For health reasons, he decided to go on the wagon for a while. He does this periodically, just to keep himself honest. He doesn’t drink vodka or bourbon in the evening as usual.

In the morning, he looks forward to a cup of freshly brewed coffee from a local roaster ground at home with a bit of Hazelnut Cream added. For lunch, it’s ice tea, a lot of ice tea. In the afternoon, probably a tall cup of boiling hot rhubarb or one of the other oolongs and in the evening, some flavor of herbal tea.

He wakes refreshed and ready to go for a jog as he has four of five days a week for the last forty-five years of his life. He now wears joint saving new “maximalist” running shoes which are all the rage, especially on the West Coast, even if they look like clown shoes to most people in the Midwest and bright blue or orange compression leggings to stave off muscle fatigue.

Someone once stopped him, in a local running store of all places, and said, “Oh, I hope your legs are getting better.” In spite of the stares and comments these aids are important as he approaches seventy and hopes to keep jogging for a few more years, lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

It’s raining today, a bone chilling, blustery, fall rain best known for knocking down pretty leaves prematurely leaving the rest of October as but a preview of November.

His wife and dog jog with him, but not today. She’s snuggled up with Stuart Woods and the Chocolate Lab is just snuggled up.

He could still go but decides to have another cup of gourmet coffee while sitting on the couch looking like Bozo ready to juggle a Harlan Coben mystery in one hand and the cup of French Roast with a hint of Hazelnut Cream in the other.

His wife suggests that he go brush his hair.

Our Chocolate Lab Buddy Baloo isn’t telling us his story but we think we entertained angels who helped.

Our story is that we stopped at the Humane Society on a lark and he was there having arrived one hour earlier. The Humane Society vet thought he was about four years old. We waited the obligatory ten days and no one called for him.

For a year now he has been our baby Buddy Baloo, named Baloo by the society for the big blue bear in the Jungle Book and by us simply because we wanted a buddy.

We jog with him five days a week and one Sunday morning on one of the trails we jog regularly, two little girls sat on a bench on the side of the trail. We stopped as we almost always do to let people pet Buddy Baloo and they said that they knew the dog and had found our Buddy Baloo by another name.

Excited, we asked a few questions like where did you find him. They said the dog ran from them but they caught him and took him to a store nearby and the person at the store called the # on his tag but the man who answered said he didn’t want the dog. The girls then left so we guess the store owner took him to the Humane Society.

We thanked them for being Buddy’s angels and continued our jog. Then we thought of more questions like what was the dog’s name and what store did they take him to, things we should have asked if we were to follow-up on Buddy Baloo’s story, but didn’t.

We looked for them on our return loop. They were gone. We jogged all over the park looking for them – the soccer matches, the baseball game. They were nowhere to be found.

It was like they had been waiting for us to jog by. It really was like they were Buddy Baloo’s Sunday morning angels and we had enough of the story, more than most do.

It had been a while since visiting

a big city — pedestrians on their

way, somewhere, obviously some-

where really important by their

gait, standing like stallions at the

gate which was just the curb, one

foot off (men in Allen Edmonds

and women dressed nicely in slacks

and wearing that new brand of run-

ning shoe – Hoka), onto the street

and then a hasty retreat as a Toyota

hybrid cab or some late-model Ger-

man car cuts the corner sharply half-

way through a red light. Anticipating

the light’s move to green, the horses

step off again. The light signals

go, the band strikes up, “Da…

da…da.da.da…da.da.da.da.da.da-

hhhh and Herb Gardner’s Thousand

Clowns are off to the races. It’s a

beautiful, fall day — crisp, sunny;  the

light bounces off the steel and glass

of the skyscrapers reflecting spires of

old churches, a river running through

it, the Big Lake and a newly planted

tree or two in the city’s effort to go

green. He stands for a moment on

the bridge, pedestrians on their way

to somewhere important brushing up

against him on both sides. He moves

to the side, leans over the concrete rail-

ing and looks down at the water running

away from the Big Lake, just another

mechanical wonder in the big city. Wrens

sing their way through the scraps on

the ground, while an Indigo Bunting perch-

ed on a piling watches an architectural

tour boat float by.

I sit to jot a line or two

about unconditional love;

my Chocolate Lab sees

me sit, rises and gives

my pen hand a gentle shove.

Like a child in my arms,

the 95 lb. lab says let me down;

I want you to take me

to the merry-go-round,

to ride the horses while you

sit in the seat next to the horse

looking up with pride at the stray

dog you so love, of course.

My lab holds the reins with one paw

and with the other reaches down

and pats me on the head

with affection for the love he has found.

