Chris’s nickname is Goose; it has been for years. From now on the blog will refer to him as Goose thereby eliminating any need to differentiate between the two Chris’s.

Goose comes by once a week to help me work on my yard – trim bushes, that sort of thing. Someday soon he’ll help me replace rotten deck boards, maybe even re-roof the garage.

Monday after we’d finished scalping the bush that separates our yard from our new neighbors in the red house, I asked for a ride to Idylwide to buy chicken and corn for dinner. Goose drives an Accura Legend, a low slung sporty car with a sun roof. He never uses the A/C, but instead swaps fresh air for whatever music is blaring on his car stereo. As we were returning – base pounding, wind whipping, old man in passenger seat feeling young again – I pointed to the black Pontiac Firebird in front of us.

“That’s the car you should have. Think of the comments you’d get.”

“I get enough comments driving this car.”

“Oh.”

“And it’s fast.” Goose accelerated to prove his point. “I can get to forty in first gear in no time.”

“ You know what. There is a perfect place on Central St. to see how fast your car can go. Start right before the cemetery and end at my house.”

“Wait a minute. You said right before the cemetery?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s always a cop hiding in that cemetery.”

“There is?”

My two neighbors, Mary and Dolly, have lived side by side for fifty years. They raised their children together, watched them move away, and then, later, they grieved the loss of their husbands. Mary, slightly older but much frailer, was the first to give up her car keys. From then on she depended on Dolly to bring her food. I’ve known them both since we moved to Acton in 1983. Yesterday, I left work early to visit Dolly.

“I‚’m here to see Margaret Smith.”

The slim young blond woman with dark eye-liner scanned her list of residents.

“I don‚’t see her.”

I moved to the side of the desk for a view of the list and touched the correct name.

“That‚’s her. I‚’m sorry, its Elizabeth, not Margaret. She‚’s always been, Dolly.”

“She‚’s in Wing 1, room 422. Walk down that hall and take a right.”

I‚’d followed those floor tiles quite a few times. Flo, Diane‚’s mother, rehabbed her hip in this nursing home and stayed in a room near Dolly‚’s. I pushed the swinging doors open and as I approached Wing One‚’s nurses station, I saw two choices. I could take a left or walk straight ahead. Acting as if I knew where I was going, and not wanting to be questioned by the nursing staff, I sped straight ahead, glancing about at women seated in chairs along the hall. I continued until the room numbers petered out at 406, and as I returned a woman wearing a blue striped shirt and pink-patterned pajama pants, with stockings bunched at her feet, piped up, “I said to myself, I know that man.‚’ “

“Dolly, there you are.”

“Yes, I am.”

“What are you doing here? And when did you move?” I sat down in the chair next to Dolly and her companion, a lady whose eyes had an odd, distant look, as though she could only focus on the past.

“This is my friend, Shirley.” Dolly turned slightly to the woman sitting to her right.

I stood up, introduced myself and then sat back down.

“Dolly, why are you at Rivercrest?”

“I don‚’t know. One day they moved me here. Debbie, my daughter, lives in Texas and I might move there, but I don‚’t know. When I ask how long I‚’m going to be here they just say, ‘hmmm, hmmm.’ “

Dolly always had good posture. Like the posters in Health class, you can see the beach ball sitting atop the tennis balls, all in a perfect column. When Dolly talks, she keeps her head straight and mostly moves her eyes, which gives her a regal bearing. Dolly looks better now than when she lived across from my house. She has lost weight, yes, but also those layers of pancake.

“Dolly, you look great.”

“I feel okay, but I don‚’t know what I‚’m doing here, and its so dead. There is nothing to do. I just sit.”

“I think I’ve heard that before. Hey, lets walk around. Isn‚’t there a community room nearby?”

“I think so. Its down that hall.”

“No. I‚’ve been there with Diane‚’s mother. I think its this way”

As we stood up Shirley said to Dolly, “But your coffee is coming.”

“Save it for me,” Dolly replied.

We shuffled along until we approached the end of the hall and the exit door, but no community room. “I guess you were right, Dolly.” We walked back past the nurses station, grabbed Dolly‚’s black coffee Shirley had been protecting, and continued onto the community room, where we sat down next to a round table covered in blue Formica.

“Dolly, who‚’s taking care of Mary now that you‚’re here? Remember, you used to bring her milk.”

“Oh, Mary is here too.”

“She is? I didn’t know that?”

“I saw her here one day. I think she‚’s in the basement.”

“Let‚’s go find her. We can walk to the reception desk. They‚’ll know where she is. You lead the way.”

I thought Dolly might object to leaving her wing, but she appeared unfazed, and we chatted as we neared the blonde, who smiled as though old friends were approaching.

“Hi again. This time I‚’m looking for Dolly‚’s neighbor, Mary Hill.”

She’s in Wing 2, room 509. Go back down the hall past Dolly‚’s room.”

