Watching a Spider and Running a Race

She watched the spider spin her winter’s web;

A runner ran against the wind that day.

The arachnoid swung back and forth in bed;

The woman watched the runner making hay.

It’s time to leave the spider to its task;

It’s time to run the race; he set the pace.

She flexed her toes and knew she could run fast,

And smiled as she blew by to end the race.

One of the Good Guys Died, 09/27/2011

We saw him in the flesh on Wednesday. We saw him in the paper on Monday.

In between, he died.

She opened the morning paper and was flipping pages and there he was,

And I mean was. Not to be trite, but what a shock!

Our family veterinarian died in his sleep, peacefully the obit stated.

I guess peaceful is good, but he was only sixty-seven.

We had just bantered back and forth about the local power structure.  He and I were bosom buddies when it came to politics, putting us in a distinct minority.

He had the credentials, though; he was Dutch royalty and he could have played the game.

One of his ancestors came over on da first boat of settlers with his hona da future and first mayor and I don’t mean the Mayflower, though the ships sailed from the same country at different times.

He was big and bawdy and obscene and he tried to scandalize and I really liked him.

Boomer didn’t.  He frightened Boomer.  Every time we took Boomer to see him, Boomer would hide behind us and pull us toward the exit, which had just been the entrance.

He wanted out and away from the big guy in the white coat.

I can’t blame him.  My blood pressure would go up, too, if all the vet meant to me was thermometers up my butt, shots in my rear, scent gland squeezed, nails cut into the quick. Ouch!

What do I know?  I only get a physician’s digit up my rectum once a year and my blood pressure goes up just thinking about it.

I read part of the obit to Boomer, but my voice had to have had a tone of anxiety.  I was upset.  Boomer didn’t understand the obit, but he thought I was mad at him.  He lowered his ears and turned his eyes away.

It is all about tone with the dog.  Kids, too.  They used to say, “Dad, you have THE tone again.”  You don’t ever have to hit a dog; you should never hit a kid.  Just use THE tone.

Except this time.

I didn’t mean to have the tone.

“Oh, Boom, I’m not mad.  I’m just sad.  One of the really good guys died and Lord knows there is a shortage around here.”

Boomer looked at me and wagged his tail.  See, it’s all about the tone.

On Stopping by the Study, 09/26/2011

John stopped by the pastor’s study to welcome Phil to the neighborhood.

“Got time for a cup of coffee in town?”

There would be many coffees and lunches over the next eighteen months. Then Phil would be done with the interim.

John was ebullient, sort of hyper, always excited about something going on at his inner city congregation. And his boys, always something about the boys: “Phil, you can’t believe Jim’s slider. It breaks this far.” He holds his hands three feet apart.

“A slider drops. A curve breaks.” John’s hands went from horizontal to perpendicular.

“Whatever.”

Phil thought of the Dutchism, “How big is baby?  Sooo big.”

Hands three feet apart, horizontal or perpendicular; it was still a big baby.

In particular, he loved his Saturday morning men’s breakfast/bible study.  That one puzzled Phil. A progressive fellow in all things theological, John loved delivering the message through traditional forms.  Ah, the saving grace of the familiar.

University of Michigan Law grad, leader of one hundred lawyers at a well known firm, John searched for more than torts.

Following bliss, he said, he started seminary, a local denominational seminary, because it was close.

Quitting work, he enrolled full-time and became a Lutheran pastor.

His parents and sister wondered if he would ever grow up.  Then his wife wondered the same thing not to mention the drop in salary.  The three boys loved being with their dad; he was kind of a kid and was always there for them.

John often wondered what he would be if and when he grew up.

Two years after the initial coffee, John and Phil had breakfast.  He asked Phil if he was familiar with Georges Gurdjieff and  P. D. Ouspensky.  Phil asked if they were linebackers for the Bears.

Stiffening his back and holding his big, black wavy mop high, he summoned his best Russian accent: “You vould never understand de Rrrrussian meestics.”

“Oh, I’ve read Leo Stoletoy. He robbed me of my innocence.”

“Stop.”

John then spoke of “polar points” and finding his polar point right there in the church on the staff of all things. Imagine that!

“Now you are crediting the Russian mystics for it,” Phil said, “And it still sounds like adultery.”

John knew he wouldn’t understand.  Ouspensky was just too deep for Phil not to mention Gurdjieff.

Russian mystics or not, John was out of ministry.

A year later, Phil heard that on a particularly cold March morning, fully clothed, John walked into Lake Michigan and didn’t walk out. Phil wondered if John sang, “He Waded in the Water” as he walked in.

