Rabid Fun

Tracks

06/17/2013

Monday, June 17, 2013

Saturday as I vacuumed the floor, I broke down crying.

Since Ginny died, the floors haven’t ranked high among my priorities. This was the first time I’ve bothered to vacuum. Maybe one of our daughters has, but, if so, I hadn’t noticed.

What set me off crying?

Tracks.

For the last few weeks of her life, Ginny had to use a wheelchair to get around the house. In a short time the wheelchair wore ruts in the carpet.

I’d not noticed before and seeing them Saturday brought a host of memories gushing back.

Tracks on the floor broke my heart.

Again.

A day or two after Gin died, a neighbor lady brought me a plaque for our garden. You know the one—the poem about footprints of a guy and Jesus on a beach but sometimes there was only a single set. Jesus explained, “Those were the times I carried you”.

As I’ve cleared out Ginny’s possessions, I see more and more tracks she left.

One lady told my eldest daughter of a kindness Ginny did her that I never knew about before. “It was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” the lady said.

I removed awards from Ginny’s work from her home office. One honored her as employee of the quarter; another named her Virginia Cowart, Queen Of Summer Lunch because of her work on a team that provided food to thousands of poor kids every day.

Ginny’s tracks remain in places other than the hall carpet.

Folks at several rescue missions know of Ginny because she supported six ofr seven of them that I know about (Ginny believed in giving in secret).

Another footprint.

Sunday as the family—ten of us—gathered for a Father’s Day feast, Eve gave me this card from the staff at the main library:

The card—did they cut up a book to make it?__the library staff has used to honor Ginny with bookplates in her honor. Inside it says:

Another track.

We used to have a framed needlepoint (can’t remember what happened to it) that said words to the effect:

Only one life, T’will soon be past.

Only what’s done for Christ will last.

At the Fathers’ Day feast the kids offered me so many signs of affection and respect. They are kinder to me than I ever was to them.

The prize gift came from son-in-love Mark who presented me with a sack of potatoes—No one has ever gifted me with potatoes before.

But these are Enchanted Potatoes, magic potatoes, a whole bag full, with inspired quality. The bag says so:

If I plant the magic spuds in my garden, as the young plants sprout, unicorns will gather nibbling the tender potato buds.

And Voldemort attacks the unicorns to drink their blood so he can stay young forever, but the Ninja Turtles fend him off. He flips the shelled heroes onto their backs tiny legs waving in the air. They signal for help.

Alas, Batgirl sleeps through the sky searchlight batsignal.

All is lost!

But at the last moment Glenda, Good Witch of the west (or maybe it’s Elvira, I get the two confused), Anyhow, she descends in a shower of sparkles above my enchanted potato patch and she announces, “Behold I bring you good tithings of great joy, For unto you is born this day in the City of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord”.

And a host of flying munchkins join her singing,”Glory To God in the Highest, and on earth Peace and Good will to men”, followed by an encore of Twist And Shout!

Thus Voldemort is vanquished and, because of global warming, ends up stranded on an ice flow floating off Miami Beach where no unicorns frolic.

All this I may get from planting the enchanted potatoes in my garden…

Or I may just fry them.

Instead

06/16/2013

The kids are taking me to lunch for Father’s Day. That’s nice, but…

Here’s a one minute video of what I’d rather do instead:

Unbuttoned!

06/14/2013

Friday, June 14, 2013

Button. Button. Who’s got the button?

Not me!

Not any more, Thank God. Yesterday I got rid of 141 buttons.

You see, Wednesday my friend Brandon set up my Entertainment HA! Center consisting of a tv, vcr machine, and a dvd player—and four remotes.

When television stations and the government conspired to switch our tv set from one that worked to digital format, Ginny and I stopped watching tv. Haven’t really missed it except for the evening news.

