Mitchell Way
“Good evening, sir. My name is Officer Luke. My partner, Officer Lease, is in the next room talking with your wife.”
“Talking about what?”
“The hospital,” Officer Luke continued, “is required to call us when they suspect domestic violence.”
“What are you brooding about today?”
I am standing in the kitchen staring out the back window at the lawn. Cheryl has snuck up behind me with a steaming cup of coffee.
“I want five months, just five months. Is that too much to ask?” I grumbled. “I mean, it’s October 14th. I should have mowed the lawn for the last time but look at it. It’s still growing! It’s got to be that flippin’ El Niño.”
“Are you wishing for cold and rain?” she asked.
“No, but I am wishing for less work and I’m on a time schedule. You see, I know that in late March or April the spring grass is going to start madly growing and that will begin my seven months of yardwork, so the sooner it stops growing now, the more time off I’ll have until it starts growing again. I also told Chris at the mower shop that I would bring the mower in as soon as I stopped mowing so he could winterize it, but each week I look at the lawn and it needs a mowing again.”
“Yes, but look at the hanging baskets. They still have blooms on them. Don’t they look pretty?”
“It’s mid-October! We don’t need hanging baskets. We need frost on the pumpkins. We need birds in the feeders. We need squirrels skittering around the porch eating from the plate of corn I set out for them. And another thing – look at the leaves on the birch tree. They are still hanging there.”
“They are so pretty. Don’t you love their golden color?”
“It’s all about mother nature’s delay of game. You see, once a year I clean out the gutters. I can’t clean them out until the leaves have fallen off the trees. What would be the point? I could clean them out today and next week we will get a strong south wind which will blow the leaves off the trees and fill the gutters back up again. I’m only doing it once. I’ve got half a mind to go out there and slap the trunk of the tree with a stick to shake those darn leaves off.”
“I can see someone with half a mind doing that, dear. Think of the positive attributes of a mild fall – we don’t have to run the furnace yet. You know how you always go into a coma when you see the heating bill each month. When El Nino really gets started, it’s the same thing each year – you stand here in the kitchen staring out the window at the rain or the snow and you are in a fowl mood because it is cold and wet outside, and you wish the weather would just warm up again.”
“Four seasons. That’s all I ask. Four on time seasons. I’m on a schedule.”
“Well since you have nothing to do but to stare out the window, why don’t you help me to move some furniture?”
“You know if I had time, I would definitely do that dear. I think the first thing on my agenda today is to go out into the front yard and beat that birch tree with a stick.”
“My creatively impatient husband. I’ll make you some cocoa.”
Faith Family Life Getting Older Growing Up Misadventures Music Patriotism Pets or Pests? Snips Tributes
It was 5:45 on a Friday night as we smoked up the North State Street hill in our 1953 Buick. My best friend, Chuck, and I were sitting in the back seat. Mom was driving. We were on our way to the Bellingham Armory for the annual Alderwood Elementary School skate night.
Four men stood facing the wall shoulder to shoulder. They looked very unsure of themselves. Two others had decided to sit this dance out. It was called the Line Dance on the High Seas.
Outhouse synonyms: privy, commode, bog, loo, water closet, jake, garderobe, latrine, comfort station, pressure relief shed, waning crescent hotel, catalog disposal, and the snake pit. Across the world everyone has their own unique name for the building over the hole in the ground.
It was another day of summer. Neither my best friend Chuck nor I had the responsibility of having a job yet because these were the lazy days of middle school. The best a boy our age could do for money was mow lawns, and next to thinking about girls, the thought of mowing made our skins crawl. Our goal was to hold off on having jobs for as many years as possible.
Welcome to the Knot Head Years. This is your Captain speaking. For those of you aged 13 through 19, please check your brain in at the door. You may retrieve it at carousel 8 upon reaching the age of 26.
“Grandpa, do you believe in fairies?”
My granddaughter, Kate, was sitting next to me on the couch. We had just finished watching the movie, Fairy Tale, a True Story.
“Well, ah, do I believe in fairies? Let’s see.”
I’ve used bicycles for a great many things. I used one for delivering newspapers. I used one to test my theory of flight. I currently ride an e-bike eleven miles each way to the gym. There are also a few things that I haven’t used the bicycle for . . . because blasted Cheryl put her foot down.
The truck and utility trailer were swung into position at the dump. I could see behind me in my rear-view side mirrors, the environmental block barrier, and the open-top garbage shipping containers. The attendant was pointing at a space between two other pickups.
“I am married to a chimpanzee.”
I could never decide if Cheryl was proud of her choice or disgusted.
Apparently, because of my impatience with reading fine print, I have caused occasional dissension in our marriage.
“Do you remember what we promised in our wedding vows?” she asked in frustration.
“Can I see a copy? I wasn’t really listening to what I said.”
I’m not proud of it, but up until a few years ago I suffered from trypanophobia. It could have started from watching my Nana run a line of stitches up her hand while she was running her treadle sewing machine. I can remember hearing her scream as she attempted to pull her hand free. It was, by the way, the same hand that she regularly got caught in the washing machine wringer. Being a Nana was obviously a dangerous business.
I am from the United States of America. I have a house, a car, a digital television with high speed 5g Wi-Fi, and basically anything I want or need.
Love is a burnin’ thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire
I fell into a burnin’ ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire. (June Carter Cash, Merle Kilgore)
It was not long after we moved onto our property in 1987 that I started to plant fruit trees. Living on an old homestead in a house built in 1897, the square acre was fenced in half with one half for the house and the other for the cows. Since we did not want cows or horses, we chose to plant fruits. This was because fruit trees do not need a veterinarian and they very rarely break out of the fencing and wander down the road.
Ricky Dandelion and his wife, Venice lived not far outside the city limits of Bellingham. Along with their house, barn, and out-buildings, they owned eight acres of fenced pastureland on which they grazed cattle — six cows and a bull.