Kansas - I

After a while I start to forget the dead. My life becomes a routine. Eating. Drinking. Caring. Working. I don't even know what order to put them in.

Then, I read a great book. Or have a good conversation. I look at my child when he stands alone, staring into space in the front yard and I see him becoming a new person. A tomato or a squash becomes ripe. But still, I forget the dead. Then, I come back to Kansas. I see them everywhere. They make me smile. I see my mom at Pegues, shopping for a pair of gloves, or my dad, laughing with his buddy Nick about something funny from 30 years past. I see my grandma mashing potatoes or picking peas.

Today we did this; we went to see Nick. Nick is 90. He was one of my dad's best friends. He lives on a farm in the country. He has 20 cattle, a house he's lived in for 30 years, and a kind and humorous heart. He recognized my voice on the phone. He hugs me at the door. He tells us stories about driving out to see the new calves a week ago and getting his truck stuck. Then the tractor. Then his other truck. Then his other tractor. Then Woolsey came out and got his truck stuck. Finally, Woolsey's son came out with a friend, a winch, and a lift and got them all out. He treats my friends like they're good people. He treats my son like he's his own blood. He says, Some people want me to move into an easier place. This is where I want to die. Here. Have 'em dig a hole out there and put me in it. I got 140 acres. I hope he waits a while, but when he goes, I hope he goes sitting in the chair he sat in today when he was telling us the stories. When we leave, he gives hugs, shakes the boy's hands. He tells Jay to take care of his mother. He gives me directions to my parents graves because I can't remember.

Then, we went to see my Aunt Patty. She's my dad's sis. My cousin Jodi is there crocheting. I've been in Aunt Patty's kitchen a million times. My first cat, when I was nine, was a runt from her cat's litter. My grandma lived next door to her. She is our blood. She has made blankets for my sister and niece for us to take. We go out back and catch toads in the yard, like I did as a child. Jay is afraid of the toads at first, hesitates, then catches one. Soon, the boys are running through the yard carrying toads back to the garden. Last night it was fireflies in Newton. When we leave Aunt Patty gives us all a kiss and a hug. She is stuffed full of love and spills it out on everybody.

In between those two things, we eat Kansas BBQ. My dad loved BBQ. The dead are back. They sit with us while we eat.

Then, we drive past the penitentiary, past Main Street, and down Ave G until we get to the cemetery. My parents have a new headstone. It's beautiful. They would like it. We put flowers on the grave. Jay runs to the car to get his camera. We talk about them. How much we miss them. How much they've taken care of us. We walk to the car with our friends. We go get ice cream at Bogies. The sounds of lawn mowers and locusts are everywhere.

Father's Day

Jay and I are heading back to Kansas pretty soon with a couple friends and we're getting excited. I was thinking about it today because, being Father's Day, I was of course thinking about my dad. So many of the folks in Newton remind me of my dad; they're all so friendly and kind and polite. I knew that would be one reason why we'd go back there on a regular basis. We'll see my Aunt Patty and I'll get to see my parents headstone for the first time. When we went back last fall for the memorial, it wasn't done yet. I don't have any good dad stories right now but there a lot of things he gave me that were things I think dads should give their kids. Like patience and optimism and a good work ethic (look, I really do have a good work ethic and I'm not afraid of hard work....I'm just picky). Specific things like how to bait a hook, and to rub mineral oil into the first corn silk when growing corn to keep the bugs away. Things like when to toss in your hand while playing poker in Vegas. And how to be kind and honest and available to the people you love. My boy's dad isn't a very available guy, so I end up trying to give my son the things I got from my dad and I hope some of it transfers. So far, it's working.

I guess I do have a few stories about my dad, come to think of it, they just happen to live in poems. Here are three.

The Game

Finally he is telling the stories.
He is my father sitting in a big chair
and it is half-time.

He is being casual, and he laughs
as he talks, because he can.

My father is saying this:
Well, I was just a little boy,
maybe six, not older.
I was checking the traps Claude set out
and one had a skunk by the leg.
Hell, I didn’t know.
I picked up a stick and poked at it
a couple times.
Sprayed me up real good.
Got home and walked in the house,
drunk old man knocked me
from right here to that wall
over there.
Didn’t get up for a day.
Anyway, the game’s about to start.

Forth quarter,
six minutes left in the game.
Nothing is happening
on the field.
Goddamn Bastard

I hear
my father say.




