Hey, that's no way to say goodbye

I was out of phone reach last weekend attending a wedding in Maine. But, frustratingly enough, every now and then my phone would alert me that I had voice mails from Mrs. B. As three voicemails piled up in one day I thought: What is the deal, did someone die or something?

Well, sadly, that turned out to be true.

I've known Indian J since the second day I started attending school in Madison in 1985. By coincidence we sat next to each other at an orientation session, which was quickly followed by beers at the lakefront student union. At that time he was extracting himself from the wreckage of a premature marriage that had produced two toddler boys. Through the college years we weren't consistent running pardners, but our friend circles intertwined and we shared a couple girlfriends (though not at the same time- well, almost once) and were even roommates during senior year.

After I had left Madison for frontiers beyond what a liberal midwestern college town could offer, Indian J and I kept in touch. He remained in Madison and I periodically returned to visit- which included a couple month couch-surfing stint one summer- and eventually we found our life partners.

Indian J had found F., a native of Die, France who taught school. I didn't see them much, but understood something of the dynamic where she wanted to start a family and Indian J was reluctant: he felt burned by his first experience and he didn't know if he could devote himself to the project again. But divine intervention occurred and they decided to bring forth Little M into the world in '01 and were wed in '02. I watched as he joyously danced with his little daughter at the barnyard reception.

I'm a little hazy on the chronology, but F. was diagnosed with cancer around '03. She doggedly pursued treatment and was able to continue with a somewhat normal life for some time. But her health began to decline over the last couple years. By last fall she was spending some time in a wheelchair and was incapable of working. I saw her again several weeks ago and she was largely bound to a bed, but she could still hold a conversation. She wanted to hear about my world, and I kept my questions about her to a minimum. I had already sat with Indian J and asked how he was doing. "It sucks watching your wife die." I didn't need to ask her to explain how she was doing.

Shortly after my visit, her condition began to rapidly deteriorate. She needed professional help and was moved to hospice, where she lasted another week.

In the spectrum of human tragedies, individual deaths are the equivalent of a calendar year in geologic time. They don't really register as a blip when measured as a part of the whole. But as we live through our lives, we don't have the luxury of that larger perspective. The most minute events are often the most painful and medicine has yet to concoct ways to heal the wounds that need the most immediate attention.

I use the word "tragedy" because I witnessed Indian J, having reached for the brass ring of domestic felicity long after cynicism and resignation from a failed first marriage should have kept him on the sidelines, find that his grasp could not hold on as F.'s body failed her.

Indian J and Little Miss M will continue on: she to second grade and he back to his high school counseling duties. From my outside vantage point I can't escape seeing his life as a story flavored by the cruellest of ironies. It is a story of a runner who stumbled once, then rose to race again, only to find that the location of the finish line had changed.

In tall buildings

One of my favorite albums (does it rise to the level of a Desert Island Disc? I dunno- I've never counted to 10) since time immemorial- or at least since I was a 17-year old pup working at a Colorado summer camp- is John Hartford's Aereo-Plain.

Spun from Hartford's eccentric prowess and David Bromberg's perpetual irreverence, the album must have seemed when it came out in 1971 like some unwanted hippy crapgrass encroachment on idyllic bluegrass turf. But I love it and have a cherished memory of streaking through a girl's locker room at the Colorado summer camp to the sound of "Boogie" coming from a shoulder-perched boombox.

So, aided by the recent uncovering of a 1983 UW-La Crosse solo recording, John Hartford has been in my ears and on my mind lately. One of the songs he plays- though it's not on Aeroplane- is one where the singer laments a change in life where he submits to a lifestyle where economic burdens and a quotidian schedule frame his existence.

..."Someday my Baby when I am a man, and others have taught me the best that they can, they'll sell me a suit and cut off my hair and send me to work in tall buildings. So it's goodbye to the sunshine, goodbye to the dew, goodbye to the flowers and goodbye to you. I'm off to the subway, I must not be late, I'm going to work in tall buildings. When I retire, my life is my own, I've made all my payments, it's time to go home, and wonder what happened betwixed and between, when I went to work in tall buildings."

Our firm recently moved its offices and I now work on the 15th floor.

Time

So, back home from our lovely wedding weekend in Madison, I picked up the shovel to continue my Herculean labor project for the summer: excavating some 120 cubit feet of dirt so we can lay down a patio and a back walkway for our 103 year old house. As I began laboring, K came out of the house, excited about the prospect of finding buried treasure. "We can find a treasure chest. And we can put a storybox in it!"

Yeah, right kid, I thought as I sweated in the 86 degree heat. After I had wheelbarrowed a large dirt pile to the rear garden and began digging about 6 inches down on one side, I hit some stray pipes. Then I began to reveal some ceramic shards, rusty nails, and burnt wood. Obviously, I had hit a trash pile that workers had buried there. I turned over a little more dirt and found a small clear glass bottle imprinted "Frostilla" on one side and "Fragrant Lotion" on the other side. Maybe K was going to get his treasure after all.

Next in the dirt I picked up a small coin or token that was octogonal in shape. K quickly grabbed it out of my hand and he washed in the hose that he and L had been playing in. The coin said: "Crescent Creamery- redeem with empty bottle for 5 cents."

I looked on the internet and found that Frostilla was a skin cream- made in Elmira, NY where we used to go for neo-natal checkups before K was born- and the bottle is probably from 1900-20. The Crescent Creamery operated from St. Paul until it was bought out in 1961 by Kemp's, whose milk we buy every week. The Crescent Creamery also employed a Greek immigrant who ended up being the father of the Andrews Sisters, who first came to fame in 1937 with their recording of "Bei mir bist du schon," a song the bride sang to the groom at the Madison wedding reception.

It's a small world and a small clock, afterall.