“Dolly, Mary‚’s not in the basement, she‚’s right down the hall from you. We have to pass the nurses station and Shirley again; maybe she‚’d like to come with us?”

Shirley declined our invitation, and as we shuffled into Mary‚’s room, she turned and instantly seemed to recognized me. She smiled broadly and said, “Well, I’ll be, aren’t you something?”

We hugged, which wasn’t a simple maneuver. Mary is now impossibly small, and if you painted her pink you could place her out on your lawn. Her legs are as narrow as croquet mallet handles, and the osteoporosis in her back has folded her into that pelican shape. It‚’s hard to know what to hug, but her eyes gleam, and she shows none of Dolly‚’s irritation with her new home.

Mary and Dolly sat together on Mary‚’s bed while I sat in a chair facing them. Mary began again, “Well, I’ll be,” and then followed with a string of unrelated sentences. If you locked her head in a vice and forced her to look only at you, she might stay on topic. But every time her eyes drifted she‚’d add another thought. “I can‚’t believe you came to visit, you know the lady over there just reads all day, and I‚’m not sure about the person behind the curtain, and its not too warm out is it? Aren’t those trees lovely, and oh my, aren’t you something, but I’ve got things I have to do, and Dolly how many children do you have?” Each phrase delivered new and crisp, like a freshly starched shirt.

“I have one, and you have two children,” Dolly answered.

“Well yes I do, and there is Bill on the dresser and my daughter Evelyn with her…, hmm, lover, and the boys and I don‚’t know about this new lady behind the curtain. Isn’t this something? And you know what? I‚’m almost ninety.”

“You are not.” Dolly looked down at Mary.

“I think I am,” Mary replied.

“Dolly, how old are you?” I asked. Mary had conveniently raised a subject I wanted answers to.

“I don‚’t know.” Dolly said.

“When you were born?”

“In 1921.”

“That means you‚’re eighty-four and so Mary could be ninety.”

“I guess so.”

I suspected that I hadn’t reunited two close friends. Maybe Dolly would remember Mary lived a short stroll away, but I knew as soon as Dolly walked away, Mary would have no idea where she went.

We talked for a bit longer, and then I said, “Iv‚’e got to run Dolly, but why don‚’t we all walk back and you two can visit with Shirley?”

As we left the room with Mary in tow, I turned to Dolly, “Are we sure this is safe? That Mary will know how to get back to her room?”

Dolly slipped me a very familiar, down-the-nose look. One I had seen moments before when she struggled to understand how Mary could be asking how many children she had. “Don‚’t worry, Ill take care of her.”

This heron lives in the swamps that border Applewood. If you drive by, it’ll continue to fish as though it were all alone. If you stop your truck and roll down the window, it’ll continue to perform. If you grab your camera and creep in search of an unobstructed view, hoping for an image that would convey size to rakkity, the heron will fly away. Here he is right before liftoff. If I were to guess, I’d say his wingspang is three to four feet. If I knew Audubon friend, Birdbrain, wasn’t periodically checking the blog, I’d say at least six feet. Maybe seven.

Emma’s color coordinated binder. One of four.

Karen showed us an article from Blackbook Magazine, which described The Hemingway Challenge. Ernest had been asked to write a story in six words and he produced this: “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” That inspired Blackbook to ask 25 other writers to produce their own six word stories. Here are a few:

“He remembered something that never happened.” AM Homes

“Saigon hotel. Decades later. He weeps.” Robert Olen Butler

“She gave. He took. He forgot.” Tobias Wolf

“Shiva destroys earth: “Well, that’s that.” AG Pasquella

“I saw. I conquered. Couldn’t come.” David Lodge

“Poison: meditation: skiing: ants ñ nothing worked.” Edward Albee

Last night at La Cantina, Diane and I came up with a few of our own.

I began: “Campfire food. Bugs mixed in. Yummy.”

Diane: “Loon calls. No response. World ends.”

Me: “Open blouse. Two Drinks. Marriage ends.”

On the way out, Diane waited for me to catch up and said, “Man compliments bartender. Falls down drunk.”

Chris’s parents, Karen and John, invited us over for dinner Friday. Sometime during the night, Karen said to me, “How come you only have photos of women from the gallery opening? I wanted to see Merriam’s art.” (If Karen is reading this she now knows what liberal gobs of poetic license I use to recreate these conversations.) I scurried behind the prickly bushes of It’s not my fault, I shouldn’t have been taking photos anyway defense. After dinner I ran home and zoomed in on a few of those photos .
We also talked about all gold, gold finches, which both Diane and I claim to have seen on the thistle feeder. I couldn’t find the photo I bragged about, so today I sat motionless in my truck, window open, about three feet from the feeder, and waited for the unsuspecting to land. Nope, no birds without black wings, except for one little guy who looks like a finch in winter.

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