CHAPTER 207 IMPRESSIONS OF MY LIFE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECHERCHE POET RING IN A STRANGE NEW YEAR 2016

 CHAPTER 207 RING IN A STRANGE NEW YEAR 2016

 

New Year’s Day 2016 began in a fog, a dreary morning. It was not much different than many before. I was at dawn for my morning walk. I went to  Brandywine Creek State park, my favorite place to hike.  It was cold. There were ice flows on the Brandywine.

Still patches left from a recent snow. I loved walking in such  weather.

On the 23rd we were hit with a blizzard. I spent part of the day shoveling out the drive and sidewalk. 

Darryl showed up on the

26th and Lois and I spent the day babysitting Jasper. He had been born on June 6, 2014, so now in January 2016 he was around a year and half old. 

 

Lois went into Christiana Hospital to have her first knee replacement on January 28. Dr Crane was the urgent and it was said he was the best. He did a good job.The other knee would  eventually have to be replaced, but it was decided to only do one at a time.

She was in great amount of pain during her rehab, but
fortunate to have a patient and friends physical therapist coming  to our house from Bayada, our first experience with that outfit, but not our last. By January 29 the hospital had her up

walking with a walker (I had to pay $100 for that thing).  On March 1 she took her first walk outside just using a cane. We went  over to Bonsall Park for her solo.

On March 8 it was like

summer out, 70 degrees, and I took my long walk over at Bellevue visiting the horse paddocks. 

On the March 31 we visited a friend of Ron Tipton named Don McKenzie, who lived in a co-op in downtown  Philadelphia.  Out on the street, Ronald insisted we dicve to Christiana Mall and  have my photo taken in front of White House/Black Market. This was the last place I had worked and I retired afterward at age 70.

It was shaping up too be a great year as Lois and I visited
Rehoboth Beach for the day on May 9.  Lois walking up the boardwalk toward the famous Dolle’s Salt Water Taffy store. 

We had lunch in a small restaurant along the Boardwalk. It was a nice little cafe, but I had to use the men's room and it was total mess.

There was a scandal at the SPCA where Laurel worked and it looked as if it was going t close the shelter in Stanton and move all the animals to Georgetown.  

Laurel had to end new employment, which she quickly did
going back to the Delaware Humane Association, but Laurel was concerned with a very shy cat she had been working with named Giselle.

 Giselle had come to the SPCA with her brother, a male
named Tom Cat Brady. They named Giselle after Quarterback Tom Brady.  Laurel feared Giselle would regress if she were moved. Lois then went and adopted her and she is still shy, but has come a long way.

  

I was doing my routine, yard work and  everything seemed to be going along just swimmingly.

Then then it wasn't

.

I was walking a lot over at Rockwood, a  county park about four miles away. I had started going there a lot during 2012 when my parents were on their last legs. It was near by, had plenty of paths, scenery, history and it opened at dawn, not at 8:00 AM like most of the other venue

When you become a regular at a place you begin to know

many of the other regular and they grow to know you.  First hit would be a nodding acquaintance, but as the weeks passed you would often stop and have conversation. Such as I had with Keven, who early on Sundays walk his three dogs (Later four).

There the three-legged dog Karma.

There were a  number I grew close to, but I didn’t always know their name so I would have a nickname for everyone, although I never actually called them by this to their face. The names were descriptive, but some might have been a bit offensive. 

For instance there was Ed, whose name I did learn, and his wife, Twisted Mouth. I don’t if she had once had a stroke, but her mouth was very distorted, although she spoke well enough. They were constant hikers, going  to different locale for long foot journeys, usually with their two dogs, an elderly German Shepherd and a small dog that was crazy, literally.

Some of whom I met early and saw the most were the Grandmother, mother and later daughter.  The younger woman, the granddaughter had been  in the Peace Corp, but when her hitch ended she was along with the other two.  The dog was a mop with feet named Mia. At first Mia just barked at me, but later she looked forward to seeing me, because I would scratch her back and she loved that.  The older women was 80 years old and in the last year I saw her had been ailing. Then the old woman didn’t come and soon after they all disappeared, so my guess is the grandmother passed away.

One of the regulars spooked me at first. He came each morning in a  white car, but often parks in a different spot. I never saw him walk. He would just park, get out of his car and smoke. I do mean smoke. He always was surrounded by a cloud. I called him the Puffer. One morning I was driving in and he passed me driving out, but he turned around and followed my up the entry road. I thought he was some kind of security, but one morning I spoke to him and he said he always stopped in the park to smoke before going to work.  It relaxed him.

I knew so many. There was a man who walked him old dog Tucker, same name as my dog.

There was Dallas. Which I found odd, not the man, the name. I had a good friend, a poet, also named Dallas. To know two people living in Delaware named Dallas seemed unlikely, but there it as. Dallas had a very old big white dog named Sam. Sam died one Christmas Day and Dallas no longer walked the park. I did see him a couple times afterward riding a bike through.

There was a man I called The Pumper, because he always violently pumped his arms as he walked. He later shifted to skies, pulling himself up and down a small hill with sticks. I then called hi the Poler (I never got his picture.)

Once there was the ghostly Women In White, who came like an apparition near the lake.

I passed almost every day a woman I knew as sore foot, because she always walked like her feet hurt, she came to walk then go to a Gym to workout. I don't think her tosses hurt at all.

There was an elderly thin man who came all the time with huge dog, a Mastiff perhaps, named Brutus.  The dog not the man. I don't know what his name was. I know he lived across the street from the park.  Occasionally his wife are instead, but she had difficulty handling Brutus.

There was an Asia women who lived across another street from the park. She came with a dog and  a toy that the dog would chase. I only saw her in winter when I was all bundled up. One January we had a summer-like day, warm enough I only wore shorts and a T-shiirt when I passed her on a trail.

She paused for a moment, the said this, "I didn't recognize you without clothes on."  

I became very close to a young lady, who worked at the University, named Polly. She always walked a white dog with black spots named Iggy. It was funny, because Iggy was a cartoon character who had a pet parrot named Polly.   She probably wonders what happened to me now

Another I became quite close too was Hope. It was awhile before I  learned her name, I always referred to her as The Cane Lady because she carried a cane on her walks. We stopped

and talked one day and I found she was a very sweet and  kind Christian lady, who went to church in Wilmington. I also discovered every morning she went into the meadow to a large flat rock to face the sun and pray.  I named it The Player Rock. Keep it in mind, it will play a part in my next chapter.

 

In April of 2016 there was a sudden mystery. I came for my walk and on every trail was this face, reminding me a bit of Einstein, with the work Essere beneath it. It was everywhere you looked. What did it  mean? The word itself is an Italian verb meaning be or become. But why was it here?

I didn’t know then and I don’t know now. I just know that in 2016 this appeared everywhere in Rockwood Park.

The biggest mystery would soon begin.