jumpingfish

The compost pail was chuggin’ full. There were a day’s worth of coffee grounds from work in a Folger’s can on the counter. And there was a bowl of vegetable scraps from the tasty treat Trudy was preparing. Time for a compost run before it got dark.

This is the contract we have, the fair and industrious Trudy and I: she makes tasty treats, and I deal with the compost. (Who’s got the better deal?) So with evening setting in, I set out with my arms full. Trudy handed me the bowl of scraps with a twinkle in her eye and then quickly pulled the patio door shut.

It was dusk — that time that isn’t day and isn’t night. The time when things disappear from plain view before your eyes. The time when screech owls screech and scurrying things skitter around in the black shadows. The time of rummy-gumpshins and nick-tal-roos and wild augerhandles. (You know the kind of dusk I’m talking about?)

I walked thru the gate into that skinny slice of yard that we call our “Back 40”. I had to tilt my head to avoid the Common Hackberry coming up behind the fence. (I gotta cut that thing down this weekend.) But it’s leaves rubbed my neck, and I could feel my skin trying to decide whether to complain or not.

An owl soundlessly swooped before me and glided in an arc around the yard and into the alley behind us. I made a motion to set my load of pail and can and bowl of scraps down.

But I stopped short. Something wasn’t quite right. I squinted to see better in the dim light.

There was a snake. Lying still. Hidden in plain sight on top of the compost pile. Mottled pattern on scales against the mottled texture of dead, decaying leaves and grass. I recognized the markings: a rat snake. Indeed, it was our rat snake, whom we haven’t seen in a very long time, who we were dreading might have succumbed to the axe or shovel of a neighbor.

It looked at me. I looked at it. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then I tossed a chunk of watermelon rind, hoping to encourage it to move so that I might bury my scraps. It didn’t move. We both held our ground, staring at each other. Then I took a step forward. And with that, the snake turned and began to slither off the pile and into the undergrowth. It slithered shockingly quickly, but this was no small snake, so it took a fair while for it to clear the area.

I watched it as it retreated. I took another step, so that I might estimate its length: at least six feet long. As I said, no small snake. 

When it reached the fence, the snake stopped to watch me, and then he slithered behind a sheet of corrugated metal leaning against the fence back there. (I need to do something with that some time.)

Big snake. Lucky us. The rats in the alley don’t stand a chance.

1. Prelude

Ok, then. What shall we say about the humble little camper sitting there shining in the morning sun?

Some of you might have suggestions.

Maybe you’ll remind us that this was the place where Bunka slept. How you told us to be quiet when we walked by the camper late at night. Or maybe you’ll talk about how it used to come and go in his truck but has long since become a permanent fixture of this place. Maybe you’ll talk about how its roof required constant attention, to which I would add that the silver roof-sealing paint got splotched onto my favorite sweatshirt, and I still look on that splotch as a of badge of honor of sorts. Or you might talk about those years when Bunka talked about getting a bigger camper, how we’d stop at dealerships with him and walk thru the newest models, how he really wanted a fifth wheel trailer to pull rather than a camper to mount.

But instead, I look out my window here in Texas and see grey skies and falling rain — rain that has been falling daily for almost two weeks, and I am taken back to a summer on that hill by that lake. A summer when the rains never stopped.

I can’t pretend to understand what it must have been like for the adults that year. That place is usually a refuge for parents, a place where the kids can run in the woods, explore the swamps and wear themselves out in the water. It must have been horrible for the adults that year.

Thanks to the rain, there was virtually no swimming. And there was little walking in the woods, because the mosquitos swarmed thick around your ears as soon as you got away from the breeze off the lake. And the sand… oh, the sand! The kids were constantly tracking wet sand into the cottage, sand that had to be constantly swept off the dank concrete floor and tossed back outside into the falling rain only to be tracked back in moments later.

2. From a Kid’s Point of View

Although I can’t imagine what that rainy summer must have been like for the adults, I can imagine it as a kid. Because I was one.

First of all, we were in the habit of spending virtually every waking hour in the lake, so the rain didn’t bother us. And we were used to running around barefoot up and down the dirt-and-sand stairs and back and forth on the sandy beach, so wet sand on our feet didn’t bother us, either. But most importantly, we were together again — all us kids. Together again since last year. And there was a lot of lost time to make up for. 

Um… what about that camper?

Oh yes… the camper. It was our game room.

In there, we played cards and board games. We had Uno and regular cards. We had The Game of Life and Sorry and Space Chase. My brother could tell you the others. We had a bottomless supply of them stacked in a pile on the counter immediately to the right just as you stepped into the camper.

