Wicked

Katherine sipped cold latte at a café table in an outdoor market. The touristy area was crowded for a Monday. Weekend street performers who usually returned to day jobs were in full force, juggling, on unicycles and in top hats. Those painted like bronze statues jerked to life in response to donated coins and bills. Foot traffic was unusually heavy. Out of towners mingled with college kids. Backpacks, baseball caps and baggy jeans abounded.

Her coffee was hot when she arrived an hour earlier. At 49 degrees, the day chilled her beverage almost to the temperature of her blood. Yesterday had been warmer, but yesterday seemed eons ago, and her job with Swiss Air felt like a memory from another lifetime.

She waited for a phone call in the cool sunshine. Her stern demeanor kept strangers at a distance. Even foraging birds knew better than to approach. An aggressor who asked to join her at the table appeared perplexed, even violated at the suddenness with which he found himself alone. Without a word, she stood and moved to a less congested location. Her sunglasses hid dark circles and darting glances.

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I Promise

“Azure,” she says, and then “porch.”

The beach gradually comes into focus. Terns sprint between tide pools on comically thin legs, startling small crabs back into their glistening sandy burrows. The color of the sky and the front of her weathered house are the first images with which she can associate words. Others follow as her head clears.

“Low tide,” she whispers. 

She sits in knee-deep water that will be over her head in a few hours. She faces the shore. Summer heat bakes the sweat and salty air onto her forehead. Water laps gently at her legs. Sand oozes between her tingling toes, circulation impaired by the ties that bind her to a partially submerged chair. Minnows dart beneath the water’s surface, alternately visible in cloudy shadows, hidden by reflected sun.

It is afternoon in the tropics. Lightning flashes in the distance. Roiling hot and cold rivulets of air slap the surface of the ocean and disrupt its gentle rhythm. Gulls and wind chimes are the only sounds for miles. Beach grass sways in the breeze. A crisp envelope on her lap bends beneath her fingers. He has found her.

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Hamlets and Bars

I’ve long insisted that a life crisis is evidence that you simply haven’t been paying attention. But looking in the mirror at graying hair is a singular awakening experience, whereas navigating an auditorium filled with “old people” feels like swimming upstream with a population of decaying salmon. It hurts to see how old we’ve grown.

The average audience age at a 2013 Gordon Lightfoot concert had this effect on me. And honestly, the ghostly apparition who took the stage with his guitar and backup musicians made it clear just how long this troubadour has been writing and singing to a very dedicated, if somewhat eccentric, fan base. It's hard to see our heroes age.

I have been attending Lightfoot shows since the singer was thirty-five, when he was riding high on a second wave of popularity with his Sundown album. Now a frail fragment of his former physical self, he is one of a small group of aging musicians still touring and selling tickets to several generations of fans. And the passage of forty years caused the remnants of my eighteen year old inner child to reach for reading glasses to see “Row E, Seat 1” on my ticket at the charming Pabst theater in Milwaukee.

And then there are those younger fans. Next generations, old souls born out of sync with their own time and longing for a taste of the unparalleled music of the 1970s, or perhaps watching “That Seventies Show” for insight into the journey their parents traveled to get here.

The concert I reference here was attended by a particularly enthusiastic young fan dressed entirely in period attire, sporting an afro (he was white) and drinking far too much at his personal Lightfoot pre-game tailgate. To his credit, he knew the title of every song and most of the lyrics, at one point shouting “Hamlets and Bars” at just the right point and at the top of his lungs. He subjected the audience to slurred outbursts at Gordon right up until the intermission, when he was summarily removed from the concert by two no-nonsense security guards. He wailed in protest, maybe not so much in reaction to the assault as in grief at the realization that he would not be enjoying the second set. As relieved as I was to see him go, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

The most recent audience featured a young-sounding female fan shouting repeated pleas from the darkness at the back of the theater to “Give it to me Gordon!” Gordon, ever the gentlemen, continued to strum and sing without comment, but no doubt appreciated the option of an offer to “give it” still, at age 74. He has continued to tour since this performance, strengthening his voice and improving his health, reportedly with daily workouts. His perfectly tuned guitars resonate with a seemingly genetic musical memory stored from decades of shows. Now 81 years old, an album he previously vowed would not happen has in fact been released. Appropriately named "Solo" it features Gordon in the studio with only his guitar but is a collection of previously unreleased tracks, not new material. It is enjoyably reminiscent of collections by other greats, but is no Nebraska. I can't help but wonder if the steady stream of adoring posts by fans on his Facebook page may have added to a renewed vitality in his eighth decade. It is gratifying to realize that I am not the only Lightfoot superfan.

