A Little Something For Halloween

We used the first sentence of a novel to begin our 500 word homework assignment this month in my writing group. I decided to take Catcher in the Rye in a new direction.

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

As a matter of fact, the thought of my parents screwing is about as revolting an image as I can conjure up. But squirt, squirt, there I was in all my miraculous life essence, sliding around my mother’s insides like some kind of fleshy pinball. And I dare say, it was the last time I had a good night’s sleep and a decent meal.

The truth is, my mother never wanted me to begin with. She had one kid already, my darling sister, the angel from heaven. I was an accident and an expensive inconvenience, and she went out of her way to try to end my time insider her, stretching and reaching on her hands and knees, scrubbing floors, carrying heavy buckets of water up and down stairs and hoping to miscarry. She hasn’t worked as hard since.

But I came out early, and the old man quit his job to care for me, ‘cause she couldn’t be bothered.

“Let that thing die,” she said to my father as he hunched over my tiny body. “We can’t afford it.”

But he just ignored her, and I’m pretty sure I understood what she was saying, because something gave me the strength to survive and to think little baby thoughts of someday growing up and killing her. And survive I did, though I was sort of sickly and kind of a runt.

They say there’s no such thing as a bad child, but I set out to prove them wrong. In church I stole money out of the offering plate and got told to stay home. At school I spat in the Principal’s hand and got suspended. Those things happened by the first grade. It was later that I set fire to some paper towels in the janitor’s closet. What a ruckus that caused. Half the school burned that day and a bunch of children with it. I watched from the playground, enjoying the show and tossing rocks through the openings in a chain link fence.

When I was older I got blamed for just about anything bad that happened in our town. Church didn’t want me, school couldn’t stand me, and my mother died and ruined my murderous plan. So I started trapping animals in the back yard in a shoebox propped up by a pencil attached to a long taut string. Those critters died slow, especially when they bit me, and I carved ‘em up with the knife daddy gave me when he showed me how to whittle. I collected the fur and bones and set fire to the rest.

So here I wait, just as happy as can be. They bring me three squares every damn day. I taught myself to read and write just as good as any school could. They say I’m bad to the bone, a freak, and I think they’re right. That’s why they put me in a special place all by myself. But that’s ok. I have lots of thoughts to keep me entertained. I think about the things I done. Wonderful things. Awful things.

And tonight I get one more good night’s sleep and tomorrow one more meal, whatever I want, and it better be good. ‘Cause tomorrow at midnight they’ll take me down the hall, strap me to a cart, talk about mercy and crap and ask me if I have anything left to say. Oh and I have a few things to say alright, ‘cause that’s the last time I get to say anything. After that I’ve got a date with the devil, and she looks a lot like mom.

Extreme Gardener

I have an experimental garden. It is roughly the shape of one of those idiotically dangerous trampolines you see in the yards of every otherwise obsessively cautious parent these days. Fortunately our trampoline did not claim any victims. We were among the lucky ones, and I relished the clanging sound of tubular steel being tossed into the back of a garbage truck the day it was finally hauled away.

What remained were pleasant memories and a large circular burned out spot on our back lawn. If Google had timed it right and updated the aerial photographs of our neighborhood it would have appeared like a crop circle or a large letter “O.” Well-placed pumpkins and a semicircular row of beans would have created a smiley face worthy of Forest Gump when viewed from the air.

I decided that half the work of creating a vegetable garden had been completed by the trampoline. All I had to do was turn over the topsoil with a shovel and water the Earth with the sweat of my brow. Lots of sweat. The area was loaded with rocks and crisscrossed with tree roots from Pines and Oaks. Only about two inches of rich black topsoil had supported the layer of grass we enjoyed prior to installation of the heat-focusing trampoline bed. Beneath that was clay and sand, a testimonial to the river-bed nature of ground conditions two blocks away from the mighty Des Plaines. In other words, the dirt was crap. 

I began to add things; “amend” as the professionals would say. Peat moss, mushroom compost and manure. I even rented a very fun rototiller and discovered a deeper layer of tree roots that caused the machine to kick and buck. I brought out an axe and a wheelbarrow to cut and haul the underworld cartilage. A week later I planted my crops.

I’ll just cut to the chase. It didn’t work. My vegetable garden yielded six tomatoes, five beans and a handful of lettuce. I now have profound respect and admiration for the farmers who grow our food and for the abundance and variety of beautiful items in the produce section at Dominicks.

So I tried something else this year.

I went online and bought a pound of zinnia seeds. I can grow these. Each year for the past half dozen, butterflies and neighborhood children stop to worship the colorful display I cultivate near our streetside mailbox. Zinnias require little care other than periodic watering and pruning that causes even more zinnias to bloom.

“Can we go see Mr. Vic’s garden?” ask the kiddies.

“Yes you can dear,” say their mothers.  “He’s a genius with a green thumb.”

