Monday, I took Lydia to a dentist in David City to have two baby molars removed; the permanent molars were growing in under them, making them go off all crooked right into her tongue. There really weren’t much roots left on those baby teeth, but she had a sore mouth and a headache the rest of the day, nonetheless.
There is absolutely no water, none in the Platte River south of town, none until a few miles farther downriver after the Loup, both the river and the canal, empties into it.
We took country roads home, choosing a few we’d never driven on before, and were surprised to top a hill and find a sizable lake in a pretty valley, with woods all the way around. We drove around Bellwood Lakes and Brandenburg Lakes. The first looks like a slum district in spite of the airboat rides available there; the second is quite pretty, with expensive houses around it.
When our stomachs began to complain, we went home for supper.
Flash floods in western Nebraska around Ogallala last Saturday destroyed both east and west bridges on Interstate 80, and a truck driver was killed when he hit the washout. His truck flew into the ravine, and he was ejected from the cab. Westbound traffic was diverted onto Rt. 30, eastbound onto the road that follows the southern edge of Lake McConaughy.
That parched region did need rain, and they needed it badly; but so much at one shot--up to 18 inches, in places--didn’t do a whole lot of good, because the ground was too hard and dry to absorb much more than an inch.
I80 is one of the nation’s two premier east/west routes, along with I40 farther south, and this washout meant the loss of possibly millions of dollars, for both the truckers and also the businesses along the Interstate that rely almost entirely on travelers’ patronage. So it was top priority to get it fixed, and the Roads Department simply chose the contractor who could promise to get the bridges done the fastest.
He guaranteed the work to be done by Monday--tomorrow.
But would you believe, those bridges were done Friday? Workers--anywhere from 50 to 75 of them--had worked round-the-clock, under huge floodlights at night, taking long shifts.
Last week there was a picture in the paper of a heavy-set man in his 60s who owned a small grocery store in a little town along one of the detours. He said, “I’ve been on my feet all day long, from sunup to sundown. I’ve never had so much business in my life; I’ve never made so much money in four days!--but I think it’s going to kill me.”
Monday evening, we went fishing at Lake Babcock, actually in the Loup Canal. When the mosquitoes got the better of us, we fled for our lives. We stopped at a nearby convenience store for Mt. Dew slushies (although I recommended juice). We then stopped at the Loup Power house, where we trotted down the long staircase to an area just above the big turbines. Larry and Hester, fisherpersons to the core, tossed lines in to see if any fish were hungry for worms.
They weren’t. At that location, they are probably just recovering from their terror at traveling through those huge propellers that are whining and howling with the force of the water.
As expected, Victoria promptly got a dreadful stomachache from those slushies, so we headed for home.
Keith and Esther have a ‘new’ car, a maroon Buick Century. They traded their other car in and got some money to boot.
Wednesday evening, we went to Madison for parts for Larry’s pickup, including a fuel tank. After paying for them, we left them at Madison for later retrieval and went on to Stanton to fish at Maskenthine Lake. It was a lovely evening, with a pleasant, cool breeze.
Some elderly people fishing nearby caught a whole volley of fish, but we only caught a few that would have made good bait for the ones we really wanted. Actually, the truth is, we think that any fish bigger than our bait are keepers; but when others are looking, we are obliged to throw back the small ones, more’s the pity.
The sun went down in a blaze of color, and all sorts of frogs and night birds took up a chorus. Let’s see...I think there were bull frogs, kettle frogs, snare frogs, bongo frogs, conga frogs, gumby frogs... Uh, do I have the wrong category?
We went back to Madison to get the fuel tank, and I drove the rest of the way home, smelling diesel fuel all the way. Ugh.
Last week, I sent off several articles to ‘The Front Porch’, a new magazine that debuted July fourth and is based in Lincoln, with a circulation around the country. I am hoping not just to have a few one-time publications, but to get a job as columnist. Cross your fingers for me. Cross your toes. Cross your eyes!
