Susanís Jobian prep-the-condo-for-sale project is nearing an end as Matt, Joe, Cel, and Kristin applied almost seven gallons of pure white paint to every wall, ceiling and epidermal surface. I guessed four hours, they worked for a solid eight, stopping only for lunch from nearby Papa Ginoís.

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Shouldn’t rakkity be back from Utah by now?

So tame you can almost pet him (or her).

Painting Flo’s apartment.
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The nearby train tracks connect our house to Daryl’s, the stores in West Acton, and even Idylwilde. Matt and his friends use them and often they find things you might not stumble upon on, say, Central St. Like the head of a deer. After staring into its glassy eye, Joe claims he ëll never be the same.

Yesterday they found this snapping turtle sidled up next to the tracks and were afraid it would meet the same fate as the deer. Enlisting my help for their “turtle rescue mission,” we walked back to where it was, and then much further before finding it safely away from the speeding trains.

The turtle is larger than it appears in this photo. Separate your hands to about shoulder width, imagine the weight of a bowling ball and you’ll have a sense of its size. It also has that giveaway triangular head and a long sharp tail, and though we were three, it was clearly in control. One snapping lunge at Joe and we all jumped back, hearts a poundin’.

That snapping turtle, the tales of the deer, the time of day – dusk – and my vision of one of the boys tight roping the rails with Walkman on high inspired, “One of these days you guys are going to find a dead body back here. I guarantee it.”

“There’s a perfect place to hide one, let me show you,” Robby replied.

We walked down a few feet to a brambly culvert channeling water from recent heavy rains. I walked to the concrete lip, looked down into the swirling black water and thought, sure this would be the place.

“If I ever killed someone accidentally this is where I’d stuff the body,” Robby observed.

I backed away from the edge , said something about the mosquitoes and headed back home.

Stopped on our way to Erickson’s (yeah, we do go there quite often) to take this photo of a rainbow over Stonefield Farm. Looks brilliant? Double it and you get the real life image. Tonight is the first night of Diane’s thirty-fifth Wellesley College reunion.

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As soon as those baby ducks hit the water – each one made a resounding PLOP as Matt dropped them from the bank- they submerged in search of food. Or to simply play. They were home and we were heroes.

Diane and Susan, remembering our date to meet Chris and her kids at Erickson’s, hurried home. I hung out briefly with Bob and Joy to talk about future projects, and then I skipped back to the house. After ice cream we stopped at Shaw’s supermarket, and arrived back home in the dark, at about 8:30. When I pulled into the driveway, not quite waiting for us but following the truck up the driveway, was my neighbor, John, whom I had never officially met. John is tall, thirty something, has thinning red hair, and that nobody’s really home smile of a man with two young children. He was carrying his blonde, sad-eyed daughter in his arms.

I said, “Hi.”

John said, “Have you seen my ducks?”

I don’t have a clue how to proceed with this story. I think anyone who looked at the images or watched the Quicktime movie knows exactly how we felt at that moment. My knees wobbled, Diane lost her hearing and the blood began to drain from Susan’s head, especially as John filled in the details about his ducks. The mother who laid those fourteen eggs in his yard has never been seen; the babies are only two weeks old and way too young to survive in the wild; he had planned to set them free in New Hampshire in four weeks.

John handed his baby daughter to his wife, and I led him to Joy’s dock. As we walked down the leafy path, John kept saying, “They’ll come when I call them, I know they will.” I kept thinking, And if you go home and rub your vodka bottle, out will pop a three-wish granting genie. I saw those ducks when they hit the water. They’re playing under water tag or they’re snapping turtle food. Either way, they ain’t coming back to your yard.

Nevertheless, we stood on that dock and John blew his duck call. With the moon overhead, the deep green grasses waving in the breeze, the clear gentle stream flowing away, and bubbly John sounding like a duck, I feared I was going to have an out of body experience.

With no movement and no signs of the return of the waddling fourteen, I said to John, “I’m going home, but promise me if you get your ducks back you’ll come to my house and let me know.”

John removed the duck call from his mouth and smiled, “They’ll come, they always have.”

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Susan worries that in addition to Flo’s monthly Concord Park bills, there will be a nine hundred dollar companion fee to pay for my new found attachment to the place.

I joined Flo for a classical piano recital in the great room to the left of the main doors. Rick Scalise plays once a month, and Sunday he featured Mozart, Beethoven, and Strauss. There were twenty-two folks in his audience; I counted six asleep. Or I thought they were asleep, except that at the end of each song, eyes would open and hands would clap. Thinking they might be onto something, I too closed my eyes. That made seven of us with our chins on our chest.

I was ecstatic to be sitting so close to the performer, but there is one drawback to this venue. The sleepers are counter balanced by the talkers. Behind where Flo and I sat were two women who could have been hollering over the crowd noise at a Celtics’ game. This bothered me some, but it really irritated the dark haired woman sitting in front of us. The one Flo refers to as, “The Busy body.”

The Busy Body’s evil eye stares were completely ineffective. And there were many. Finally, she stood up in the middle of a Strauss Waltz, marched over to the talkers and with forefinger extended said, “You better SHUT-UP!”

As she walked back to her chair, in voices loud enough to be heard outside of the Fleet Center:

“What did she say?”

“I think she said to be quiet.”

“The nerve.”

“She must be related to the piano player.”

Concord Park – rear view.
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Tomorrow: More duck tales