If you’ve ever purchased a packet of zinnia seeds, you know that for $1.79 you get about two dozen lighter-than-air disclike seeds in the bottom of a paper packet. A pound of these “California Giants” is enough for Vincent Van Gogh to scatter over acres of land in preparation for painting a masterpiece if he chose to repeat the giant sunflower experiment. I used half a pound in my trampoline garden.

That was May. I planted the seeds in two waves so as not to overwhelm neighbors or low flying aircraft with the explosion of color that would burst skyward at ground zero. Google, prepare for something spectacular! This is the time for an update.

Well, I’m writing this in August, so you can imagine what I’m dealing with after ten weeks of unrestrained growth. Daily harvests of bouquets for my wife. Requests by artists to set up easels and chairs for the day while they paint. The photojournalists with their annoying clicking shutters and the legal contracts that Ken Burns insists upon before panning and zooming to the sound of harmonicas and the droning of a vaguely familiar narrative voice. Yeah, none of that.

For all my planning and dreaming, I never expected this. See the photograph below. I took it myself. Click for a larger, more stunning view.

Hammock Gazing Skyward in the Night

Hammock Gazing Skyward in the Night

The humor and its goodness fade away

With screen door slamming sweat and jangling bliss 

While longing, notwithstanding empty arms

Spilled sparkling fluid memories of this.

The starlit summer sensual decay

Cacaphony of cricket-grinding greed

Impassioned by the lengthening of the day

Has celebrated solstice in our need.

Unwinding through the intervening years

Departure, such a simple thing to do

Left ringing all the seasons in my ears

And darkening the image that was you.

This subtle devastation of the night

For me, provides the equinox you might.

A World of Hurt

I recall turning twenty-five being an unpleasant milestone that got me thinking a lot about my future. I considered how unimaginably old I would be in the year 2000, the bar against which everyone measured time’s passage in the last century. Forty-five. Holy crap. What would my life be like by then? A doddering old man wearing Depends, soaking my dentures in a glass of Efferdent?

Twenty-five was an age at which I could still jump off a three foot wall if I wished, landing and bounding like a coiled spring without injuring myself. Pain was usually a temporary annoyance, maybe a few throbbing hours after a hard workout. A pleasant burn that made my muscles sing. And there really weren't many three foot walls where I lived. Parkour hadn't been invented yet.

Twenty-five was also the age at which I got my first glimpse into the kind of pain that becomes familiar and more frequent as the decades pass and the body loses its resilience. It was the year I headed to Wisconsin with a group of friends for a weekend getaway. Upon stepping out of the car into the cool north woods I took a deep breath of naturally pine scented air and promptly choked on a bug, coughed hard and heard a snap in my upper back that doubled me over. It was an immobilizing dislocation of something in my rib cage that was crucial to standing up straight and breathing without wincing. It was not a spasm that could be stretched out, a knuckle that could be cracked or a fatigue that could be rested away. It took me out of action for the entire weekend, flat on my back and swallowing my friend’s mother’s potent pain relievers in hopes of rejoining the fun.
But still, I recovered from that incident within a few days or weeks.

I visited a chiropractor yesterday for my injured knee. As a new patient, I was presented with forms to fill out and an interactive patient history program on a small computer terminal. A diagram of the human body, front and back, covered with small circles to indicate regions for treatment accompanied a list of qualifiers. To click inside a circle, in my case on the left knee, indicated an area of pain. Associated adjectives helped the doctor understand if certain activities initiated, aggravated or alleviated symptoms.

Presented with this cartoon version of myself and a crayon stylus, it occurred to me that recovery time from injuries in your forties and fifties leaves you with a patchwork quilt of pain, overlapping in time and debilitating to the point at which a pain free day is noticeable in the way a terminally ill patient is often reported to sit up in bed and state, “that feels great!” just before collapsing dead. “Wow, I feel great today!” Oh crap, that won’t last.

I began to poke the screen with my electronic pencil. My left shoulder hasn’t been right for four years. It is aggravated by exercise or lack of it, a true no-win scenario. And come to think of it, my right knee isn’t what I’d call a hundred percent, nor is my right wrist. Hell, I haven’t been a hundred percent since 1972.

Poke, poke, poke, I colored in the circles. My back hurts all the time, sometimes when I awake in the morning after a night spent running down hallways looking for a classroom on the last day of the semester or chasing antelope in my dreams. My stomach hurts. Apparently I can no longer digest pepperoni. Poke, color, poke.

Doctors shouldn’t ask questions they don’t want answered, I thought as I completed the exercise. But maybe this guy had magical methods unrevealed to older, less athletic patients afraid to admit their frailty. After all, he is the team chiropractor for a major professional Chicago sports team. These young bucks take a beating regularly and come back for more within hours or days. Many of them are in their twenties. Some are twenty-five. Oh yeah. Just starting to hurt. They have no idea what lies ahead.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.