Dispatches from La Plata, Missouri
The train has stopped in rural Missouri, where cell phone reception covers the countryside like disintegrating tissue paper. In front of me, a woman is having a Sunday morning Baptist service with her cell phone.
I’ve heard “Yes Lord” nearly 300 times. “Thank You Jesus” repeated a meager 230 times. She points to the ceiling like a football player after a touchdown. “That one made it to heaven,” she says to no one in particular.
Suddenly, she pauses: “Can you hear me?” We wonder if she’s addressing God or Verizon.
6 minutes later, the call is finished. And she begins singing.
October 7, 2011 1 Comment
Let there be no doubt that I’m an old soul
Sometime in July…
Chicago Theatre marquee, 1952 (Hoagy Carmichael Collection, Indiana University)
Hoagy Carmichael croons from my apartment like he hasn’t since the ’30s and ’40s. What prompted that? This McSweeney’s video mixing writing process with roasting beans.
Our farmer’s market is hot – no, torrid – for a Saturday morning. I still don’t understand the appeal of hosting it on a parking lot, but I deal with it. No fruit, sadly, but veggies are becoming plentiful. I pick up a half dozen ears of sweet corn, along with a couple of squash and cucumbers. A loaf of cinnamon-chip bread rounds out the bounty. I eat a filo-bread breakfast without eyeglasses. Oops.
There was a double-feature at the Apollo Theater in downtown Peoria. The Blob & The Girl Can’t Help It. I like both.
I sit down at the bar, but not for a drink: I’ll take a hamburger with Swiss, please. The bartender is cute with a dash of punky, and I’m out of practice in flirting. Or I never got into practice in the first place. The place is relatively dead, but I sit there silently after a quick high-five from another bartender that I’ve known for years. The recognition feels great, but I’d be lying if I said that I felt happy.
Back to my apartment with my hamburger. I fire up a Garrison Keillor podcast and devour every bit of it.
I’ve been on the porch long enough to notice the moon sneaking sideways across the leaves. There’s a man who keeps walking back and forth on the street, checking his phone and occasionally dropping loose change.
My citronella candle continues to flicker, mixing with both the moonlight and sodium vapor streetlamps, and I’m a content old man.
August 29, 2011 2 Comments
The difference between writer and person
Writing-wise, I share things on the page that would mortify me if they came up in casual conversation, but these seizures of self-disclosure are triggered by the imminence of tongue-loosening deadlines and vertiginous health insurance premiums and should therefore not be confused with me at the post office, where I tend to study my boots and mumble.
- Pg. 159 of “Truck: A Love Story” by Michael Perry
I just finished this book and feel lost. Not because it was a bad book; in fact, it was folksy and comfortable like any summer reading should be. But where do you go from here? I have the intimidating “The Pale King” by David Foster Wallace on loan from a coworker… but that just doesn’t work well with ice tea on a porch, does it?
August 24, 2011 Leave a comment
What’s in front of me
A scruffy, old man in ball cap and overalls, clutching a copy of Mark Twain’s “Roughing It,” stops by for coffee. A dog follows him unleashed, one that may or may not be his. As he ducks in for brew, she waits on alert in the cool, humid air outside. Loyal.
She has collie features, but is more accurately deemed a mutt: two-toned long fur, white and ruddy brown.
A small baking pan is brought with ice water. She drinks guiltily, then settles in. He cracks the tattered paperback, lights a cigarette. His free hand absentmindedly scratches the dog’s head, her tongue dangling in ecstasy.
After a while, the man pauses, wipes the sweat from his brow, and the dog jumps to attention. “Stay, baby” he softly requests.
Her name is Pocket.
July 29, 2011 1 Comment
Flying on the Fourth
Scene at Moe’s in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport
There’s a young woman, no older than 22, paying me more attention than usual. She’s a few tables away, wearing a multi-colored dress and far too many bracelets. I’m just trying to scarf down a burrito before boarding my flight to Illinois. No time for googley eyes.
A few minutes pass, and then…
“Can I put my hand on your knee?”
She’s asking the older man at the table between us. I can see that he’s bandaged up, but this seems out of the ordinary for conversation between two strangers. Even with hot sauce flowing freely.
He replies: “Umm, sure.” She scoots over, puts her hand on his injured knee, and starts praying. In the middle of the restaurant. In the middle of Concourse C. At the busiest airport in the world.
A hippie healing.
July 4, 2011 5 Comments