In The Cigar Box

I’d had surgery before but not since I’d passed through a child’s trust and acceptance of everything his parents did.   Now I wanted to know what to expect, to have some control, to reconcile a future that might not be limitless.   I worried about how I’d look and what people would think or whisper. Worry and fear were tugging on me but I was big enough to ask.   Here, on the 6 th floor west of Wesley Memorial Hospital, I waited for Dr. Compere to arrive for our pre-surgery talk.   My mind wandered back to last week’s gym class at Junior High School. Another guy, I’ll call him Ben, sat beside me on the edge of the stage.   Schools of the day always had a stage at the end of the gym.   This was an obvious cost efficiency decision that transformed the gym into a tile over concrete, mammoth empty room where newly minted teenagers could burn energy under the education theory that it would quell the effects of raging hormones and sporadic spurts of growth...

Everyone gets asked their favorite books - even the author's profile for blogspot asks those questions.  The theory is that by knowing what books a person likes, a window into the core of the person will be thrown open.  Doubtful.  The book is a vessel - it is like a cigar box with characters and stories living inside.  I'm indebted to every book written or read.  They mark the route that led to here.  So... Even though memory can't be trusted if facts are the pursuit, I believe it was during the time of convalescence after the final surgery on my leg, I began to read books, novels.  Not only did the stories transport me to times and places where I couldn't go, the pain of bones knitting where the surgeon's saw or scalpel had severed them was driven from my conscious mind.  Reading became as addictive as morphine because when immersed in the lives of characters who were more real, complex and complete, than flesh and blood, pain didn't exist. ...

To a boy of eight on summer break from school, Third street in Fisher was as heady as the Las Vegas strip to a Midwestern tourist. Walking four blocks from the north end to downtown took you by places for adventures past and adventures planned.  Gerry and I made that walk as often as Aunt Gladys would let us go.  She must've known we were headed for mischief but she had spies posted along the way. Right away we passed Mike and Mark's house.  They were near to our age but both had hemophilia, a word I learned to say but only knew it meant that they couldn't go on most adventures with us.  They had to stay close to home and mustn't get bruised - a very hard thing for a boy to avoid.  They could help us build army camps out of dirt and rocks for our plastic soldiers but we had to stay inside the sidewalk at the edge of the yard.  We used the oak tree as the center of the battlefield and worked our strategies with infantry and tanks for hours long battl...

Rainy days with gray skies and clouds that meander, rather than scud, across the horizon are days when memories laced with hurt wend their way to consciousness.  Of course, there are triggers - a blog about the last day for a beloved Bernese Mountain Dog or a melancholy reference to a one time canine companion whose time gave way to a new dog rescued.  But the memory of loss has no strength.  Such memories cannot force the images of good times and loyal friendships to the deep caverns of mind.   Today was like that.  In this photograph, the best dog ever stood in spring grass that had just regained its color from a winter's dormancy.  She stood and smiled the smile she always gave at playtime, nighttime, daytime, anytime.  Her name was Puppet.   Frisbee was her game.  A retriever's core instinct is to retrieve - ducks or birds or sticks or balls.  For Pup it was a gnarly old, yellow frisbee.  She would chase it in fligh...

What I remember most is how it smelled.  Grandpa's cellar wasn't like a basement where old clothes and toys turn greenish-black with dust and mold.  Nope.  The upstairs door and rickety steps were my own rabbit hole.  In that world down and apart, Grandpa's cellar held a forest of shelves all stocked with candy bars, cartons of cigarettes and 45 RPM records.  This room below held the bottle of magic where C & F Music began.  The door opened and a shaft of sunlight shot a sparkling streamer down the steps.  Milk chocolate, new vinyl and tobacco spun their smells to overcome the dank odor every cellar shared.  As that smell rose to the nose of a nine year old boy, the entrance to his magical world flung open. C & F stood for Clayton and Forest, father and son.  Theirs was a business that fed the fads and desires of young adults who began the boom and came of age in the 50's and 60's.  It was a world where Grandpa knew ev...