime!”

“Are you for—“

“Or … here, take this,” I said, pulling the ash tray from beneath the dash.  “Tell them you’re collecting for UNICEF.”

At this point she said a bad word.

“It’s for the children,” I said.

 I should have long ago learned when to pull the reins up short on a horse that wasn’t going anywhere.  Fifty odd years later I still haven’t mastered the trick.

“I’ll empty the ash tray,” I said.

I didn’t need to turn toward her to see the glaring look on her face.  I could feel it.

“OK then, the lady fireman,” I said. “If you pull your coat collar up —“

She said another bad word.

Executing a 3 point turn in a raging blizzard is not easy, but twenty minutes later we were back in Mannsville.  Our friendly older couple lived on the other side of the village, so we stopped at the General Store and Mrs. Dave ran quickly to the rest room.  Ten minutes later we were back on the road.  The sun had come out, the plows had achieved some success  and traffic was moving along at an almost brisk pace. 

We followed the Greyhound all the way to Syracuse, slowing to a stop two or three times, only three cars behind the bus. Each time I was tempted to get out and run up and ask the bus driver if I could use the bathroom, because now all the coffee from our visit was beginning to work on me.  It would have been a dramatic statement to my wife on the efficacy of my original thinking.  But alas, I was too embarrassed to bang on the bus door and ask to use their bathroom. 

Some of my greatest ideas over the years have appeared to me even better when I asked someone else to try them first.  But in my long years of marriage I’ve at least learned who not to ask.

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Copyright by David Griffin, 2016

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Struggle

The bird had strayed too far inland and was now poised over the land as he battled a stiff headwind.   Struggling forward to the safety of the beach, the small creature clawed the air as it buffeted him backward and kept him from home, from his family and friends.

Thomas flew next to the bird in his imagination.  He  pushed relentlessly against the wind and made no more progress than his companion.  He was tiring quickly.

When the bird could no longer move his exhausted wings, he slapped them back against his sides, nosed over and plummeted to earth, flaring out at the last moment to land hard in  Thomas’s back yard.  He bounced on the grass and lay on his side.

Sitting in his chair on the grass, the old man had almost felt the jolt when they landed.  Thomas’s imaginary flight had been a brief but welcome change from the daily sameness of his life.  He was no longer physically able get down to the shore, but sat behind his house in the late afternoon sun each day watching the birds and hoping for the smell of the sand and the ocean to drift his way.

The young bird stood up and  flitted from the grass to a tree and then from limb to limb, frustration mounting in his heart as he hoped each new view of his surroundings would hold a solution to his plight. 

Eventually the sun moved low on the horizon, the shadows lengthened.  The bird couldn’t fly in the dark, but he knew he mustn’t  stay on the ground through the coming hours of the night. Lizards, snakes or other vermin stood by to make a meal of him before the sun rose again.  Out of frustration he jumped into the air to fly anywhere.  He scolded himself to just get going and hope for the best.  But the sea breeze blew him back each time he tried and he was afraid what little strength he had left would be sapped, leaving him weak in the face of whatever dangers might attack him before dawn.

Just before darkness fell, the bird rallied and again attempted to fly up into the unconquerable breeze.  Thomas’s aging eyes now noticed the bird was not young and slim, but rather old and frail.

The frightened bird was beside himself with anguish.  He launched himself into the air with desperation. The old man released an audible sigh.  He no longer wanted to imagine himself up in the air flying along with the old bird, feeling his terror.  A young bird would overcome adversity.  An old bird might not survive without a miracle.  In Thomas’s mind age made a difference.  Age would lose the battle. 

The bird gave up and settled back down on the grass.  Thomas stayed in the yard.  Rather than retire to the kitchen as usual to fix his supper, he remained near the bird to watch by the light of an early moon.  The man wished for a miracle, but believed they seldom happened.

The breeze off the ocean stopped.  The night became soundless for a few seconds.  The bird quickly launched himself up into the air one more time.  Thomas was immediately at his side, at least in his mind.  Suddenly, they both heard the breeze resume and their hearts sank.  But the twice daily miracle had already taken place. The land cools faster than the depthless ocean each evening, causing the great masses of air to once again switch places, but this time in the opposite direction.  As Thomas and the bird braced themselves to be slapped backward again,  the air temperatures reached their tipping points.  In the twinkling of an eye the sea breeze reversed itself.

The bird was caught by the land breeze and whisked ahead toward the beach in the strengthening moonlight.  He had only to wait for the grace built into his world to rescue him.

The bird saw creation respond to his need that evening.  Thomas saw a miracle.  It’s a miracle you might see as  ordinary, but only if you never struggled with the impossible and wondered how you would ever find an answer. 

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Copyright by David Griffin, 2016

The Windswept Press

Murrells Inlet, South Carolina

www.windsweptpress.com

CONTINUED: Loyalty

When Dude came out of The Arcade on the back lane that led to Arsenal Street,  she turned to see Tippy still following her.  Heading up the street toward the Sears store,  my mother-in-law knew she was delaying the inevitable, but she also wanted to lose the dog. Dude stopped abruptly in front of the Avon theater and noted the display poster for  "Roman Holiday" with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.  A matinee ticket was a luxury my mother-in-law seldom afforded herself, but Gregory Peck was too tempting in the face of a purchase she didn’t want to make. And so, with the excuse in mind of getting rid of the dog,  she told him to go home for the hundredth time that day and entered the cool interior of the Avon.   After a while, Tippy headed home, his head hanging almost to the sidewalk.  Just as he was sniffing his way up Academy Street,  Mrs. Dave’s mother was winning the grand prize.  She had stumbled into the waning hours of a month long publicity blitz that culminated in the door prize raffle of ... you guessed it ... a brand new Frigidaire refrigerator!

Dude seldom complained about the dog again, according to my wife.  And on the few occasions when she did, the girl my wife will always be went into the kitchen and loudly opened and slammed the door of the Frigidaire a few times.  That gesture was to become a family tradition of emphasizing a point.

Mrs. Dave said that through her teenage years Tippy was the only worldly being she could tell everything to, because he always listened and sagely said nothing.  I have over the years repeatedly tried and failed to match the dog's astute silence when anyone needs to talk to me, but am seldom able to last even five minutes without offering a comment.  The dog's talent was not practiced, it was innate.

Tippy managed to kill himself in the late '60's.  The Frigidaire gave up the ghost in the 1970's.  My mother-in-law, a wonderful lady I more appreciate as I get older, stubbornly held on a good deal longer and made it just into the 1990's. 

Had the dog lived as long as Dude, he would have enjoyed a comfortable old age with a comfortable old lady.  But maybe it was the Year of the Woodstock Nation  or the dawning of the  Age of Aquarius that caused Tippy to attempt one last excursion in 1969.   Deep in his senile confusion,  he tried to follow a young female purebred home on a wintry January afternoon  and fell into the Black River that runs through Watertown.  He went in old and blind and befuddled and barely alive.  He came out  frozen like a huge ice cube and decidedly dead.  I condoned the dog's final fling and said he was only following his instincts.  But my wife said I should take a lesson from Tippy's demise.  She slammed the refrigerator door when she said it.

Copyright 2010,  David Griffin

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