Ronny.

He steps out of the truck and I think, Well hello, Hickville. Where have you been all my life?


Ronnie is the epitome of a redneck, a medium-height, skinny older man with scraggly grey hair and a questionable sense of humor. As he approaches us in the falling dusk he is weaving slightly, although for the amount of beer he consumes every night it is a miracle he could even stay on his feet. I’m fairly certain that if I were to ingest half of what he does, I would die of alcohol poisoning. But he does so cheerfully, and keeps right on trucking.

One of the most eccentric people I know, his scrawny-ness is completely offset by his wife, who towers over him in both height and girth—the kind of person at whom my uncle Keith shakes his head admiringly and says, “Now that’s a big woman!”

On this evening he’s dressed in what I later find out is totally typical Ronny attire—ragged short cut-off shorts, an old white wife beater with the axel-grease of bygone days still decorating it, knee-high used-to-be-white socks, and laced high work boots. On his head was an old confederate hat from the Civil War days, complete with a blue jay and cardinal feather, and numerous old buttons—across his chest was what looks like the type of man-purse that Davy Crocket would wear, canteen shaped, with a long leather fringe hanging off of it. His .25 pistol is stuck in the back of his pants and his long musket is propped up in his back window, but no, Ronny isn’t here to fire guns with us, although he did take a shot with the little brother’s new Beretta. No, Ronny is there to fire his cannon.

This marvel of modern engineering is handmade. Currently, it consists of a large rusty pipe about three, four feet long, six inches in diameter, with two handles at the bottom and a piece wielded on to make it stand up at an angle. Still weaving slightly, he hauls it out of the truck and proceeds to pack it full of gunpowder and cans of baked beans, beating it down with a shovel and pouring water down the barrel. He tells us, “The blueberries were too expensive, and I couldn’t find no sauerkraut, so I got the beans.” I just look at him in disbelief.

Now, mom has only heard about Ronny. This is the first time she has had the privilege of meeting him, and he’s drunk as a skunk, dressed like the Redneck poster child and about to fire a handmade cannon off of our new house site to Lord knows where, armed with a shovel, baked beans and a handful of bottle rockets. For the fuses, you know. Her eyes can’t get any wider. Even my dad is grinning because we’re not sure if he’s about to fall over or blow himself to kingdom come.

They set up on a pile of evacuated dirt. The cannon is pointing somewhere between the direction of my grandfather’s house, a mere ½ mile away, and John’s old abandoned place in the jungle, which everybody knows it haunted. It’s getting dark at this point, and mom and I crouch down in the cement stairwell and peer over. Dad and Alex retreat to a safe distance, and Ronny goes up to light the fuse, which he does with his cigarette.

He retreats. Nothing happens. The fuse has gone out, although it’s still glowing quietly. None of us know what to do—it’s like the bomb that won’t go off. Except for Ronny, Ronny always knows what to do. With the fearlessness of the perpetually inebriated, he grabs the shovel, strides over to the cannon, and begins beating it. At this point, my mom is clutching my arm and uttering squeaks of alarm, because she just knows we’re about to be splattered with alcohol-soaked little pieces of Ronny, and she can’t stand it. I’m laughing too hard to do anything about either one of them.

He finally realizes that nothing is going to happen, so he bends down to the now burned-off fuse and relights it. Three and a half seconds of retreat, and the thing spectacularly explodes in a shower of paper, sparks, and the distinctive smell of baked beans. The cannon itself is shot backwards five feet, and we’re all dancing around like proper heathens, yelling, whooping, and hollering as the sound rolls in a palatable wave over the mountains, deep like thunder sunk into your bones.

At this point, we notice a light flashing erratically across the top of the opposite field. It’s my uncle Keith, and he’s hiding behind a massive pile of dirt and plant life, yowling at the top of his lungs and trying not to wet himself. I don’t blame him. It’s not every night you have a drunk Confederate soldier shooting baked beans at you out of a cannon.