Thursday, we got a postcard from a cousin of Larry’s--probably a second cousin thrice removed, or something on that order--telling us she and her two children would be stopping to see us--the very next day! We’d been hoping they would come visiting for some time now, but you’d better be sure, we got right into a frenzy of cleaning. The living room was soon nice and clean, and the kitchen soon would be--
“Oooo!” I exclaimed as I rushed past one of the girls as they scrubbed at the side of the refrigerator, “I’d better not forget the bathroom; it’s dreadful!”
A while later, the littles proclaimed themselves to be dying of thirst, so Hester stirred up some Five Alive juice from a can in the freezer. Shortly thereafter, I heard the following conversation:
Lydia: “Caleb, why are you staring at that can like that?”
Caleb: “Because it says ‘Concentrate’ on it.”
Hannah and Aaron came visiting for a little while. Hannah had purchased a new umbrella stroller (when she was little, she used to call them ‘rainbow’ strollers), and they were trying it out. But...of all things...when they were ready to go, we had to fold up the stroller, pack it into the Suburban, and take them home, because--get this--it was raining.
Yes, you heard me right; it was raining.
Not pouring, but more than misting. Amazing! We'd forgotten what it was like. The littles ran out into the front lawn and stood, faces uplifted, tongues out. Even the cats wanted to be out in it!
Later that night, I was playing the piano when Hester and Lydia came waltzing into the living room and interrupted me with an exciting announcement: “Teddy said we can be candlelighters in his and Amy’s wedding in October, maybe the 6th or the 13th!”
I popped off the piano bench and marched into the kitchen, where I found Teddy wearing his Best Innocent Look, reminiscent of Woodstock of ‘Peanuts’ fame.
“What’s this I hear about a wedding,” I demanded in my Best Severe Inflection, “And don’t you know that you’d better ask me” I jabbed at my chest a couple of times “since I have the power of veto?!!”
“Er, well, um, well,” said Teddy succinctly and articulately, “I was, er, going to!” And he raised his eyebrows high and lifted his palms upwards in supplication.
The siblings snickered.
Friday, Bobby, Hannah, Aaron, and Dorcas went to Henry Doorly Zoo. Guess what intrigued Aaron the most. No, it wasn’t the bears; no, it wasn’t the lions. Not even the monkeys, and nope, not the giraffes or the hippos. It was the penguins. He loved the funny antics of all the little tuxedo-clad people, and he loved watching them swim through the viewing glass (that is, he watched them through the viewing glass; they didn’t swim through the viewing glass). (The English language can get tricky, yes?)
That evening, after a flurry of cleaning the kitchen and fixing the food, everyone got themselves ready for the company. As I brushed Victoria’s long waves, she discussed hair color of her various siblings.
“Hester and Hannah have almost burnish hair (she meant ‘auburn’); Keith and Teddy have darkish brown, and Tabby’s is bright yellow. (Is Tabby a sibling?) And mine,” she finished, “is bright brown.”
And then it was 6:30, and our company, whom most of us had never met, was here. The last time Larry saw his cousin Rhonda, he was nine years old. Rhonda’s children Matt and Leanne came with her, and the cousin who now lives here in Columbus, Gordon, came too. (Gordon is Rhonda’s nephew.)
About the time everyone arrived, I was broiling the bacon, which smoked up the house good and proper. So in they came, feeling their way along through the smog that they thought they’d gotten away from when they left Denver.
We had stuffed peppers for supper, complemented by Rhonda’s scrumptious cinnamon rolls and banana nut loaf. We had strawberry peach pie for dessert. Unset strawberry peach pie, I might add. It wasn’t even cold yet! Good grief. Why didn’t I make it the night before?? Well, we slogged our way through it. Rhonda also brought us cookies and rolls, everything homemade, and everything yummy.
Afterwards, Rhonda showed us some pictures she’d brought along, some of which were from 1970, when she and her brother had driven from their home in Porter, Minnesota, where Larry’s father was born, to Trinidad, Colorado, where the Jacksons lived. There were several pictures with Larry and his family in them, and those I copied at Wal-Mart.
