Swiming with Jackson

The broad and deep neuronal meshwork that holds those I love, and those loved by those I love, is tangled.  I cared for my grandson, Jackson, last week, and my grand-dog, Sammy, this week.  Some short circuit in the deep connections made me call each by the other’s name.  They are different species but the same sex.

Wednesday was the hottest, muggiest day of the summer, and Friday, the second muggiest.  Jackson came to my Hazel Street house and we went to swim at the Meade Park Water Park, a place full of fine, fancy water features and a fine assortment of people.  We paid a modest fee for a water-filled day.  Jackson’s and my favorite activities there are the “Lazy River” and a huge and swift waterslide.  Trees shade reclining chairs around the periphery of the park; umbrellas shade tables and chairs.

The Lazy River, an industrious river really, is a long ellipse of a water channel with strong jets that whoosh the swimmer around and around.  A cove, shaded by an umbrella and with concrete benches, is a watery resting place for weary children, parents, and grandparents in the endless round.  Two ladders descend into the river and a gentle inclined plane from a larger pool gives a gradual entry into it.

Two foot-high jets of water shoot up from the very shallow walk-in end of the larger pool.  A small painted cement pirate ship water slide is at this walk in end.  The large pool is three feet high at its deepest.  The smallest children and their caretakers hang out here.  Several small water slides sprawl out from a central tower area.  A child’s few turns of a big red wheel by this construction spews water jets at unwary passersby, often babysitters, parents or grandparents.  A huge bucket mounted high above the slides rests on a pivot; it slowly fills with water.  After five minutes the bucket reaches the tipping point and splashes its water, diverted by metal umbrellas on the pool underneath.  A nearby bright blue space mushroom also dumps water, in gentle showers onto everyone near it.

A company of alert young life guards oversees the water features.  The giant water slide empties sliders into a deep pool reserved for them.  A life guard at the top lets people down the slide after the pool is clear of each last slider.  Jackson waited as I zoomed down the slide in my black granny-skirted bathing suit.  As soon as I was out of the water, he zoomed down.  He loved it, but decided to wear his swim goggles for the next sortie.  We divided the rest of our time between the water slide and the Lazy River.  I just watched Jackson slide after my one trip down.  I was the only adult who slid down that day.

One pool is segregated for serious swimmers.  Jackson didn’t go in that pool, too many more enticing activities beckoned.  The other activity he didn’t do was cross a pond hand over hand on a net – it looked like too much work for a very hot day.

I was delighted by the activities and more delighted by the wide variety of people who came to this wonder.  People came from Charlottesville and surrounding counties.  Grandparents, mothers, and fathers came.  Children and adolescents came.  People with beautiful and ordinary tattoos came.  An older man had a WW II vintage glamor girl tattoo on his arm.  There were beautiful people and plain people.  Babies and toddlers came.  The scene though crowded was peaceful.  Water has that effect on people.

Jackson went home tanned.  I went home burned.  we both went home happy and tired.

I Wouldn't Touch that With a Ten Foot Pole

Ox and I have noticed with pleasure that someone else also cleans up the trail around the pond at Mint Springs.  Things in the pond are out of reach; they collect at the shoreline.  We had a previous adventure fishing a turquoise foam noodle from the pond with assorted home-made devices fashioned from the detritus in the back of Ox’s Jeep.  This time Ox bought for the purpose an eight-foot aluminum pole from a hardware store.  We needed to fashion a scoop.   I found a sprung mesh lumbar back supporter in the back pantry.  (Some Burtons never throw anything away.)  I thought it would make an excellent scoop.  Ox remembered that one of our daughters had once owned a butterfly net.  I thought at least that might have gone to the Goodwill; twenty five years had passed since its last use.  Ox found it and attached it to the pole.

Yesterday, Sam the dog in tow, we went fishing.  The only other occupants at the park were a fisherman and his eight-year-old son.  We walked out on the dam and greeted the fishers.  Ox’s back was a little wonky, but as the inventor of the device he insisted on being the scooper.  I was Sam’s leash holder and the bag man.  I had come prepared with a latex glove that I use when I paint, a dog-pot plastic bag, and a plastic grocery bag.  My job was to pick up the trash with the gloved hand and bag it after Ox flung it onto the path. The first scoop netted an old plastic bag.  Among other things our bag included other plastic bags, a port wine bottle (its water-filled weight tore some of the fabric of the net) , a metallic plastic Doritos bag, a Styrofoam bait box lid, and the prize, a small plastic mint green ball.  We only made it halfway around the pond before the net and our will gave out.  We’ll tend to our net and finish the job another day. 