Jack

His name was Jack and he was six foot six, blue eyed and husky with years of work. They were young farm boys, most just turned eighteen, fresh out of high school and headed straight for the Vietnam war. He and his buddies were caught between the dread of the unknown and a strange excitement from traveling so far away from home, some for the first time. He was nineteen.


To the man they were masters of marksmanship—any one of them could pick the eye out of a squirrel at hundreds of yards. They’d done their basic training, but they’d been trained from the first time they carried a gun that it was never, under any circumstances, to be turned on another person. They talked about it quietly among themselves, wondering to each other if they’d be able to do it, to pull the trigger. Jack couldn’t imagine it, himself. Despite the desperate situation overseas, he knew that the enemy was going to be made up of other young men just like himself, just with a different skin, a different language. With the others, he asked himself if he could pull that trigger—and there was no answer. He dreaded finding out.

They were dumped out on the edge of the jungle after the long flight, and sent straight out to hassle a formation of the enemy, and hunt them down. For several days as they pressed inward through the steamy verdancy, so foreign to all of them, there was no resistance. They were apprehensive, but growing bolder as the hours passed and no shots were fired. He remembers they were cracking jokes; the sergeant just shook his head but didn’t say anything.

And then, as Jack haltingly says, everything changed. They reached a site where the Vietcong had just vacated, dust still settling from the air. And in the middle of the abandoned camp was the body of a soldier, not American but one of the Allied forces, strung up by his testicles, left to die. He was still warm.

The Vietnamese had left him there to intimidate the new American troupes following behind. It was the worst mistake they could have made. Jack cried as he sat in the chair in the office, reliving the moment when a bunch of innocent, uncertain farm boys transformed into mad killing machines. He choked out that they had torn across the jungle after that, mowing down anybody they came across, without a thought in their rage. Everyone. His broad shoulders shook as he sat with head bowed, telling us what he had never told his family, grieving for the loss of innocence in that boy he had been. And I thought, someday, Lord, make them pay for what they did to him. Make them pay.

oats are kind of...sharp

I could call this the summer of the wheat. Or the oats. But it's more like the summer of long silences, and solitude, and study, interspersed with bouts of furiously hard work.

Stacking sheaves of oats into rain-shedding shocks.

Hiding like a wild creature, seeing what they see.

My daddy, temporarily taking the team's place.

Life is so fast paced at times that's imagining an era where everything was done by hand is beyond our reach. Except, not anymore. I love knowing how to do these things.

1988

I wish I could say today has been off to a good start, but I'd be lying, and I have a strict no-tolerence policy towards lying. I wish I could say that Amanda let me have the shower first, but if I did, I'd be passing over the exquisite agony of a cascade of icy water. I wish I could say she'd hugged me. Or Alex. Said something different than "I need my comb back." I love my family, but they're not terribly demonstrative, at least, we kids aren't.

I'd like to pretend mom and Amanda didn't get into an argument after breakfast. Mom wanted to make a special dinner and she wanted help thinking of ideas--Amanda let her know she didn't care. I'd rather it have ended there, but instead, it evolved into a request for her to just stop watching movies in the evenings, be a part of this family, and culminated in my little sister walking out after declaring that all we do it bitch to her all the time.

I wish I had more than a shaky grasp on my temper. Then, perhaps, I'd not have these fingernail marks on the palms of my hands from trying not to lose it. I'd like Amanda to know that I love her, more than my own life. I'd give anything to not have it come down to harsh words because as much as I don't want to fight, I will not stand by while she hurts our mother. Our mother. Who walked out near tears because my sister doesn't seem, sometimes, to care about anybody but herself.

So I will finish studying here, and I will answer some phone calls. I will run by the store and pick up things for tonight, and I will go home and start so that when mom gets home, and dad finishes work, there won't be any scrambling before Sabbath arrives. And that will be the only part of today that redeems it, and it will be more than worth it.

I wish this had happened any day but today. Happy birthday, me.