Larry was delighted to find a picture of his father on an old mountain bike called a Twister. The tires don’t have spokes, as it was designed for riding in the mountains. Lyle had put a bigger tire on the back to give him better traction. As an additional advantage, this made the bike go faster--sort of like putting overdrive on it. Larry used to drive the motorcycle sometimes, and was fond of it. He has never had a picture of it before.
Bobby, Hannah, and Aaron stopped in and ate some pie--ahem, fruit soup.
Gordon, Matt, Larry, and Joseph played catch with a football for a while, with a bit of interference from Caleb and Victoria and at least one neighbor boy. When the rest of us came outside, we found Victoria tearing up and down the sidewalk on her bike--with her turquoise and black winter coat on! It’s summertime, Victoria.
She shed it before long, and was then tearing up and down the sidewalk with her coat dangling down to the ground, in dire peril of crashing. I called her to come give me the coat...she jumped off her bike, came running, dragging the coat...tripped over it, and nearly fell flat. Mercy.
Isn’t it nice to meet up with distant relatives that you discover not only make good relatives, but also good friends?
Teddy came home about 10:30 Saturday morning because he was having troubles with nosebleeds, an ongoing problem for him. It started about 9:30, and he worked as long as he could before coming home.
And then--
And then.
And then, just as he came in the door, a blue jay went sizzling over his head.
[ ♪ ♫ Lalala ♪ ♫ “May the bird of paradise fly up your nose!” ♪ ♫ tralala ♪ ♫ ]
Teddy jumped and spun around to see what in the world that was, and there was Tabby, padding along apace, gazing skyward (or ceilingward, as the case may have been), looking as innocent as a newborn babe. Er, kitten.
“What are you doing?!” demanded Teddy, still holding a paper towel to his nose.
“It followed me home,” explained Tabby; “Meee!” He rubbed against Teddy’s ankles persuasively. “Can I keep it, mee?” (Or something on that order.)
Teddy wearily extracted a towel from the closet and attempted to throw it over the bird with one hand, pressing a tissue to his nose with the other. The blue jay squawked indignantly and flapped wildly about the living room. Tabby trotted after it with interest. B. Jay attempted a few frantic upswings, nearly impaling himself on the ceiling stalactites.
One of the biggest problems with having this Cyanocitta cristata banging around the house was this: he had evidently been feasting in the mulberry tree shortly before his preamble with Tabby bought him admittance to the house (although I’m not sure he paid willingly).
So that I not offend your sense of delicacy and sensibility, I shall leave you to your own deductions regarding the asperity of flight immediately ensuing a Mulberry entree. [But it was the direct cause of my later circling the room with a bowl of hot soapy water and a rag.]
Teddy tried another tack: he removed the screen from one of the windows and pulled back the curtain.
This technique worked. Sir Blue J. executed a neat barrel roll, turned a trim spiral, and went whistling out the window.
Tabby attempted to whistle out with him, but Teddy stalled him at the pass by rapidly reinstalling the screen. “Meeee!” protested Tabby.
Saturday afternoon, we went to Mama’s house to see more visiting relatives, mine this time. My Aunt Pauline, Mama’s younger sister, her daughter Mary Beth, and Mary Beth’s son Andrew had come from North Dakota. We were glad to see them; it had been six years, I think, since they’d been here.
And then...Lydia went with Teddy and Amy----to go pick out a ring! An engagement ring, to be exact.
We left shortly to go fishing at a lake near Brainard--and that’s where I am now, sitting at a picnic bench typing away.
On our way here, I asked Larry to drive by the lake we came upon Monday. “It’s on County Rd. HI,” I told him knowledgeably, “and you can turn right up this road here,” pointing.
He looked skeptical, but turned anyway. “You sure it wasn’t by Norfolk?” he asked impertinently. (Norfolk is entirely the other direction from Columbus.)
I boxed his shoulder. “Turn here!” I yelled suddenly, and with a spray of gravel, we turned. “This is it,” I announced confidently.
“This is County Rd. IJ,” Larry informed me, “and that’s a nice lake,” he added, gesturing at a small mud lolly in a ravine amongst several spindly trees, around which a few lazy cows lolled, which is exactly what cows should do around lollies.
“It’s on County Rd. IJ, just like I said!” I proclaimed, using one of Larry’s very own tactics.