P.F. Flyers

At four I was immortal with brand new shoes.
I watched Wiley and the road runner
and knew that death lasted two seconds,
made the body wrinkle up like an accordion.
I saw Daffy Duck succumb to the fat wheel
of a steam roller, become a flat collage
of color, and with a quack and a leap,
spring up and continue down the road
in hot pursuit of Elmer Fudd.
So I wasn’t worried as I stood there
in my P.F. Flyers. Stood there in the hot sun
waiting to cross, my dad right there
unaware that I had something to prove
and a lesson to learn. The car was close enough
for me to see the moths smashed in the grille
and I smiled at the old woman driving.
Then there was magic.
My father’s hand reaching out in slow motion,
my legs pumping and my own breath in my ears.
I could feel other people, frozen,
watching me, and hear the sound
of a horn, the sweet smell
of burning brakes.

I stood on the other side
beaming at my father, waving
at the old woman in the car,
white as a sheet. My fathers hand
came out of nowhere
solid against my behind.



Rest

There is a chair in my living room. A recliner
moved from their house to mine. It is
deep russet, big, comfy. It held my father for years.
It held him complete; his whitegray hair,
sometimes not washed for several days, his compact
tired body, wearing the same blue checked shirt
and his 100% polyester Knightsbridge trousers. He carried
a slightly used handkerchief in one of his back pockets
that he would offer out, if one of us needed.
In the other, his worn wallet, holding black and white
baby pictures of his three grown children.
In his front pockets; an ancient red
switchblade for opening boxes or envelopes,
and one of those oval plastic change purses
that you have to squeeze the ends to open.
Inside the change purse was an Irish Erie,
a peculiar buffalo nickel that he thought might
be worth more than five cents, and several
quarters, or wheat back pennies.
He wore a belt most days, and dark support socks.
There is a place there, on the chair,
where he used to rest his head. A slight
indentation. He would fall asleep
every afternoon around one o’clock. He would dream.
His head would touch the back of that chair, lie
against the cloth, and he would rest. My mother,
memory sick by then, would sit on the couch,
or fold clothes in the bedroom, over and over, running
her palm across the comforter
smoothing out the creases. There would be golf
or the Diamondbacks on the television
and he would snore at irregular intervals. It was
his time to nap. The natural oil from the body, the residue
from the Silver Fox shampoo, and the tiny cells of skin
from his scalp would slough off and work their way
into the fabric. And my father got up from that chair
one day in October and drove himself to the hospital
and never came back. There is a place there,
on that chair where my father’s head rested
that I can lean my own head into, turn so my nose
brushes against the rust colored cushion,
and I can smell him, as sharp and clear and present
as every hug he used to give me. There is a chair
in my living room. It is just a chair. He was just my father.

Proud Parent Moment

Jay and I were leaving the grocery store and Pink Floyd's Learning to Fly was on the radio. I turned it up and said, name that band. Jay sat there, hesitated for a SECOND and said Pink Floyd. Oh my gosh. I screamed, YES! Pink Floyd. I am so proud of you! It was as if he had gotten a scholarship. Those moments are priceless.

Here's a funny story. The scout masters at Boy Scouts had a bit of a mishap last night. They had made a fire and were fusing the ends of ropes. They thought the fire was out, and poured oil on it (??). The oil ignited and one of the scout masters hair caught on fire SLIGHTLY. Jay got a little singe on his hair too. His friend's shirt sleeve toasted up a bit. So, when Jay got in the car with his friend, they couldn't wait to tell me about it. Hmmmmm. It was okay really. Boys love that stuff. As Jay's friend said, no one got SERIOUSLY hurt. Hahahaha. So, when we got home I could smell that smell of burned hair. And I showed him in the mirror how it crinkles your hair up funny. I said, yeah I did that once to my bangs. Jay said, really, how? and it dawned on me that it was once when I was using a lighter a bit too close to my bangs. I don't remember how, I said. I just remember it smelled this same way and crinkled my hair up. I left the room quickly.

Thinking back, It probably happened while I was listening to Pink Floyd.

The Story of Herman, Plus Broccoli.

I have today off. Yes. Off. I don't have to work todayyyyyy. It may just look like letters written on a page, but I'm dancing around the room and singing it. Heck (although I just wrote the word heck, I am not wearing overalls, nor do I watch Hee Haw reruns. not that there's anything wrong with that.), I had a whole couple years off. But when you work, a day off means so much more than when you don't work and it's just a regular thing. You forget the value of "the day off." So, on my day off, one thing I'm doing is cleaning out Herman's aquarium with Jay. 