So the show goes on. Old Gord, like Old Dan, in one of his infrequent spoken comments, mentioned that the band plays for ticket sales. He struggled with the high notes, sounding at times like air blown through a whale bone, increasingly nasal with each passing year and in the wake of a near-death aneurysm. But through it all, fans show up for his unique musical tales of life on the Carefree Highway, On The High Seas and in the Early Mornin’ Rain.

We’ll continue to buy tickets as long as you sell them Gordon, popping Tylenol and dragging our aching bones to the nearest venue, settling into our comfy chairs and “waiting for you.”

I could be caught between decks eternally

Waiting for you to ask what's keeping me

The skies of North America are covered in stars

Over factories and farms, over hamlets and bars

Seventh Spring

Curls of white steam that drifted from a cradled mug and over Sarah’s fingers dissipated into the chilled darkness of an unheated living room. Embers crackled in a wood stove, the only source of warmth in this sixth winter since onset of the reversal. Cambridge was a distasteful memory still, eight years after her dismissal. She felt as fragile as one of the glass flowers exhibited at the university’s museum, and as breakable.

April arrived with weather that seemed to mock lengthening days with temperatures that seldom rose above zero. Her supply of firewood was almost exhausted and the food she stored in September was running low. She stared at the glass specimen on the kitchen table. Galanthus nivalis, the snowdrop, her favorite from Harvard’s collection, stolen on her last day as professor of botany.

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12-21-12: The End of the World

 

“I wouldn’t wanna do that on a regular basis,” Greg said as he cleared the lock at Base 5.

 “It once took seven months Captain,” reported the AI gate attendant. “Welcome to your new home.”

“Yeah, new home. Old home may not…” he choked back emotion at the thought.

Walking felt good, reassuring, as his wobbly legs adjusted to the Martian gravity. He stretched and looked skyward at the expansive black dome over colony five. In a corner of the reception area stood the ancient Curiosity rover. He smiled atthe crude technology, and admired its durability. The probe became a village mascot early on, still responding to signals from Earth mostly intended to be humorous. The term “rover” suggested behaviors to the distant programmers. The vehicle would occasionally be found staring longingly with it’s camera eye at the barren red surface of the planet, like a dog waiting to be let outside, one leg lifted.

“Your team would like to meet with you before you get settled Captain,” prodded the attendant.

Greg shook himself to attention and nodded. A transport glided to a stop at his feet, waited for him to be seated, and then proceeded to the observatory.

The mood was grim in operations. New arrivals generally caused an excited stir among longtime residents, but the completion of Greg’s flight coincided with disastrous news from Earth. In fact, the fate of two inbound crews still in transit was in jeopardy. All eyes were on spectrographic imagery and a variety of monitors, all studying the sun.

“Hell of a day to arrive,” said an unfamiliar scientist who briefly glanced at Greg as he moved between stations.

“How bad?” asked Greg, keeping conversation to a minimum.

“For us…minimal” came the reply. “For them,” the voice trailed off, “The end. The end of the world.” The astronomer looked at Greg. There were tears in his eyes.

Greg was stunned. Scientists are data-driven, detached, unshakeable. He tried to make sense of the various displays. Magnetic imaging, a variety of spectral views of the sun’s photosphere. Colorful and agitated swirls of purple and orange. Each with a bulging arch that dwarfed a hundred Earths, malevolently hurtling a scimitar of radiation and heat toward the helpless planet.

Colonists were no longer the orphans and risk-takers of the early days. As the round trip shortened, crews became comprised of voyagers with families and a desire to eventually return home. But home was now in the direct path of an epic event that was about to cauterize the home world beyond recognition.

On Earth, a final sunrise displayed a fantastic assortment of reds and pinks. At about mid day in Europe, global communications were permanently disrupted. There was no news coverage of the event. No one needed to hear a play by play of his own extinction. As Earth rotated into the expanding coronal outburst, sunrise ignited the atmosphere and boiled ocean water within minutes, scouring the ground at 1000 miles per hour. The experience was mercifully short, but horrifyingly intense. Bunkers underground were permanently sealed shut by molten rock. Iron barrier doors liquefied and imploded into the furnace-like caverns where government officials attempted to escape.

The Lunar colonies, hidden behind Earth for almost twelve hours, were the last to communicate with the Martian bases. They were incinerated as Earth’s shadow exposed them from behind its protective eclipse.