He rolled his eyes, and Caleb giggled.
We went down one road, turned a corner, traveled up a hill, hung a left, and went over hill and dale, up and down, up and down...
“I don’t think you know where this lake is,” commented Larry, just as we topped a hill and gazed down at it. “I found it!” he cried, all in a rush before I could come up with a good retort.
A heron stood regally a little ways from shore, and we watched him as he flew across the water to a little cove lined with trees.
“There’s a deer!” whispered Larry, and we all turned and looked at a doe that was peering at us from an arroyo near the woods. She spun around and, with a couple of graceful leaps, disappeared into the brush.
“And there’s her fawn!” hissed Larry, and sure enough, a young deer, spots still evident on his tawny coat, bounded after her.
We continued on to Brainard. The lake doesn’t seem to have a name, or if it does, we don’t know it. It was originally privately owned, and then the lady who owned it gave it to the state. They maintained it for only a short while before budget cuts forced them to abandon it. They gave it back to the lady, who lives nearby in a large log ‘cabin’, more on the order of a luxury home. On one side of her lane is a field with a few donkeys, and on the other side are several small burros. She has a huge black Newfoundlander who, upon our coaxing, came and greeted us. We petted him, and now I need to wash my hands.
There is a dilapidated old trailer near the lake, and in it are life vests and sand toys--shovels and buckets of every different shape and size, especially for making sand castles.
There were a couple of young men here when we arrived, and they were taking a paddleboat out--that is, they were trying. It seemed to have water in the bilge, off-centering the crate. Indifferent, the men climbed onto the prow and dived off.
SPLASHSHSH! There they were, then--upside down. We watched with concern, but, with a good deal of effort, they set their ship to rights and climbed back into it. They had not quite recollected their equilibrium when SPLOOOSH!!!--over they went again, laughing and bantering jovially.
They scrambled around, splatting water everywhere, coughing and spluttering. Expending even more effort, they turned their barque right side up again. Then making the error of both climbing in on the same side, they caused her to capsize once more.
I expected any minute for the boat to conk one of them on the head as it keeled, knock him colder’n a cucumber, and send him right down to rest calmly on the bottom of the lake.
But they emerged from under the frigate unscathed, struggled with it, and got it flipped over seat side up, paddle side down. They clambered in, one fore and one aft, recentered themselves, and commenced to peddling with ferocity.
The schooner took off at a tilt--and tilted up farther--and farther--and farther--
Ka-SPPPLLLLOOOOOOOOSHSHSHSHSHS!!!
Over she went, impersonating the Titanic, complete with the screaming of the passengers.
But some while later, the men came to shore with difficulty and, upending the boat, they set about ‘repairing’ it and draining it, after which they paddled nicely all around the lake, even fishing from it, and have since had nary another upending episode.
As the fishing boat with my family in it seemed to be doing all right, not rocking violently or sinking too low in the water, I went hiking. I went through a big hay field until I reached a wooded area around the perimeter, and there I found a spot under a tree where the tall grasses were all smashed down flat in two spots--one large, one small. A deer had been there, probably with a fawn; I could see tell-tale signs all around.
I climbed to the top of a hill to take pictures from a new angle. When I saw that Larry & Co. were heading toward the dock, I started down to meet them, just like fishing wives have been doing all over the world since fishing began.
They made slow headway, and suddenly I realized why: the battery running the little electric motor had gone kaput, so they were rowing--and they only had one oar. And--
That oar was a broom. A real, live, honest-to-goodness kitchen broom.
Uh, oh; the two young men are now struggling with their upside-down tongkang again.
After recharging the battery from our Suburban battery, Larry, Joseph, and Hester set sail in their garookah again, ‘oar’ and all. Caleb and Victoria are playing with the sand toys and their big fuchsia ball. I like it here. I am sitting at a picnic bench under some tall ponderosa pines typing; Larry found an extension cord connected to a tall light pole. Several people have come; too bad. I enjoy it better when we are all by ourselves. (With the jettisoned limeys to provide comic relief, of course you know.) (Unless they drown, of course you know.)