Indevan

I wandered out to the barn last night as dusk was settling down and getting comfortable on the hills where we live. The boys were shooting their pistols and revolvers--they have a small arsenal between them. Believe it or not, I have never fired a handgun, which I find appalling (generally sticking to my favorite, a .22 rifle, because even though it sounds like a light wimpy gun with no kick, if you're good with it, it doesn't matter that the bullet is small. And I'm not too bad). So the boys undertook to teach me.

It's not what I expected. Heavier, rougher (two pinched fingers), louder, and less accurate (I couldn't hit anything). But I do believe a concealed weapons permit is a good idea (everyone should take the class), and I want to know more about handguns so I'm not so leery of them. Knowledge makes a better weapon, anyway, in more ways than one. And I need to get better. Granted, the bottle cap fell out of the knothole, but my brother claims that it was just because the board jarred it loose. I can't really contest that yet, but I'll show'm. ;)

We stopped when the sun sank below the horizon with an audible groan of relief, and the fireflies began to scatter across the pink-skied hayfields with small shrieks of joy. The fields and forests were fair crackling with them. And then...a red fox ran across, weaving between the round bales of hay. He stopped and looked at me for a long moment. There's something unworldly about looking into the eyes of a wild creature. It makes you feel...smaller. A little more humble. I have a lot to learn.

Dirt under your nails

There's a satisfaction to be found in a long, freshly planted row of tomatoes that I'm not sure can be experienced anywhere else. I do know that we ended an evening this week just that way, over in the new garden at the new house site. Dad had just finished showing me where the living room is going to be, and we were discussing which kind of stone to use for the fireplace (river rock, of course), and what style we should use when we lay it out. He showed me a handful of perfect arrowheads they found where the barn is going to be. I'm so excited--so ready to have a home again. This new place is lovely of an evening.

So I had plans skipping through my thoughts, and dirt under my fingernails, and I sat back and watched a beautiful sunset as Thomas, our huge loveable barn cat, rubbed against my knee. His deep rumble of a purr is the most soothing sound I know. I watched my mom weeding the asparagus (50 feet of it!) across the way, and dad and the little brother putting up a fence for the half-runner green beans, and I thought, God, this is it. I am, in this moment, perfectly content with my life, who I am, what I do, what I am becoming and where I am going with it. I have missed this feeling, this joy. So if there was ever a time for me to keel over and die, this would be that time, because it is impossible for this moment to get any better, and if I had to go I'd like to do it planting tomatoes.

Obviously, I'm still here (typing from Valley Vista summer camp where I have hacked into their internet after working over an unsuspecting young man who had an idea what the password might be). So I figure that there must be even more amazingness coming up, things I don't even know to dream about, because I live and breath; and also because I feel God's excitement when we discuss my future. If he sees that much to look forward to, why shouldn't I be just as thrilled? Future, this one's for you--may you be filled with freshly planted tomatoes.

(H'okey, I know this one is a bit silly. I was just happy. Still am.)

For Alex and Victor

Every time I read through these, I’m hearing “Vanilla Twilight” run through my head, by Owl City.

Watching our last night draw closer
Guess this means I’m getting older
How’d we never see what this might mean?
The hardest part of moving toward our dreams
Your picture in my wallet
I cried the day I saw it
That crazy little kid I knew just grew
I like the man you turned into

Horizon lightens as the fire dies
And we start to make our goodbyes
We feel the minutes quickly pass
Wish we had a million and a way to make them last
What you’ve been to me you’ll never know
And as I stand and watch you go
You turn back long enough to smile and say
“I’ll see you again someday.”

all the bedtime stories sound like warnings

Our new foal is pretty clueless. Like all new babies, he likes to chew on things as his teeth come in, and every once in a while he'll take a bigger chew than society deems acceptable. The welts on my stomach and shoulder can attest to this, and he just barely caught my just-recently-broken-and-wrongly-healed finger in his strong little teeth. The shriek this poorly planned move elicited sent him skipping and whirling across the round pen, and I swear he was laughing. The little shnitzel.

