The Old Birch

Another post from the Northwoods...

I always think of birch trees as thin, straight, white trunks with haphazard curls of paper-like bark peeling off.

The old birch by our lake isn’t like that at all.

Its trunk is gnarled and twisted, like an old man’s body ravaged by a lifetime of manual labor. Its bark beyond rough—gray, lichened scabs conceal its true identity.  It’s thick—my fingertips can’t even touch when I reach around it.

But it’s been a great tree, that old birch. It provides shade for us, habitat for bugs and smorgasbord for the nuthatches and the downy woodpeckers. Its leaves transform to yellow and carpet the ground. Its massive arms protect our bi-nightly fires in the firepit surrounded by a metal ring adorned in silhouettes of deer cavorting, deer at rest.

Originally, I didn’t even know it was a birch. Hidden among the hemlocks, its leaves obscured by the pine-type branches that crowd beneath its crown, it existed in obscurity on the hill above the lake. Actually, years later, I’d likely still be oblivious except a neighbor mentioned the old birch tree.

And, sure enough, when I took the time to look at it—actually stopped to notice—my eyes followed up the bends of the contorted, faded grayed trunk, and saw the familiar whitened, papery bark some thirty feet up, beyond the intruding hemlock cover, right where the birch splits three ways in sturdy, muscular branches, before heading up another, maybe, sixty feet.

When the old birch wasn’t nearly as old, it endured a heavy chain that supported one end of a crosswise log used as a clothesline, of sorts, to hoist up deer hunted down in the nearby forests, by those from another generation, another time. When we bought the tiny cabin by our little lake, the tree—still not recognized by me as a birch—stoically held that perpendicular log until a friend of ours (and, obviously, a friend of the tree) brought his wire cutters, shimmied up the trunk of the old birch, and finally set it free.

So now I take the time to look at it.

I notice the bare branches toward the top. I notice lesions of sickly-looking brown shrouding the trunk.

And I realize it’s dying, that old birch tree.

And I don’t know what to say, really, or what to do, except make sure I pay it notice. And enjoy its company while we’re both still here.

And maybe write something about it, so others might feel the sadness I do when I realize its days are numbered.

And, who knows, maybe it looks at me likewise as it notes my slowing gait, my graying beard, the ever-deepening creases across my face.

So we just sit, looking out at the lake, a fire smoldering before us on an unusually chilly July afternoon.

Just me and the old birch.

The Mind Wanders While on Vacation

Jack Kerouac

I spent the first few days at our tiny, summer cabin reading beat generation poet Jack Kerouac's On the Road, a fictionalized biography of his travels to experience America in the late 1940's.
Here's a pseudo-tongue-in-cheek response to Kerouac's thoughts after reading his novel.

OFF THE ROAD

Jack Kerouac,

poet and chronicler of the long-lost

Beat generation,

lived on the road

because writers need life experience

to write. 

He relished his tales of

drinking and

hitchhiking

and breaking bread with people as diverse as

Nebraska farmers

and L.A. hipsters

while figuring out from where

his next dollar would come

or where

he (or with whom he) would spend the night.

Then he wrote about it.

Upper Springstead Lake near Mercer, WI

I sit here next to the lake--

sun warming my shoulders,

breeze gently stroking my hair--

swatting the occasional deerfly

that tries to nip my pasty, white legs;

the hummingbirds squeaking and dancing through the hemlocks;

the drone of an outboard motor steering

an aluminum boat to a 

(hopefully) more productive spot to fish.

The eagle scritches in the distance.

The water whispers in rhythm against the dock

(which, season-by-season, sags ever lower into 

the lake).

I'm not drunk.

I don't hitchhike.

Right now, the only ones with whom I'm breaking bread

(actually English muffins)

are my wife and our

shelter-rescue cat named Bluebell.

But this still counts as life experience,

right?

The First Kiss

I remember my first kiss.
That is, in itself, no small feat. I often have a hard time recalling what I had for breakfast, but yet I remember my first kiss.
I was awkward. She was sweet.

She had a wonderful smile, blonde hair, light sapphire eyes. We had "gone together" for a while in middle school. Through almost pathological respect, or doubt, or, likely, fear on my part, we'd never kissed.

The weather was summery. Our group of friends met at our friend Carolyn's house to just hang out. I don't remember much else, except when it was time to make my four mile bike ride back home, I led her around the corner of the garage. And there, we kissed.  Just one time.

It wasn't exactly smooth, but it was magical enough for me to still remember forty-some years later.

If I recall, it was also our only. Summer came, she left on vacation, high school came in the fall, and interests and opportunities took us in different directions.