Greg watched events unfold, fully aware that the magnified blue globe on screen was four minutes further into it’s demise than the delayed light speed signal they watched. The only sounds issued by a dying planet, so silent and tiny at this distance, were from the men and women around him, some collapsing in grief at the realization that everything, everyone they had ever known and loved was being systematically vaporized and removed from being, forever.

Welcome to your new home indeed, thought Greg with a shudder. December 21^st, 2112. The Mayans were off by a hundred years.

Gandydancer's Christmas

Charles began his railroad career as a navvy, serving on crews that laid and maintained tracks. He built a solid reputation over fifty years as a brakeman, conductor, fireman and finally engineer.

The job demanded much of his family, moving frequently to find jobs. As rails were gradually converted to trails it seemed as if he might outlive his usefulness, but Michigan proved to be a good place to prepare for retirement at a slower pace, on a scenic run.

His habit of inspecting the train he was assigned to drive was rooted in his earlier days. He reviewed track conditions, equipment history and weather reports before boarding each locomotive. Thus, he knew that trains on the trestle over the falls near Marquette were limited to 15 miles per hour.

To read the rest of this story and more than fifty others, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

Christmas Carol Revisited: - 1899

Peter Cratchit stood graveside on a bitter mid-December morning. To say that the sky was dreary or gray would be understating its dismal nature, in the way ashes from a burnt log could be more pleasantly described as fluffy flakes of oxidized wood. The sky was charred, and icy pellets stung the faces of mourners who struggled to shield themselves with cloaks and umbrellas from the sideward wind.

The timid patriarch of the Cratchit clan died at home surrounded by his large and loving family. It was true that Bob was adored throughout his life, an object of sympathy from all who witnessed his servile existence at the hands of “that man.” Ninety-two years, not a minute of which could be characterized as easy, was the reward in this world for a humble man who showed only love, the simplest of men who lived and died in Camden Town.

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Iced

Marty headed out the back door with Hershey’s leash and collar.

“I’ll get your dog,” he shouted to Jess as the storm door screeched and slammed behind him in protest to the metal-warping cold. The temperature had dropped more than seventy degrees since a frontal passage the day before. Half a foot of rain flooded and then flash-froze the acreage behind the farmhouse. Hidden beneath a silent sheet of endless blue glass, fallow fields kicked up glare from the waning January sun.

“Just perfect,” Marty said in a disgusted burst of steamy breath. The river was over its banks, indistinguishable from the ice-covered land, but rushing beneath its solid surface was a torrent of muddy water, overflowing Wilke’s dam about a hundred yards upstream. Marty walked cautiously over the rapidly thickening new ice. Thunderous cracks echoed beneath his feet as the shifting surface settled and groaned. He glanced at the growing logjam building behind the dam. Broken branches from yesterday’s storm and mounting ice floes combined in a powerful trail mix of inertial mass.

“That won’t hold for long,” he muttered, nervously continuing his search for the dog.

To read the rest of this story and more than fifty others, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

The Lincolnshire Journey

Twenty years ago we hoped for a convenient place to buy diapers for our children, but they were not carried at The Store Nextdoor near our home in Lincolnshire. My kids were not yet interested in cigarettes or beer.

It is said that the journey is the reward. So the other day we headed west from Oxford along the brick path on the south side of Half Day Road. Our goal was a restaurant in Lincolnshire’s local downtown. Forgetting that the walkway is not part of the ill-conceived network of Lincolnshire bike paths, we doubled back and crossed at the light by the tennis club. It was a delightful stroll over “big red,” the rusty, bouncy bridge, through the fearful forest, past the land of empty eateries to the corner of Milwaukee and Olde Half Day roads. In the distance lay an oasis now crammed full of tasty destinations. But first we had to cross an intersection where you had best not attempt a right-on-red or exceed the speed limits imposed by the Vernon Hills horsemen of the apocalypse.

One challenge remained. We just had to cross that old horse trail, Milwaukee Avenue…on foot. To the left is Walgreens. We drive there. Diagonally are the vestiges of another era, and behold, a new place to buy beer and cigarettes. Oh, how I miss the simple and somewhat disgusting, family-friendly Denny’s, Tacos del Rey and The Italian Connection. At least we still have a couple of favorite places where the sulfurous well-water is reminiscent of the beloved Half Day Inn.