There is a man in an old yellow Ford van, pulling an old Starcraft tub, and he has with him two entirely disrespectful girls. I have a theory that he is divorced and they are with him for the weekend, and they are treating him with the attitude that their mother has toward him. But that’s only a theory.
There are birds all over the place, in the pines overhead and in the oaks and elms behind me on the hills; and Hester came back from the first cruise all excited because they’d seen a kingfisher on the other side of the lake. I just saw one dive into the water and come back out with a small fish.
The sun is setting, and now the water is turning golden and orange, and the birds are warbling their evening songs.
Some people down the shore seem to have run their battery down trying to start their vehicle, and I think, if Larry doesn’t look out, he will be pressed into service as soon as he returns from his jaunt. The man with the irreverent daughters has started a campfire--on the ground, yet!--in this dry country!--and must be cooking hotdogs, because the odor is wafting my way, and it smells mighty good. I must be hungry. And it is suppertime.
It is time to go, or we will be home rather late, and Teddy and Joseph are needing haircuts. Larry doesn’t seem to notice that the sun has gone down, and he really should be heading for the dock.
Oh! Perhaps I am mistaken! I believe he is pulling for the pier.
The upside-down galionjis have docked, and have loaded their belongings into their van. I, for one, am glad to see them safely on land. One is married; when we took their belongings from one boat and put them onto another so as to use the second (with their permission, sure), one yelled from his position in the drink, “Did you see my wedding ring? If I lose that, I’ll be in trouble!” (Yes, we saw his wedding ring; and we handled it with care, we did.) (I wondered fleetingly if he would be in trouble if he just drowned.)
Oh! The man with the old yellow van is helping the unfortunate trawlers with the run-down battery. Maybe we will be able to head straight for home when Larry comes in. OOooooo...I think Hester just caught a fish.
Oh, NO. Those two naughty girls are out on that awful paddleboat! Please, I want to go, FAST, before I am obliged to witness a drowning. I have no idea if the brats can swim; but, brats or no brats, I do NOT want to watch them drown.
AAAAaaaaaaaaaaa! I just noticed a gigantic swarm of mosquitoes beside me. Why, I wonder, are they not checking out my flavor?
In another half hour it will be too dark to see my screen. It is just about time to pack up and order those trotters to trot themselves IN. The littles need to eat!
* * *
Well, the anglers didn’t need me to call them in, after all; they actually came in on their own. No, no; don’t suppose they actually thought it was time to come in; not at all, not at all. Can’t you figure out what happened?
That’s right; the battery ran down on their engine. And, as they had nothing better than a broom for an oar, they were obliged to make for shore.
They caught five fish, and now Larry has the job of filleting them. The trouble with filleting fish is that it always needs to be done after a long hard day of fishing, when one’s recliner is loathe to give one up.
These fish will make a better meal than that last we caught, even though last time there were more, because these are not only bigger, but also fatter. Evidently this lake has more comestible than the other.
* * *
The police are busy with all sorts of unruly fairgoers; the scanner is a-static with reports and calls for assistance. The children are in bed, taking their fresh haircuts with them, and it is time for me to follow them. Toodle-oo!
* * *
Sunday, July 14, 2002
I am finishing this letter from Mama’s house tonight. Church is over now, and Victoria has just come in to see Grandma...now here comes Hester...now Dorcas...and now Caleb.
Dorcas is showing us a song she recorded from the radio on the Fourth of July--it is the very first recording known to have been made of the Stars and Stripes Forever, and it was made in 1890 by the Marine Marching Band, directed by John Philip Sousa himself, who wrote the song, and it was played for President Benjamin Harrison. The recording was made on the new steel wire magnetic recorders, and, while the sound is certainly not up to today’s standards, it is remarkably tuneful and euphonious. In any case, the recording is an historic treasure, and Dorcas was pleased as punch to get it.
Victoria has just found a set of old wooden puzzles that used to be mine when I was little, and Mama has told her she can take them home with her. If she keeps hopping and skipping about like she is doing, there will be wooden puzzle pieces strewn from Mama’s front door to ours!
Time to go!
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