Sam took advantage of our very slow progress around the pond to roll in two different disgusting substances.  He’s due for another bath soon.

Everyone Knows that Dogs Aren't Allowed Upstairs

Sammy, the Yorkshire terrier, came to visit Monday.  This dog shares alpha status with his person, Cat. 

When she was six, Cat chose and named the wild black terrier Wag at the SPCA.  Cat slept downstairs and so did Wag.  Though the door to the upstairs never closed completely, we taught Wag that he only belonged to middle earth.  He slunk upstairs a couple of times but was never allowed there.

 We had taken Sam on our evening walk to the park.  He’d found a stinking substance and rolled in it.  We did not have any of the brand on shampoo that Sammy’s skin will tolerate.  He still stank when we went to bed.  We carefully arranged the sofa with his huge teddy bear and the tee shirt Cat had worn for several days so that her scent would comfort him.  We said goodnight.  We closed the door until it stuck and went to bed. 

At 3:00 a.m., Ox shook me, “There’s a noise.”  

A shrill, soft, rhythmic noise came from Ox’s side of the bed.  At three in the morning I am not rational.  I woke over a few minutes to discover that the noise was a dog’s whine. By the time I realized Sammy was whining, he’d jumped onto Ox’s side of the bed, walked over Ox, and settled between our feet.  He was out of smelling range.  I pulled the small light quilt over my head and went back to sleep. 

 Last night before bed, I piled a quilt on Cat’s childhood bed.  I put the teddy bear and Cat’s scent-saturated tee shirt on the bed.  I lay down.  Sammy leapt up and shared the bed with me.  After ten minutes I said, "Goodnight, Sam," and followed Ox upstairs.  We closed the sticky door with force. 

Last night at 2:30 a.m. lonely Sam hurled himself at the stair door and came upstairs.  This time he only whined two or three whines before he settled between us. 

I’m growing fond of Sam’s warm body at my feet.  Today we break into Cat’s house to retrieve Sammy’s shampoo.  We aren’t going to pretend anymore that dogs aren’t allowed upstairs.  I am glad.

Loss in the Garden of Earthly Delights

Anna Warner lived on Constitution Island in the Hudson River.  She wrote one of my favorite books, Gardening by Myself, about the joys and sorrows she encountered tending her garden.  What I took from that book was that gardens were about hope, not expectation.  One must tithe the occasional loved flower or fruit to the rabbit or mole; they also need to live.  Letting go goes with loving a garden.

Four years ago I collected seeds from a milkweed pod in the mountains.  I blew the seeds into my garden as the wind blows milkweed seeds on the mountain.   No plants grew from this sowing.  The next year I planted new milkweed seeds from the mountain in a box, and hardened off the seeds as I would seeds from the nursery.  Once planted in my garden these grew tall, but unlike the milkweeds on the mountain, eventually flopped on the ground.  Forked sticks kept the plants almost upright.  For two years the milkweeds did not flower.   This year, spurred by maturity and a cold winter, the plants developed their first flower buds.

Yesterday the flower globes opened and spread their strong seductive fragrance all round the garden.  Bumblebees and smaller insects visited and I felt the joy a long-awaited pleasure brings.  Last night’s thunderstorm flattened the milkweeds.  They still smell wonderful.   Twine cushioned with plastic tubing holds some upright now and the old forked sticks are back in service.

The good news in the goldfish pond was that one Fantail fish and three Comets survived our harsh winter; over the winter they grew three times bigger.  One of the Comets disappeared; I found him later, a floating ghost fish.  Today I cleaned the pond again.  This time we had only one Fantail and two Comets.  The other Comet has not yet surfaced.  The Fantail fish is lumpy.  The fish is probably sick with a parasite; there are treatments for it.

Charlottesville Tree Stewards gave out vouchers toward buying a tree.  I used my voucher to buy a Gala apple tree and planted it as the Tree Stewards recommended.  It flourished and flowered.  I got a younger McIntosh from a cheaper nursery to pollinate the Gala.  toward the end of May twigs full of leaves turned brown. The nursery where I bought the Gala tells me that Fire Blight is the culprit.  The trees may not survive, even with antiseptic pruning and vinegar spray.

