Diane told me this piece (written a couple weeks ago when we were in Indiana) belongs on a drugstore shelf between Lunesta and Ambien.

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Evansville is a month ahead of our weather and my walks take me past blooming azaleas, dogwoods and Crayola green grass. Tuesday morning Peter and I stopped at Pennylane for coffee and then drove to the Ohio River, that wide swath of always muddy-looking water. We usually approach the river from the banks near the Evansville Museum of Arts and Science where you can see for miles up or downstream. Yeah, it’s a good place to watch thunderstorms approach, if you’re dumb enough to do so.

This time I drove Peter south along the river past the local horse race track and down under the two bridges which connect Indiana to Kentucky. Also past what Jeffro refers to as the Meth Labs, but which Travis more accurately describes as River Camps. To get where I was headed, we had to ignore various Private Keep Out!, Private Road! and Stop Now! signs. I figured those were for in-staters.

This is not the prettiest view of the river – the gravely roads are littered with trash, the banks are overgrown, and that working river feeling is all but gone. We climbed out of my truck and walked past those bridges to a pond created by the river. As we watched a gray-haired man in a gray row boat, on the far shore, disentangle his fishing line from a bush an orange bobber arced and plopped into the water right in front of us.

Startled, we looked to our left and hidden by the steep bank of the pond was a young guy dressed in black. He scaled the bank to see who we were, and maybe to protect his toy terrier-looking dog who now sniffed at our feet.

Peter said, “Hi.”

The fisherman was about my height with black braids, which dropped from his hat and framed his angular face. His smile revealed three gold front teeth. Not normal-sized teeth but scale model ski slopes, and not just gold, but strike-it-rich shiny gold set off by his Arabica Bean colored skin.

Ronald moved to Kentucky from New Orleans where he’d lost his home and “some family members” when Katrina hit. “You know you got to roll wit it, you got to adapt to it. The Lord don’t do things for mysterious reasons, he does them for a reason. I got my two daughters, my dog, my wife and my fishing pole and I’m good to go. The world is the same no matter where you go. If you analyze it, It’s all roads and buildings and trees. It’s all about how you live your life, if you know what I’m saying. I’m trying to live mine to the best of my ability, that’s all.”

“If you break it down that way, I guess you’re right.” Peter said.

“It is. It’s all how you live your life.”

If you think I’m a blabber, you should see Peter who can talk the bark off a tree. Together we make deadly duo mining information from unsuspecting – and always willing – strangers. This time, though, we restrained ourselves. Or Peter restrained himself. I didn’t.

“I want to ask you a really stupid question. Okay, I can see you laughing so maybe I asked it already. Here’s the thing. Peter and I used to live down here but we moved away. This is about as far south as I’ve been and what I don’t understand is the accent thing. You drive through Georgia and Alabama and find people hard to understand because their drawl is so pronounced, but when you get to New Orleans it goes away?”

“It all comes from how long you’ve been there and … .”

“ Or are you talking to me differently because I’m white?”

“No, no, no, no, no, no. It doesn’t matter if you’re white or black. I’m intelligent. I have a high school education.

“That’s obvious. I didn’t mean any harm… .”

“It’s like this. If I spoke to you like I talk in New Orleans you probably wouldn’t be able to understand me. You might pick up on a few words.”

“But that’s not what I’m saying. You’re accommodating me – I get that. But you don’t have an accent. The people around here have more of an accent than you do.”

“Let’s just put it this way. When you’re growing up and In the process of growing up where a conversation needs an accent you add one, and you use the knowledge from which you learn. If you use the language they can understand you can comprehend a lot better. So I’m gonna leave it like that.”

I knew Peter was thinking ”Don’t mind my brother, he loves foot-in-the-mouth questions,” and Ronald seemed to read his thoughts.

“It’s not like that. I’m thirty-two years old, I’m not nineteen no more, so no sense of talking to people with that kind of language. I want people to hear and understand what I’m saying. It’s not that way at nineteen. Now I’ve got a job. I like to be heard.”

“What are you doing these days.”

“Truck driving. I have a CPR license. I do some construction. I like to drive trucks.”

“You like to be on the road?” Peter asked

“Not the road so much. I like trucks. I’m only five feet seven and when I get out of a truck – there’s power in that.”

“There’s power in having a job.” I said

“You got that right.”

“Look, we’ve got to go, but it was good to meet you. And I’m sorry about what happened to your home.”

“It’s all right, man. The Lord did me a favor getting me out of New Orleans. Down there you can get into trouble and get yourself killed in a heartbeat.”