The little sucker isn't named yet, sadly, and we've been fishing around for something that fits him perfectly, that will immediately give any newcomer a correct impression of his character and temperment. Dad says that we also have to give him a name that, if we have to sell him, won't scare buyers off. Unfortunately, this rules out Trouble, Mischief, Scalawag, El Diablo, or my personal favorite, Spawn of Satan. Grandpa calls him Rastus (not a complementary name--they don't get along well ever since the little bugger took a hefty nip out of the tail of grandpa's coveralls). Amanda wants to call him Alf, but I don't think that this gives an accurate feel. I'm sticking with Rascal for now. That's nuetral enough, right?

But he is a cute little devil. Even though he's losing his baby hair.

He's also getting ready to lose his mom to a rare form of cancer, which horses typically never get. That's one of the reasons he's such an imp, is that she's not feeling well enough to nip him and set him straight when he's acting rambuctious. So when I try to warn him away from biting, my heart's not really in it. I watch him nuzzle up to her and fall asleep leaning against her side in the sunshine, and I know he's just a little horse, but they feel loss too. And my heart aches for him.

Stargazing

We laughed a lot.

Everything had a bright side, nothing was as serious as the world made it out to be, everything ultimately made sense. And if it didn't, it didn't matter because we were all together. Even saying "forever" was ok, because rationality didn't hold up to the bond we knew we had. Perfect ingredients, notes splashed across a page of music and it all fit like we had been made for each other. Spilled milkshakes, rock slides, sunburns, killer science classes, and (literally) thousands of miles under the wheels. Special dinners and crowded hot tubs, late nights and pictures caught those years and smiles and adventures and tears and heartache and stargazing. Close enough to see the glow inside the others that the casual observer might miss and miss out on. We had the blond adventurer, the exuberent enthusiast, the artsy musician, the curly-haired dreamer, the driven athlete, the quietly fierce one, the incessent talker, the rugged outdoorsman, the laughing blue-eyed one, the talented designer, the ironic realist, and the crunchy granola one.

But forever is shaded a million different colors, and the wheels keep turning. Like the fourth of july firecrackers that spill out from an epicenter into long bright arcs across the sky, we traced different paths--different colleges, different countries, different worlds. The bond  holds but the immediacy is gone. And that still bites.

Grip as hard as you can, when you open your fist there are just a few dying sparkles left.

I got caught on this train of thought when I got home from Indo and turned on my cell phone. In my voicemail was a cheery call from the athletic one, just back from Gimbie and eager to talk to me. That was two days ago, and I ask myself why I haven't returned the call yet. Closest I can come to answering that is, I'm afraid. No, not afraid of her--she's one of my closest friends. But my subconcious remembers the months it took to adjust to the absence of them all, and even though I tell it that these precious people will slip right back into the holes they left--it doesn't believe me. And that would hurt just as bad.

Why am I so afraid all the time?

homecoming

Not being one to take the Lord's name in vain, I limit my cursing pretty much to using the word "bloody," and occasionally to the phrase "bloody hell," if things are bleak enough (thank you, James Herriot). I spent most of last night in a terrible state, and am pretty sure that every single curse word in the history of mankind breathed in my brain at some point or another. Thankfully, upon waking I don't remember half of them. Might be tempted to use them again if that were the case. Haven't been this sick since I was eleven. Probably be reduced to a skeleton if I ever even make it home, a shadow of my former self. Bet my parents won't recognize me.
But, I'm feeling well enough to joke, that's something. Being sick in a foreign country sucks, and not just a little.  Been torturing myself with visions of mama's tomato soup, broccoli soup, vegetable soup...any kind of anything she makes. Just looking at dinner here makes me ill all over again. Still have a whole week to go. I'm going to die.
I know I'm feeling sorry for myself. Trust me, I know. There might even be a tear or two--I'm such a wimp when I'm sick.
I want to go home.

survival of the fittest.

