TERRY MOSHER
As I get closer to the end of the road – and the world seems closer to the end, especially if Putin’s friend gets elected here ‑ I take more time to inspect and think about those around me, and those who are no longer around me.
I detested it when I was young and my elders would speak of the good ol’ days as if the Great Depression was a sunny walk in the park, and I would say to myself. ‘Self, never, ever say that when you get old.’
But here I am about to say that. When two sides of the same coin get to hate each other and say terrible things about each other that you wouldn’t even dare think of back in the day, I know it’s time for me to take leave before it gets too dark to see the light, and before I long for the good ol’ days when your best enemy was also your friend on most days, and you managed to play games without killing each other (although I admit I did take my so-called enemy and neighbor down a few times to just let him know I disliked what he had just said or done, but then I would let him up and the game would continue as if nothing had happened).
Most of those friends (enemies?) are gone now. And that makes me sad, because I long for those times when we laughed and had fun, and yes, the times when we didn’t laugh and took a few swings at each other.
I was back in my old New York State hometown last August and for the first time I felt like an outsider. It wasn’t the same for the first time. All the people I knew are either gone or living in Florida or someplace else sunny. And many of the trees that lined the few streets in town are no longer there, and some of the houses actually had a new paint job (that is really weird, since most houses back there seldom if ever get painted), and businesses that used to flourish on one main street in the nearby big city (Olean, N.Y.) were gone and replaced by businesses that were static at best.
The silence was deafening, even at Cuba Lake where houses that go up for sale are grabbed up by the Seneca Tribe and housed by Native Americans, which makes case for my long-held point that eventually the Indians will reclaim all that was originally theirs, taken by gun point by the white man back in the bad ol’ days. And good for them. It’s the way it should be.
I sit many hours now looking out our big window overlooking the water and watching all kind of birds hunting for food or playing, chasing each other, and I wonder where are the raccoons that in early spring used to climb the trees around our place and eat leafs. Maybe they have found a better source of food and moved on.
I wonder about the trees and why we kill so many of them and I wonder why the humming birds don’t hum when they show up at the big window and peak in, wondering, I guess, what I’m doing wondering about them. For example, where do they go – in fact where do all the birds I see in the daylight go when it gets dark? Do they have a special bar they go to and hang out?
Since I’m wondering, if the raccoons roam at night what do they do during the day? And since I’m at it, what did that female deer wonder as it raced across the road in front of me near Mason Lake last week and then turned to give me a dirty look? What the heck was going on with that? I kick myself now, because I should have waved as I drove past her, just in a friendly kind of way, and let her know that I meant no harm and wished her well.
I also wonder when it rains, where do all the animals and birds go? They must go somewhere because I never see them when it rains.
Ah, the good ol’ times when peace seemed at hand, neighbors didn’t kill each other, guns were used to bring home the winter meals, and we kid actually played outdoors, and loved it!
Our grandson from Alaska is staying with us for awhile and I have to ask if he’s actually home because I rarely see him. He’s holed up with his Xbox and as long as there is electricity, I don’t see him, and probably never will. I will have to ask soon, I guess, to find out if he’s gone back to Alaska.
In my good ol’ days, during summers, I would disappear. But I was not holed up in a man-cave. I was out prowling the hills,wading the river, playing sandlot baseball or football, or shooting hoops in a barn or playing marbles in the dirt.
My mother’s only rule was that noon meant lunch and 5 p.m. was dinner time. If I missed noon, no lunch. If I missed 5 p.m., no dinner. There was no snacking in between – except for popping corn in a skillet or making fudge In a pan (sometimes it even harden).
When darkness came, I played kick-the-can, or hide-go-seek, or raided (and you needn’t squeal about this) King Solomon’s outdoor market for a watermelon. Yes, there actually was a King Solomon in our neighborhood (his father was Abraham Solomon), and he was a kindly man who tolerated us neighborhood kids.
Back then, we could go to the Rambling Ranch just down the street and get a delicious hotdog for $.25 cents, or go the Colonial in town and purchase penny candy (I liked the red round cinnamon ones) or get a cherry coke jerked for us at the soda fountain for a dime.
My dad had a big coffee can where he stored his quarters and once he found somebody (don’t squeal about this either) was stealing quarters out of it, soldered a lid over the slot in the top so that somebody could no longer steal.
Dad’s been gone now for 36 years, so it’s okay to tell him now that his soldering was no match for a determined young son who liked his hot dogs, penny candy and cherry cokes.
Maybe the good ol’ times were not so good for dad.
Well, that’s enough. I am working late tonight because I’m depressed about the state of our current affairs in our country and need some respite from that by talking about the good ol’ days.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a good day.
You are loved.