We had a bite to eat at Tom and Eddies, where the plates are very large, and then began the journey home. Perhaps there was a better route.

Along the south side of Half Day Road, there is a path from Barclay Boulevard to the Des Plaines River Trail that ends across from the Village Hall, I guess because everybody walks to Village Hall from the west side of the village. The path then returns to the north side, east of the Village Hall after crossing the lightly traveled Route 22, and the absolutely rural Olde Half Day Road. The spelling of “Olde” makes it easier to cross, I think.

Remaining on the south side of the road would result in an interesting opportunity to collect golf balls, and the adventure of a river crossing, since there is no southern bridge to connect the east/west trails.

Should we be so inclined, paths on both sides of Route 22 extend from Oxford Drive to the east Village limits at the Tristate carriageway, where the path connects to the Village of Bannockburn's path system. Respirators and bright orange safety vests are recommended. Fortunately, we turn at Oxford.

The late Stephen Covey said, “Begin with the end in mind.” If that’s the case, is the desire to be upscale in Lincolnshire at odds with the need to be down to earth? Are we simply the longstanding victims of a sordid string of bankruptcies, bad timing and misplaced restaurants? What do we want to be, now that we’ve grown up? Quaint? Charming? Pastoral? Or did we miss that boat?

So, the journey continues, and we are super-excited to see bulldozers on the future site of an upscale grocery store at the much-improved corner of Milwaukee and Route 22 that features a winding rivulet and two giant cell towers. It remains to be seen what we can purchase there, but for now we can at least buy diapers at Walgreens. For our grandchildren.

Author's Note: the upscale grocery store failed. A Culver's was built nearby.

Emergence

1956

A high-pitched chattering buzz progresses from a series of wavelike crescendos to a constant ear-splitting drone during June of 1956. The seventeen-year cicada has emerged and announced itself in a competitive orchestral shouting match in the trees overhead. It is the summer before my second birthday. I am unaware of the noise or have tuned it out. I do not remember the event.

1973

I walk home from class at the end of my freshman year of college. The sidewalks are littered with the crisp remains of millions of red-eyed cicadas. I cannot avoid stepping on them, with the accompanying spine-tingling crunch. They fly from tree to tree and from tree to ground, increasing in number as the days warm and lengthen. I am nineteen and aware of the interesting nature of this outbreak. I save one expired bug in a cotton-filled display box and label it with the year.

1990

It is my son’s second summer. It occurs to me that his life is on the same cycle as mine relative to a clock that ticks in seventeen-year increments. He will be nineteen and in college the next time the cicadas swarm. For now, my wife and I watch together out a second-floor window and record the event on videotape. A second fragile bug is added to the display box and labeled 1990. I decide to add another one to the collection if I can remember to do so, in the unimaginably futuristic year of 2007. I am thirty-six years old.

2007

This year’s emergence has become a much-anticipated family event, mostly because I’ve been telling them about it for several years. The media has whipped up a frenzy of coverage, resulting in numerous conversations among adults and children of all ages. My daughter conquers her fear of insects and becomes a semi-celebrity among the younger children on our street. Cicadas have become an ingredient in a variety of recipes. I collect several bugs in various stages of development, mounting them in a new and improved display case alongside two generations of ancestors. I label the box and hang it on the wall. I am fifty-two. I videotape the larval stage of the emergence and edit the footage on my computer. (see my video posted below.) I try not to think about the next time I will greet these creatures, and that it will most likely be my last.

2024

So much happens in seventeen years. Marriages, grandchildren, and a move to Florida, where despite eternal summer weather, there are no fireflies or seventeen-year cicadas. We miss the Midwest, the seasons, and even a little bit of winter. A return to Central Illinois precedes the next emergence, but will it extend to the middle of the Land of Lincoln? As June approaches, a trip is planned to glimpse, if even for a little while, the frenzy of the bugs. It feels like home.

      Emergence Video

Lost in Thought

Sienna spent most of her time tanning near the Pacific, although she was unable to swim and feared “yucky ocean things.” Her boyfriend Rick, a water enthusiast from San Diego had coordinated the entire tropical vacation. The boating adventure was his idea. Mark and Kelly reluctantly agreed to ride along but made Rick promise to end the day at a restaurant with a well-stocked bar. Six strangers accompanied them along with a crew of two. The name of the boat had since taken on new significance. Lost in Thought, chartered out of Barbados, now sat half-submerged between reef and shore, stranded along with her battered passengers.

To read the rest of this story and more than fifty others, please consider buying "Natural Selections," at Amazon.com.

