jumpingfish

After the sun goes down and the sky turns black, they turn on great spotlights from the Canadian side.

And they shine them on the falls.

1. Border Crossing

When we pulled up to the guard booth, a young, stern-faced woman reached out for our passports. She told Trudy to take off her sunglasses and asked a few questions about our trip and when we planned to return. And then she handed our passports back to us.

“Is that it?” I asked.

“That’s it,” she said.

And with that, the vacation was begun in earnest.

2. Elevator To The Bottom of the Niagara River Gorge

Trudy looked up at the ceiling of the elevator.

“It’s a bat!” she said.

All of us followed her eyes to the top of the elevator where a small brown stuffed animal stuck to the exhaust fan.

“Actually,” the nice young man operating the elevator said, “it’s a moose.”

Of course. A moose.

“We have one attached to the inside of the elevator for each time the elevator has broken down this week.”

We looked around the elevator and noticed dozens. And with that, we arrived at the bottom of the 75 meter shaft, and he opened the door to let us out.

3. Last Bus of the Night

To our great relief, the People Mover bus finally came.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“White… Whitewater… The Hampton Hotel across from…”

“Whitewater Walk” the driver said with a chuckle.

It was the last bus of the night, and she was in a good mood.

“We’ve heard it all,” she said.

The woman sitting in front agreed, and they started naming places using the words that we tourists use when we can’t remember where we’re trying to go.

“And then there’s The Lady of the Lake,” the driver said, which made the two of them laugh very hard. She was, of course, referring to The Maid of the Mist.

Up before the dawn. Barely caught our plane. Changed in Baltimore. Rented a smokey-smelling car a mile from the Buffalo airport. And drove across to Canada.

By the time we got to our hotel, the afternoon was fleeting, and (vacationing being hard work even on day-one) we were hungry again.

“Queen Street,” the woman behind the counter said. “There are cafes and clubs on Queen Street.”

It was just a few blocks away, and we found the perfect place where we could sit outside in the shade. (Upon seeing That’s Amore Pizzaria, Trudy declared, “I’m really hungry for pizza.”)

We sat down and asked for two iced teas and were puzzled when the waitress brought to plastic bottles of Lipton sweetened with tons of corn syrup.

“You two must be from America,” she said. “This is the only kind of iced tea we have up here.” We confessed to being from Texas, and the three of us agreed that that explained it.

While we waited for our pizza, Trudy pulled out her map of Niagara Falls and got down to business plotting out our post-dinner strategy.

And happily, as you can see, the lack of real iced tea was no impediment whatsoever.

1. Just Before Sunset

The day had been hot. But now the sun was going down behind a thunderhead in the west, lighting up the margins of the great towering cloud silver agains a blue sky. And a cool breeze was blowing.

Storms were approaching from the east, with flashing bolts of lightning against the grey/blue clouds and rumbling thunder coming from far away. And rays from the setting sun behind that thunderhead behind me in the west was shining on those storm clouds in the east, and a pastel rainbow revealed a distant rain.

Guinness came up beside me from some sniffing expedition at a favorite spot along the fence at the edge of the field. He saw me gazing eastward toward a grove of Flameleaf Sumacs at the edge of the woods, and he trotted off to where I was looking—straight toward the rainbow.

2. Just After Sunset

After our walk, I sat down in a chair in the driveway—a spot I’ve found that is safe from mosquitos for a while in the evening. A wind out of the east brought the smell of rain and cool air.

From beyond the western horizon, the just-set sun illuminated the undersides of the clouds overhead, and the sky was glowing, and the leaves of the Monterey Oak and Texas Persimmon radiated a deep hue of green that haven’t seen for a long time.

And as I sat there watching the green leaves and pink clouds, four Screech Owls came gliding silently into the branches of the Ash tree above me and sat motionless in the branches. I whistled my A-song to them, and they bobbled their heads, trying to get a better fix on that thing sitting in the chair on the ground below them. And then they flew off.

The sky was no longer pink and the green of the leaves was gone.

And then the mosquitos found me.

I watched a little TV last night.

Not particularly notable until you also know that I don’t have a television and haven’t for more than ten years. So thisis actually a confession of sorts, an admission of weakness, a reflection of guilt.

Whatever. I watched four Twilight Zone episodes online last night: Flight 33, Where Is Everybody, Masks and (of course) To Serve Man. Probably a waste of time (in that post-middle-age puritanical perspective I have about TV), but there it is: I did it.

And it got me to thinking…

Fifty Years Ago! The first episode I watched was broadcast in 1961. It’s a great story—just as entertaining today as it certainly was back then. Tell me that 50 years from now (ok, 49) anyone is going to be watching the blech that’s shown on TV today.

Before Commercials Were King. Each of these episodes were about 26 minutes long—twenty-six minutes of programming in a thirty minute time slot. An approach to TV where the programming is the focus rather than the commercials. Imagine that.

Short Attention Span. On the other hand: twenty-six minutes!? I need to sit still for twenty-six minutes to watch these? TV or no, I am a product of this epoch, and my attention span has been shrinking for years. I found myself fast forwarding to get to the “punch line” of the episodes. (Admittedly, I watched four in a row and didn’t want to sit there for two hours; nevertheless, I could feel my short attention span pulling my hand to the mouse from the beginning.)

3. Black and White. When I was a child, in addition to walking thru waist-deep snow to get to my classes, we didn’t have a TV until I was 10. And even then it was black and white. For years, I didn’t know that the Wizard of Oz was in color. (Ok, maybe that’s not true.) Still, today I’m sure most kids would be shocked at the prospect of black-and-white-only programming, to which I respond: “Go watch one of those Twilight Zone episodes and see if you feel deprived (or, of course, watch Hitchcock).

So there you have it. I’ve expunged my pangs of guilt by transforming my lost time last night into some analysis, unproductive analysis perhaps, nothing that knocks off socks, but analysis nevertheless.

And now I’ll get up and go work in the yard.