RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,349
(Mt. Pisgah, and the January thaw)
Well, that snow eventually cleared off;
in what the neighbor up the hill guy,
Jenkins, called the 'January' thaw.
Except it was more like Feb 5th by
then. It snowed some, when you get
right down to it, most every day; in
the air, snowflakes. No indications
ever of whether it was to be an inch,
or five. That thaw time, when it came,
lasted about 8 days, and meant mud
and melting. But that was OK. I had
a burn-barrel out on the front grass,
so during the thaw times I spent some
of it open-burning whatever was near
and needed burning. Cereal boxes,
oatmeal tubes and egg crates too. More
than anything, it was fun and relaxing,
and everyone seemed to do it. Plus it
kept me warm out there - I'd stand
and look up; far, far on high the silver
arcs of jets and airstreams way off. I'd
always been used to seeing the Newark
Airport jets on take-off and on their
approached back in - loud, low, and
steady. This was different, for they were
silent, and way on-high. I wasn't even sure
if they were JFK or Newark jets, headed
cross-country, or some other pattern of
air travel from other airports I'd not even
known of. It hardly mattered.
-
At that juncture, barely a month in, my
wife and I were still determining the
positions and the placement of things,
finding alternatives to the cold, setting
up the normal and dumb household stuff.
Heck we weren't even sure of the best
spots for chairs and tables, where to sit,
etc. Money kept going out the window,
but fortunately it wasn't ours. A new
washer and dryer arrived, and got
installed. By later in that Spring, as
well, we had the new kitchen floor,
which made a big difference. Both
sets of parents were splitting the
bankroll on all this. The first thing
I myself did when I had a little
money stashed, maybe 175 bucks,
was to mail order from some tool
company (reputable, not junk), the
basic set of rachets, wrenches, screw-
drivers, hammers, chisels, etc., that
a normal person would need. It all
arrived in good order, and I made
myself a little tool-room in a dry but
cold area of the Storm-entry area at
the rear of the house. Always came
in handy.
-
Going upstairs for any reason was
crazy. Whatever the temperature
outside was, it was maybe 5 degrees
warmer, ONLY, inside upstairs, and
even less at the next, huge, open-attic
lever. We had so much unused room
it was crazy. I could have sold cars
on the attic floor, if I'd known how
to get them up and down.
-
I figured, somewhere, this house had a
key to its existence; a latch that held all
its past secrets - the who's and the what's
and why's of the last 75 years, or whatever
it was. Everyone here I ever mention, all
those men and ladies I met, and the ones
I never meant but just heard their names
in the many weird stories of intrigue, they
were now all buried up on that hill; where
once had been a quiet and undisturbed
little Civil-War/locals graveyard, gated
and revered. Somehow, between 1975
and 2016, all those folks had died and
their mortal remains now had taken
over the once-quiet graveyard. Now it
was cleared and mowed, and filled with
informative stones and memorials.
-
I guess that's how the thread of life
keeps running. It weaves its way along
the past and the present alike, and finds
way to fit into whatever the weave is. Same
with the houses - a lot of the houses of all
these folk, back then, fresh-kept paint and
always right with repairs, had now turned
seedy. Way more so than ever before.
-
I stood on the high hill that had once
been my own, at the edge of the property,
facing out towards Mt. Pisgah. Where
previously Mt. Pisgah had been a mere
afterthought, a sort of lookout after a drive
of some 300 feet up, it was now no longer
abandoned in that manner. Parks Service
stuff had taken over; gates and markers,
and even some monumental statue of some
imagined, I guess, 'Chief Pisgah' gazing
out over what once had been the happy
tribal, hunting, fishing and tribal lands.
Oh well. Happy for that.
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