Last night, Eric had a temperature of 104. Mark, on his way across the lawn to get medicine from Dr. Snyder, passed out twice and woke up in the grass with no idea how long he'd been there (as the uber alert night watchman snored beside the house). Josie sweated off her chills and fever and woke up better, Lauren had stomach problems and dizziness, Emily still has a rolicking cough that sounds hilarious when she laughs, and Richa has been sick since we've been here. Even Jordan had a stuffy nose and headache one day. So far, only Hannah and I have retired victorious from the field...I call us the pillars of health in a cesspool of disease. Of course, my stomach has been feeling funny, but I choose to ignore this. I can't imagine getting sick at this point in the trip. Please, God...please? Those of us who are still well have been huddling in one room, trying not to breathe. The island felt a lot healthier. I didn't have a pair of shoes on my feet for days. It was glorious.
The diving was incredible. I've seen turtles, dolphins, eels, sea urchins (WAAAY too up close and personal), and myriads of fishies. Emily sings to the fish-- "Hey little fishies, swimming in the sea, hey little fishies swim away from me, hey little fishies swimming everywhere, hey little fishy-you're-getting-too-close-to-my-feet-go-swim-over-there!" Of course, all of this is through her snorkel. We got really good at Snorkelspeak, too. The conversation most over heard is "Look at that over there!" "Where?" "There! Right there!" "WHERE?" "RIGHT THERE, RIGHT THERE!" Makes me laugh, which isn't conducive to keeping the seawater out of my lungs and in the ocean where it's supposed to be. Oh, but when I told them where the sea snake was (right underneath them), then it got across loud and clear. That was funny.
No sun...it rained a lot of our diving days. So I nixed all sunscreen and ended up with a nice brown hue, at least on the half of me that wasn't facing downwards. Hopefully our free day in Bali is sunnylichious.
The people here...I don't know what to make of them. For the most part, they are open and seeped in a friendliness that must be in the air here, because I haven't seen a single frown. I love the ones at the market. We showed up there and they started yelling with excitement when they saw Mark, who at 6'9" is the tallest. But the people in the malls are what I would consider rude. They stare and there are constant catcalls of "Meese! meese! I love you! meese America!" I will never again wish to be the center of attention--I hated it. Every second. I'm good at being anonymous when I choose to be, but here, it's impossible and I hadn't realized just how much I rely on blending when I want to. At one point it got really bad and I just wanted to snarl back at them. I miss my boys. Oh, sure, standing up for yourself isn't that hard, but when you have a herd of tall male types to do it for you, it's so much easier. Shoot, they don't even have to say a word.
I guess that's enough for now...I'm tired. It's sabbath afternoon here, and I just want to hold off this stomach thing for a while longer. I think I'm winning. Yup. Definitely winning.
I miss home. S'beautiful here, but the colt is growing up and Alex is graduating and the baby chicks are trying to fly...the well is getting dug tomorrow and the footers for the new house are getting poured on Monday. Things are doing, and I want to be there. I want to be there.

asdf

I have four and a half minutes to relate what I've learned in the last 36 hours, which is how long my day lasted from sunrise to sunrise.
I learned that I love flying even more than I thought I did. I spent lots of the 20+ hours of airtime glued to the window, watching the beautiful patterns of the world flowing by. Incidentally, I remember in Superman returns when the airplane and the shuttle are accidentally waltzing into outer space, and the atmosphere turns dark blue and then black as they leave it...and so I craned my neck to look up ABOVE the plane, where people usually don't look. And to my dismay, it was very, very dark blue. Almost like I could see into space. It felt...dangerous. In a dispassionate sort of way. To know that only a few (give or take) meters stand between you and nothingness. And then there's the elusive pull to know what it would be like to go there.
Also, I learned that if very, very drunk gay people are asking about your male friends and their anatomies, and waving books about satan around in a plane on a twelve hour flight, it's going to be a very, very long flight.
Also, I jsut realized my time on this computer is running out. Lata.