Curb Appeal

When shopping for homes we favored those with extreme curb appeal, and that was our first mistake. We fell in love with a house. In addition to putting us at a competitive disadvantage in the negotiating process, we couldn’t afford the place, but we were buying in the years leading up to the housing bubble and it was just money, so what the heck.

And then there was the matter of our unsold property. The one we were trying to leave behind. The one with the in-ground swimming pool. In November. A contingency? No, we’ll just go ahead with the purchase because the seller accepted a ridiculous lowball first offer. We could theoretically double up on mortgages for a couple of months.

How were we to know that the seller was wealthy, a cunning business person, who was also willing to write us a check, bridging us a loan to get his house sold? All at the paltry interest rate of nine percent.

I drove to the seller’s new house to pick up a personal check for $60,000. The drive to Lake Forest was short and scenic. I didn’t realize at first that the street I navigated was a driveway. The doors to the massive home reminded me of the huge entryway that frequently served as a backdrop for Jed Clampett and Granny. But that was a painful association, reminding me of our own home with the “see-ment pond” sitting unsold as our closing date approached.

I produced a thundering metallic knock on the portal, fully expecting a green-clad sentry to deny me entry to see the Wizard. When the door swung open, our seller appeared in a foyer framed by two arching staircases that culminated in a railed balcony overlooking a crystal chandelier below.

“It would be great for a wedding photo, don’t you think?” commented seller.

Seller’s wife appeared. They were retired, living in 7,000 square feet of custom designed opulence. I had never before been in a house with a five-car garage, a library, music room and an open hearth imported from Europe. The money I had come to collect became a secondary issue. I was mesmerized by the view ahead of me, far ahead of me, seemingly half a football field ahead of me, of a fireplace that appeared large enough for several people to stand inside. And the whole scene was vaguely familiar.

“It was modeled on the house you’re buying. Scaled…up” said the seller. “Would you like a tour?”

I nodded, stunned into silence.

It was a mansion so large I would have gotten lost had I not been accompanied. Many of the features were typical house stuff on a grand scale. Quality throughout, and oversized beyond reason. Twelve foot ceilings? Perhaps. But the kitchen! Most restaurants lack this splendor, losing in elegance what they gain in stainless steel. The wall to my left was entirely paneled in dark wood, floor to distant ceiling, curving almost out of sight ahead and to the right. The subtle curvature of the space masked some of the more utilitarian elements of the room. Appliances were built into seamless cabinetry.

Stepping over to one such highlight, Mrs. Seller smiled and proudly demonstrated a particular favorite. Opening what could only be called an oven door at shoulder height, see proudly commented, “This can bake forty potatoes.”

I spoke before thinking. The notion of baking forty potatoes was funny to me, and I chuckled mildly to this retired couple and responded, 

“Can it bake two potatoes?”

“Well, you have to keep the next owner in mind. Many like to entertain in this area.”

That ended my tour. Check in hand, I was shown the door, the portcullis, escorted over the moat and drawbridge and sent on my way. I looked behind me as the gate closed with a resounding thunk, imagining a windlass taking up lengths of clanking chains, and a large wooden bolt swinging into place across the span to secure the castle against battering rams and marauding hoards. Stupid savages. Curb appeal does that to people.

The Keys

Key West. Sloppy Joe's. Hemingway. Vacations have a surreal intensity that burn the skin and create searing memories of vivid first-time experiences. The children splashing and laughing in the pool are no longer my own. My twenty-somethings hurried down before Mom and Dad, and now sit across the way, seeing and being seen.

Family meals have always been times of sharing. Important, but less frequent as the nest empties and adulthood takes hold. Seven days of meals interrupt our individuating routines and offer us time to regroup, catch up, laugh, love and eventually begin to get on each others' nerves.

Pictures are taken, mental postcards collected and sent for future reference. Remember when?

This time is short and long-awaited. Precious in its high demand and low supply. Will we travel together again?

On her way back to our room, my wife walks away, growing smaller in stature and further in time from the lounging she enjoyed at my side. She crosses the pool deck, climbs stairs and disappears into the hotel lobby. It is a short and silent sequence, moments in time that will never be repeated. An urgent, helpless scene from a favorite film in which our fleeting youth is documented and forever put away. It will play in the theater of my mind long after my tan has faded.

Sad news arrives. A friend back home has died of skin cancer. We reach for the sunscreen, jump into the cool blue water and breathe deep the living Florida air.