This past weekend, I attended my 40th high school class reunion. I really hadn't spoken to her much since eighth grade. But she sought me out to say hello. She was happy to share with those around that I was her first kiss (she was unaware it was mine, as well). She asked if I remembered. And I was touched to know that she did, too.

Some things change. I've a few more pounds, a more salt-than-pepper beard. Her light sapphire eyes are now framed by eyeglasses. We both met wonderful partners--she, another member of our high school class, and I, an amazing woman, coincidentally with a wonderful smile, blonde hair, light sapphire eyes. And as the years have passed, we've each lived, thankfully, full and blessed lives.

And some things don't change.

I'm still awkward. She's still sweet.

But that moment--that summery, sweet and awkward moment--will forever be remembered as
the first kiss.

Viva Las Excess!

In Vegas, nothing is ever enough. Glitzier shows, more opulent casinos, more exquisite dining. 

And I wonder, will it ever be enough?

Fountains at Bellagio front the

Eiffel Tower at Paris on the Vegas Strip

I just returned from a four day jaunt to Sin City (my wife and I took my 85 year-old mom, who loves it). I ate like a king, at restaurants run by renown chefs (I even ate something called bone marrow flan. Bone marrow! And it was delicious).

We stayed at a replica of Paris (an Americanized version, I am certain), replete with indoor cobblestone streets and cafes and flanked outdoors by the half-sized Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe.

For some, they can't gamble (or desperately hope) enough. I saw a jittery twenty-something at an ATM denied five hundred dollars because of insufficient funds.

People gave tips to an extremely large woman posing along the street in a bikini.

I paid the bill for the meal we consumed, of which bone marrow was just a very small part.

And when will enough be enough?

Our hotel was detailed and interesting, but it's twenty years old. I'd imagine its useful entertainment life will expire in another decade or so and it will make way for something fresher. As will be the eventual fate of the dozens upon dozens of hotels sporting thousands upon thousands of rooms.

And the people still will come. Nearly 38 million visited last year alone. 

A few decades ago, no one visited Las Vegas except on the way to somewhere else. It was incredibly hot (side note: the average high temp for our visit was 107 degrees), incredibly arid. Truly a desert.

It still is. It pulls an increasing amount of drinking water from the dammed-up (and incredibly put-upon) Colorado River, thirty miles away at Hoover Dam. It pulls more and more water from its depleting aquifers for its cleaning and greenery and fountains and faux-waterfalls omnipresent along the Strip.

90+% of Las Vegas drinking water comes 

from the Hoover Dam's Lake Mead

And I wonder how long it will be before those millions upon millions of visitors will use up this naturally arid land's dwindling water supply?

Here, I start writing about the excess in Vegas, and I end up writing--well, I guess about the excess in Vegas, after all.

But, really, then what, right?

Maybe then for Vegas, that will be, finally, enough.

But, sadly, I wouldn't bet on it.

Doing Unto Others

A Rolling Stones song advised you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.

But sometimes it's both.

My wife's religious faith is strong. She relies on prayer to guide her through things. It's how she says she decided on me.

And, surprisingly, she still believes.

A few years back, she asked in prayer for a chance to make one more difference in her career before retiring from education.

A principal post opened in a nearby parochial school. Unknown to her through the interview process, it was failing badly. Due to a variety of factors, it was suffering the similar fate of small village Catholic schools--the enrollment had been dropping for years and stood at 90-some students in a K-8 school. Soon, it would likely be combined with other small village schools (140 would have been a solid, sustainable enrollment).

She got the position. She got to work right away--personally contacting every family that left, setting up a plan, getting the school and parish on board--and the school, indeed, turned around. Remarkably, in this time of Catholic school contraction, the enrollment at this little village school is now nearing 160 students. Donors were so encouraged that they added a several-million-dollar addition. With the work of a determined parish and the commitment of school community families (and my wife's plan), the school's climate transformed from despair to hope.

So, it was the answer to that prayer. She had been placed in, and guided through, a position in which she made a difference. Mick Jagger's "what you want."

But it was richer than that.

She was surrounded by wonderful people, virtually (and often literally) embraced by those in the community. People said wonderful things, offered encouragement. My wife was enriched in her faith through them. She felt their joy and their appreciation for what she was trying to do. In experiencing this little community's commitment and faith and, yes, love, my wife's heart and soul were filled to overflowing.

So, all this time, the church, the Catholic schools leadership, the parents looking for a solid faith-enriched education, the village community itself, felt that she had helped them.

Of course, she did. But more importantly, they had helped her.

Amazingly, in that, she found she got what she needed.

What a remarkable way to head into the next phase of life.