We’d sit in there, crammed into that tiny space, at that tiny table that doubled for a bed when lowered into position. We’d sit there with wet clothes, with wet hair, with damp arms rubbing against each other, with wet, sandy toes. We’d laugh and yell. We’d win and lose. And we’d stay in there hour after hour while a breeze blew in thru the slightly-opened windows and the rain made loud dripping sounds on the sand and pine needles outside.

We’d sit shoulder-to-shoulder in that space playing games day after day while the rain kept coming. And life could not have been better.

1. Getting Things Wrong

“You got a few things wrong in that story about the white table,” my mother said.

“I kinda expected that,” I said. The truth of the matter is that I figured that’s the way “oral” history goes, so I told it as best I could.

“But don’t be timid mom,” I added. “Send corrections.”

I could hear her smile. “You know me… I don’t have that problem.” 

Yes, mom, you don’t have that problem — a trait you in fact handed down to your eldest son.

“Are you going to tell stories for the rest of those pictures?” she asked.

Well now. There’s a thought. Of course, there were a dozen pictures. That’s quite a project, and any of us might grow tired before the stories end. Yet…

2. Not A Cabin

So consider this picture from among those:

I actually had it open on my desktop at work the other day. It was late on Friday. The office was mostly empty. And my boss’s boss wandered by and looked over my shoulder.

He was quiet for a moment, and then he smiled and said, “A shed.” 

I looked at the picture. Then at him. Then back at the picture.

“Actually, an outhouse,” I said.

“Oh,” he replied politely.

3. A Story About It

Let me tell you, dear reader, a story about that outhouse…

To start with, you should know that the western side of the lower peninsula of Michigan is sand. I mean it; it’s all sand. (The glaciers did it.) The forests, the orchards, the berry farms, the asparagus fields and all the lakes, swamps and bogs are just decoration on top of pure sand. (For example, see this.) As a consequence, digging holes up there is a breeze compared to, say, digging in the black gunk and white caliche and limestone down here in Central Texas. 

Now, my family likes to dig. We like to dig in general, but holes in particular. Partly, I suppose that’s because a hole is to dig, as Ruth Krauss and Maurice Sendak tell us. But we also dig because there are things that need digging in order to get done… like outhouses.

So what you see in this picture, is our outhouse. And there ever has only been one: the very same structure with the very same seats (yes, two differently-sized seats, side-by-side) and the very same door that has adorned this corner of the woods, behind our cottage for generations. But although it’s been the same outhouse, from time to time, we have had to move it. To a different place. To a different hole. Because… you know.

As I recollect it, when we were young, my cousin and brother and I dug a hole that was almost over our heads. Then followed many years of frequent gatherings of many people in that place. And some time when I was in graduate school, my cousin and brother dug another hole in the sand (because… well you know). I heard the story of how that hole they dug was the deepest that had ever been, the stuff of legend.

And then years came and went. Another generation was born, and they grew up, and then one summer, it came time again to move the outhouse, because… you know. So it fell upon them to dig a new hole. From Texas, I heard the story of how that hole those three cousins dug was another great one. And if I am not mistaken, they also dug a spectacular compost pit that lasted for years and years, because it too was so deep.

This year, my brother cleaned out the outhouse, texting me an outhouse ready message as we were driving from Texas. Swept the floor. Stocked the toilet paper. Made sure the buckets of lime were full. Chased away the daddy long legs. 

And there it stands in that picture, early in the morning with the eastern sun slanting thru the forest. It’s turned away from the cottage, of course, facing into the woods. So, if you are so inclined, you can sit there with door wide open and gaze out on the spectacular view of Oak and Maple and great White Pines and even a now-twelve-foot-tall Beech that my grandfather tended in his later years from the day he spotted it poking out of the leaf mould, lopping overhanging branches from a crooked Maple sapling that had a head start. There you can sit, contemplating whatever you might contemplate.

No, it’s not quite a shed; it’s an outhouse: The Outhouse.

Wait, David. Close your eyes. That red table on the hill nailed to that tree. Can you see it, David?

I see it.

The tree. Now look closely at the tree. And at the bark, look at the bark. Do you see it?

Yes, I see it.

Look closer. Can you see the texture? How it’s smooth-ish?

Yes.

What kind of tree is it, David?

Well, it’s not a White Pine, as in the story I told. I can see clearly now. Smooth-ish bark. And a bit of red paint slopped onto the trunk from when we painted the table. It’s… it’s… it’s a Maple. No, wait. Oh heck, maybe an Oak. No, Maple. Well certainly not a White Pine. Oh, I really messed up that story, didn’t I?