We have three turtles. Two aquatic and one tortoise. One aquatic lives in a 75 gallon aquarium and the other, Sally, lives in a ten gallon one. The big one, Frank, is about 9 inches across. Sal is more like an inch and a half.  They just swim mostly, and bask in artificial light. They're cool. And they're social. And I'm not even going to discuss the "but wouldn't they be happier in a REAL pond out in the WILD?" issue. For that debate, you'll need to bring over a bottle of wine on a summer night and plan on sitting on the porch for a couple hours. 

Back to the turtles. After Sally and Frank, I was not planning to get another turtle. It's a small house and already filled. NO MORE ANIMALS I would say. Well, one day Jay and I were in New Frontiers, this local health food store, and we needed to make a bathroom stop. Coming out of the restroom, in the back of the store, I saw a note on the employee bulletin board (I like to read bulletin boards, although not as much as fronts of refrigerators because they can be really interesting and what people put on their fridges is like reading a short story about the refridgerator owner). There was a handwritten ad for a turtle. In big letters, I"M MOVING AND I NEED A GOOD HOME FOR MY TURTLE." Of course I was in. I took down the number and called when we got home. Some NAU guy had graduated and was moving to Alaska. He had had his turtle for 10 years! On the ad on the bulletin board he had said it would 20 bucks to own this turtle but when I said, solemnly, yes, we will give this turtle a good home, he said to just keep the 20 dollars. He said it was just to weed out people who didn't want his turtle enough to pay for it. So, Jay and I loaded the aquarium, the bark tunnel, the food and the turtle itself into the car and headed home. 

There is a small happiness about driving home with a turtle in the backseat. I like the responsibility that comes along with little things. It's not like a child or a companion or paying the mortgage, it's just a part of dailty life. We feed Herman regularly, although I'm sure a day goes by here and there when we forget. He lives in Jay's room and he makes odd noises (Herman, not Jay) when he eats and drinks. Jay told me how sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and can hear Herman eating (crunchcrunchcrunch) and wonders for several seconds what IS that? then remembers and goes back to sleep. But we know it's up to us to keep Herman alive. We must feed him, make sure there's water, and occaisionally clean up his digs. And we get the experience of strange noises and examining the beautiful scales on his legs and wondering if we should trim his toenails yet.

And that brings me to broccoli. Strangly. But broccoli is one of those things too. A small happiness. A little responsibility. I did not always know what broccoli looked like as it grew. Now, I grow it. It's cool. It's a broccoli head growing straight up on a stem. Like a broccoli pop. Once you pick the head, it still grows shoots out the side. I have 8 broccoli plants and 4 cauliflower (which grow the same way). I water them most days. I look at them often. Growing them is so much different than buying them at the store. I don't know that they'll taste better. They'll probably look asymetrical and not as "pretty" as store brocc. But it's that small happiness in growing them that I love. When the head starts out it's as tiny as a pea. But it still looks like broccoli. Cool. But then there's the beauty of the leaves and the growing itself and the taste of eating food that grew RIGHT IN THE BACKYARD. Nice.

I'm having a good day off.

Slice (of life)

It's been raining quite a bit. Well, not today or yesterday or this last week. But before that. Several days in a row, maybe even a whole week. Pounding lovely thunderous rain. Damn the hail, however. I have a few pepper plants that were quite injured. But the rain was nice. One day Jay and I were going to the store. As we were driving, there was this tiny old (yes, she was old. It's not a derogatory statement. She must have been 75) lady walking along the sidewalk. The rain had come up suddenly and I could tell she had been caught unaware. Hard rain. No umbrella. Head down. She was walking against us. I drove about another 20 feet and pulled over. "I'm gonna go get her" I said to Jay. He looked at me a bit warily. "She's tiny and old and has no umbrella." I must have been trying to justify my actions to my child (weird). I made a u-turn and we pulled up near her, although now we were across the street. I rolled down the window and hollered "Hey, can we give you a ride?" and she said "Do you see anyone coming" pointing up the street as it was curvy and hard to see in the rain. There were no cars and she crossed the street and got in my car. We introduced ourselves. She said "Well, I guess I recognize you" although I couldn't think where from and we took her to her apartment complex. We chatted a bit more. She thought Jay was a girl at first because he had on a stocking cap and I was so happy that he didn't even get annoyed, he just smiled at her like he used to smile at his grandma. She laughed when I said "No, that's my boy there" and she said, "It's hard sometimes to tell when they all wear hats" and Jay just kept grinning. We decided we would give her a ride again if we saw her. I like it when things like that happen.

Hmmmmm

Look at the silly chickens. Wait! What's that in the background?! A furry chicken? No, it's Stan. Stan has gotten into the chicken coop.

Stan likes to hang out with the chickens. He thinks he may be a chicken. Oh Stan.