His wife was divorcing him; his three sons just shook their heads and cried, ever so hard.

Phil sat in his study. “Damn you, John.  Damn your soul to hell.”

He thought of how much he loved John and then he thought of the three boys:

An outstanding pitcher in high school who chose scholarship over the diamond; a brilliant middle child who as a college sophomore tried to trump his dad on philosophy; the youngest who wanted to follow his dad into the peace corps.

He thought of a seventeen-year-old boy who sat on a squeaky, folding, wood chair in a God forsaken pastel parlor listening to the sonorous sounds which belied the pastor who had told his dad to pray more when his dad was prayed out and before his dad

walked into the water never to return, either.

He thought of the teacher who took the then eighteen-year-old under his academic wing and introduced him to the tragedies of Shakespeare and the comedies.  Thank God for Falstaff.

He looked around the study at the mementos, the certificates with lots of people behind them.  He closed his eyes and sighed.

“I’m sorry, John.  I’m so sorry.”

The Investigation, 09/25/2011

Inspector Morse, Inspector Lewis, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Deputy Superintendent Jane Tennison and Sherlock Holmes were all gathered by Fox News

to ask the candidates questions at the debate beginning immediately after the candidates made opening statements.

A bunch of big haired guys and a petite big haired gal each said something. The crowd roared its approval.

After the statements, the panel all turned to one another with quizzical, puzzled expressions.  Each mumbled, “It’s a mystery to me.”

Holmes spoke for the group, “Elementary, my dear Watson. They are all prime suspects.”

And with that they rose and headed for the exit.  Watson opened the door.

Morse and Lewis asked about a pub for a black and tan.

Miss Marple tucked the crochet needles into her purse.

Tennison reached into her jacket’s breast pocket and pulled out a cigarette.

Poirot turned, smiled at the audience, nodded, stroked his mustaches

and closed the door.

Shortly they would all hop on the Orient Express to leave this scene behind,

A saner place in mind.

I Became an Occupant, 09/25/2011

The note came, terse, formal, cold: “Remove me from your…” and then there was some word indicating a professional e-mail service.  The word was capitalized. I didn’t know it; I don’t remember it.  I’m not a professional e-mail service.

I remember the formality, the distance, the anonymity of it.  But it was my anonymity.  My name was gone.

It was like getting an advertisement via snail mail addressed “To Occupant.”

I’ve known him for years through church, youth groups, camp, high school, junior college and as a room-mate for one year when we both left home for the first time as transfers.

He took my picture hitting a double for the jc baseball team.  He sent it to the local paper. I was famous for a day.  I think it was my only hit.

I was his best man at his wedding; he mine a couple of years later.

But that was that and then.

I went south; he never left.

We reconnected seventeen years later.  I had more in common with his wife.

He stayed, bought the whole rah, rah, sis, boom, bah.  He makes a great cheerleader for the status quo.

I had a problem with his boss kissing up to big donors. It was my school he was prostituting. I let the boss know three times with copies to my best man.

Fourth time, the e-mail came.

People drift apart. I became an Occupant.

The Landscaping Company is Coming Monday, 09/24/ 2011

The landscaping company is coming Monday to spread wood chips around our backyard, the pond, the waterfall,

among the Japanese Iris, the day lilies, tiger lilies, hibiscus, sedium, hosta, rhododendron, a butterfly bush, lilac, lily of the valley, and fading, browning, broken, branched ferns

among other things green.

The owner of the company said, “Well, you will want us to take out the weeds, won’t you, before we spread the chips?”

Judgment.  “Weeds? Oh, don’t bother. My wife and I will take care of that.”

Famous….

We chopped, pulled, tugged.

I hiked the straight and narrow between the wall leading to the upper pond and waterfall and the pine grove where the dog relieves himself, but alas, not straight or narrow enough.

He goes out on his own.  Finds his spot.  Does his business, comes back to the back door and barks authoritatively, “Let me in, now.”

Could you ask for anything more?  A dog who goes out and comes right back in?

Well, maybe.  How about a little farther back in the yard?

I scooped up weed waste and headed for the wood walkway to the garage to the garbage.

I felt the bulge on the left side of the sole of my desert boots.  Why was I wearing my desert boots? Because we are going out after I pick up this yard waste.

Oh, no.  Boomer poop on my desert boot.

The map of the world was cut into the bottom of my sole.  Merrill was just being clever.  It is as if they were saying, “You are a world traveler.”  A Globe Trekker in the parlance.

Did they think about how long it would take to scrape the poop out of South America?