Then he says, “Now, let’s go do the ferris wheel,”

and I have to think about that a time or two.

Thinking more safe and tame and pigs that squeal,

and tell my dog, “Let’s go to the petting zoo, Buddy Baloo.”

Buddy Baloo does his doggie purr,

wags his tail and flaps his ears;

the donkeys, sheep, goats and all the bunnies

move toward him forgetting all their fears.

I get with the plan and start to pet the animals,

but when Buddy sees me stroking the pets

he gets jealous and gives me a little shove

to tell me just remember who is your first love.

We head for home and I have a word or two

for him. I tell him I want to write a story of love,

one in which he is the star, so if he wants

such fame, when I put pen to paper,

don’t give my hand a shove.

The Barth Street boys
made their mark:

First glue sniffers
in Wealthy Heights

First spray paint
graffiti artists

First to sign their work
“Barth Street Brothers”

Where are they now, these
seven nameless neighbors?

Two went down in Vietnam –
left signatures in blood
Let us call them soldiers who
died in vain in a war insane

Two dead in gangland –
drug deal gone bad
Now remembered by
two white crosses
Mothers bear
their tragic losses

One played minor league ball
then bought a laundromat in
the city’s core
Served people well until
he died of kidney failure

The other two drifted away –
alone and since forgotten
No markers or flowers for them
faded and never forgiven

Who were their heroes?
It is wondered now
What happened Joe DiMaggio?
you only inspired one
Martin Luther King, dear man
Couldn’t they hear your voice’s ring?
Prophets and pickers
Preachers and poets
In their fields they were the cream
Message and influence meant
nothing at all – even the rappers
could not make them dream

Barth Street today –
Hardly the same
Trash and old tires removed
there we see gardens and swings
Houses scraped and painted
broken windows repaired
New sidewalks and gutters –
no violence or clutter

There has been renewal
the neighborhood has a glow
People are proud again
care and love emerge from
the hearts and souls
It goes deeper than the surface –
maybe in a larger sense
the brothers served their purpose
You wonder –
where and how they might
sign their names

Steve Haarman
October 5, 2014 ^

The theologian wrote,

“There isn’t the sacred

and profane. There is

just the sacred

and desecrated.”

That which is created

is good, great, the best,

a way to the spiritual,

eternal?

And we cherish it, us,

all

as a gift

or trash it

and make it unfit

for creation’s habitation?

A colleague from many

years ago, a sculptor/

priest asked me out

of the blue, “Do you

like rocks?”

I thought he had

a head full of them

and he did.

He saw what I did

not — the spiritual,

eternal in the temporal;

he saw the window

and he carved it

for blind-eyed

me to see.

Now, all these

years later, on a hike

I will see windows

under my feet,

all around and

towering to

the sky.

A chill, a shiver,

rain, rain — a splash

of sleet,

an early omen —

the sun is

in retreat.

Hope, irrepressible

hope, for dry

days,

clouds in retreat,

an Indian Summer,

the trails

await his feet

to jog

through

the autumnal

blaze of glory,

a wonderful, un-

folding October

story.

It must be, even at three day’s early, a full-moon

because on the blessed day conflict came way too soon.

It was a Sunday morning after a late Saturday night

so perhaps the blame was on a hangover done just right.

The store manager was incredibly surly at best

and then there were other contacts accounting for the rest

of the department store and grocery store snipes and gripes

and he had to swallow hard and clear his pipes

and think about any further personal and business contacts

and ask his wife to handle all further contracts.

He went home and watched, on cable T.V., NFL football

and watched his team the Bears on their face did fall.

He never thought he would wish for the dawn of a Monday,

but he had had enough of this blasted, blessed Sunday.

Jesus felt power go out from him

like a computer loses power from

the battery if the power cord is

not plugged in while people

continue to tap the keys and surf

the web. The woman who had suffer-

ed grievously at the hands of many

physicians, in desperation and in the

inevitable weakness that comes when

life blood continues to flow out of the

body like power from a computer when

the power cord is not plugged in,

plugged into the power cord of Jesus’

hem and the blood flow stopped and

her body charged once again, and all

because she hooked up to the power

source who wasn’t aware of what was

going on except that he felt power go

out from his body, looked back and saw

a healthy person rising from the ground.

The cottage is as compact and tight

as a vacuum/shrink-wrap bag used to

keep meat and seafood frozen forever

and when thawed as fresh as the day

they were slaughtered or pulled from

the sea. He sits and watches the wind

blowing through the birches in back.

He hears nothing. He wonders if the

cow and the lobster hear the suck-

ing noise when the freezer door is

opened or the thud when it is closed,

or, if like the man in the cottage, life

silently but swiftly passes by.