I am sorry about these losses and potential losses, yet I'm grateful for the garden. I've relearned that though I am responsible for living things in my care, they do not belong to me.

The Home Front

This post is hemi-semi-demi-fiction - that is to say more non than fiction.  The dream, the babysittter, the skates, and the scream were mine; the grandfather was not.  It was my first new submission to a fiction class.

            Susie had the dream again last night.  Her babysitter had warned her not to touch big rocks on the way to kindergarten - they might be mines. The Germans had surrendered but we were still at war with Japan.  The Sunday funny papers pictured the Japanese with bright yellow skins and buck teeth.  Susie wondered if the Japanese were really yellow.  The Japanese were the people who left mines on the way to school. 

The dream was black and white.  In the dream, Susie found the bomb on her way home from school, a smooth, shiny black ball with a white fuse coming out of it.  She couldn’t leave it there, someone might accidentally explode it.  She lifted it; it was so heavy.  She staggered home breathless because of the bomb’s weight. 

 She tried hiding it in place after place at home.  In each place her Grandpa, her mother, her brother Sam, or sister Penny, might accidently detonate the bomb.  The safest place would be a place where everyone would see it but no one would touch it.  The little red desk in the hallway with a fancy old chair next it - nobody ever sat there, everyone would see that bomb.  She carefully lifted the bomb onto the little red desk, wound a sweater around its base to keep it from rolling off, and went to her room.

When she came out, she saw her mother sitting in the chair by the little red desk, smoking.  Her mother bent her elbow and held the cigarette up – its glowing tip right by the bomb’s fuse – lighting the bomb’s fuse.  Susie shouted “No!“ and saw the bright orange, yellow, and red explosion.

Susie woke up.  She realized that in the dream, the bomb had exploded and killed them all.

Susie sat in her shorts on the bench by the laundry shed.  Juice dripped down her forearm from the orange her mother had given her.  A couple of flies buzzed around the orange.  She picked at the scab on her knee.  It bled.  She wiped her hands on the grass, then washed the sticky juice off her arm with the hose.  She ran inside and got socks, shoes, and roller skates. Back on the bench she turned the key that loosened the skates.  She put on her shoes and adjusted the skates.  The rough wood of the bench scratched her thighs. 

 She skated down the driveway to the sidewalk.  Old eucalyptus roots had buckled the sidewalk in front of her house, making an abrupt hill broken on one side.  She liked this hill though it had given her most of her scabs.  She got up speed and sailed over the sidewalk break and kept her balance.  She skated back to the hill and skate-walked over the weedy lawn to the other side of it.  She sailed over her hill again.  Gregory and Mike, big boys, came down the sidewalk in front of the Golden’s house.  Gregory said, “Get off my sidewalk, brat!” 

 Susie said, “It’s my sidewalk.  Go away, Gregory.”

Gregory and Mike started to run at Susie.  Susie skated up her driveway and yelled, “You dumb-dopes get off my property or Sam and Penny will beat you up!” 

 Gregory and Mike ran away.

Screeching sirens hurt Susie’s ears.  She ran into the house.  “Mother, is that an air raid warning?” 

 "I don’t know, Susie, I hope it’s the end of the war.” 

That night, as they did every night after dinner, Susie’s family gathered around the wooden radio in the living room; the radio was almost as tall as Susie, with wooden pillars on either side of the cloth where the sound came out.  They listened to H. V. Kaltenborn announce in a fast, high pitched voice, “The war is over.  The war is over. The war is over.”

The whole family cheered.  The men would come home from war soon. 

 A few months later, her mother said, “There’s no school tomorrow – there’s a parade to honor and thank the soldiers who spent years in a very nasty war.”

The next morning, Susie put on her favorite school dress, white socks and Mary Janes – hand-me-downs from Penny.  Sam wore a tie.  Penny dressed up too.  Grandpa drove them downtown to the parade - you could get coupons for gas to drive places these days. 

Grandpa held Susie up on his shoulders so that she could see the parade.  Tanks came first, then a long line of hundreds of men in rows, all wearing the same clothes, all walking the same way to a relentless drum beat.  Each man carried a rifle over his shoulder.  Susie screamed.  Her grandfather took her off his shoulders and walked a little away with her, holding her hand.  He asked her why she had screamed.  Susie, unable to say anything at all, just shook her head.