Great Big Gobs of Greasy Grimy Doggie Poop, 09/24/2011

Big, brown balls of dog poop crusting and darkening sit on the left edge of the hiking trail.

His dog heads for the woods deep and away from the trail, circles, hunches his haunches, strains and dumps his Great Big Gobs of Greasy Grimy Doggie Poop far away from the trail.

“What are we feeding him?” he asks out loud.  If, he reflects philosophically, he asks that question in the woods and he’s not there to hear it, does the… Oh, never mind.

What a good dog.

He stops, stops his stopwatch pulls out an environmentally friendly poop bag, opens it, slips it over his left hand, the hand that wipes poop away, that has always wiped poop away and got a bad name that way in a sinister sort of way, bends over and scoops up the big, brown, balls with the dark brown crust.

They are cold but soft under the crust.  It hasn’t been that long since the big dog and his big dumb master passed this way.

This is the second day in a row he has encountered the poop on the trail in relatively close proximity. That poop was on the right side of the trail, but still on the trail. Left or right, the dog is very regular, about a minute into a run and two into a walk.

He thinks to himself, maybe I’ll get here early tomorrow and wait for them to pass by and simply hand the dumb master an environmentally friendly, biodegradable poop bag.

“For shame, Big Dog’s Big Master.”

He spins the blue bag , ties a knot and drops it just off  the trail against the base of the trunk of a tree.

He marks the spot.

When he and his good dog are done with the run he will jog back to the poop bag, pick it up and carry it to the garbage can at the trail head, drop it and listen with satisfaction to the thud the bag makes when it hits bottom.

Yes.

That should give him about two more minutes jogging time.

Satisfied, he ruminates on the fact that something good can come from somebody else’s dog’s great big gobs of greasy grimy doggie poop sitting unceremoniously on the edge of the trail, left side or right; it makes no difference.

A shriveled, little, old woman sits slumped

in a wheelchair. Her lazy eyes stare downward

until something intrudes on her tunnel vision.

Eyes squint and zero in like laser beams on the prey.

The quarry stands close.  She lifts her protruding chin;

she smacks her lips like she is licking her chops.

Betty Davis speaks, “Nice of you to think about

showing up.  How long has it been since your were

last here (son or daughter or sister or brother or

cousin or just about anyone willing to show up

for the abuse)?”

It Had Been Six Months, 09/18/2011

It had been six months since Bart died.  He jumped out of the car, pinched a nerve and froze his hind legs.

We put him down, “What do you do with the body?”  “He’s going to an animal cemetery.”  “What kind of a grave?”  “Big one. Animals are dropped in.”

We cremated him and, of course, the best laid plans of mice and men so ofta go a glae.

Sacred ashes were supposed to be scattered along his beloved (except when the sand was so hot it burned his paw pads) south trail of the Saugatuck Dunes near the shore of Lake Michigan.

He rests in a box on the dresser in the guest bedroom.

Bart was with her since he was a pup. He helped her get through the three toughest years of her life.  Through the death of husband Mike.

Six months after Bart’s death, my wife Chris announced that she was ready.  We went to the Human Society and met the Chocolate who would become Buddy to us.

Flea bitten old geezer with something disgustingly ugly hanging from his eye.  We took him directly to the vet’s.  “Clean him up, please, and take off that ugly thing hanging from his eye.”

He had the worst breath in ten states.  A lab who wouldn’t chew except to eat.  Who woulda believed?

A year and four operations later, the vet said, “One more operation and the eyeball is going to drop out.”

Then the cancer went in instead of out.  Convulsions, arms wrapped tight trying to stop the shaking. “Oh, no, Buddy.  Please, guy, don’t die. Please.”

What a good boy.  So quiet, so gentle, so loving.  We always left him out to do his business and he always came right back to the door.  A stray who really didn’t want to go away.  He was home for a year.

He’s on the dresser with Bart.

I Hiked Three Floors, 09/18/2011

I hiked the three floors to #31 and knocked.

“Oh, hello, Dr. Won’t you come in?” She looked

behind me. We sat quietly. She seemed ill

at ease. “Your wife isn’t with you.” “No, she has

a deadline on a piece of art. When I left, she was

sewing away.”

“No offense, Reverend, I appreciate the visit but when

you made the appointment I assumed she was coming

along. I’m not comfortable without your wife being here.”

I’d not heard that in forty years of ministry.  She had at least

thirty years on me.

Silence.

“Boomer’s in the car.”

A sigh of relief and a big smile.

“Oh, do get him. I’ll make the tea.”