With the new set up, the DVD disc player remote featured 39 buttons; the VCR, 42 buttons; the tv set, 36 buttons; and the remote for a thing called simply The Box contained 34 buttons for me to push.  That totals 141 buttons (I counted.) And every button was marked in gray letters or symbols on a black plastic case—clearly a revenge response to Hiroshima.

I carefully compared the cryptic symbols on the vcr remote with the script found in Wingdings II and found they read, “Go Blind, Dirty American, Go Blind”!

Last year I read a book—James Harvey Robbinson’s Medieval And Modern Times: An Introduction To The History Of Western Europe From The Dissolution Of The Roman Empire To The Opening Of The Great War Of 1914. Boston. Ginn And Company. ©1916. 777 pages. My copy.

Yes, 777 pages of fine print!–but no buttons.

I also read Stephen King’s Hearts In Atlantis—only 759 pages—but again with no buttons.

But my tv set has buttons. Brandon gave me a tutorial explaining that to watch the evening news, I only had to push eight or ten buttons and ignore the others. He taught me about Box buttons, vcr buttons, dvd buttons saying that to watch any given screen I really only need eight or ten buttons; the rest are for advanced tv watchers, not for amateurs.

All the buttons and screens work while he was there. Brandon is less than a third my age and grew up pushing buttons. They work for him.

Then he left me alone with those 141 buttons and a blank screen.

I put on my glasses to see the tv screen, but to see the tiny buttons up close, I must take them off and squint—Off. On. Off. On. Off…

Come six o’clock, I decide to watch the evening news; 30 minutes of local news, 30 minutes of national and world news. The news starts at six p.m. So at 5:30 I began pushing buttons—loud static. I pushed box buttons, tv buttons—more loud static.

I walked over to the tv set and pushed invisible buttons (I have no idea how many of those buttons there are) on the face of the physical set. More louder static.

At 7:45, long after the news was over, I gave up pushing buttons.

I said, “Oh dear, I have missed the news. I fear these buttons don’t seem to work”.

That’s not an exact quote.

There’s a Commandment about the quote I actually said.

I arrived at a decision. Since Ginny died last month, I have so much frustration in my life. I don’t need any more. Don’t think I can stand much more—especially not to be “entertained”. I feel like a baby given a strip of sticky duck tape to play with—hours of trying to get unstuck, untangled to no purpose.

I want no more frustration!

Yesterday, I asked Brandon to remove all the button-laden devices from my home—tv is gone, vcr is gone, dvd is gone, the four remotes are gone, and all 141 buttons rest at the curb till the garbage men pick them up.

I am unbuttoned.

I feel free.

I can read Robbinson’s book or King’s book again because their pages have no buttons.

Yes, as the Holy Scripture says, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be unbuttoned indeed!”

Six Centuries Ago, Eleven Years Ago, and Yesterday

06/12/2013

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

As I continue to sort Ginny’s belongings, I continue to find things that surprise me, things I’d forgotten.

I found this little wall plaque, no bigger than a playing card:

I also found a suitcase containing two dolls she played with as a little girl, copies of our marriage license, awards she’d won at work, cards showing her certification in disaster rescue training, Girl Scout pins, a statue of lovers on a sofa with the saying “When I’m With You, I feel Complete”, a rampant pink elephant on a gold pedestal,…

And a Book of Days, called Medieval Birds published by the British Museum Library in 2002.

What use have I for an out of date calender, pretty book though it be?

I started to trash it.

Then I noticed something odd—June 11th in 2002 fell on a Monday just like June 11th falls on a Monday this year. Yes, the days of 2002 coincide with the days of 2013 eleven years later.

I decided to mark my own days in this old calender, just to remind me of what I was doing when. Hardly anything I do is note worthy, but I lose track of time and days run together in a blur. And my activities, while unworthy of a diary entry, I do like to remembered without befuddlement.

For instance yesterday morning, I measured a space in Ginny’s former home office. I unloaded all the books from a bookcase in our living room, dragged the bookcase into her room, found it would not fit because I had not allowed for some projections when I measured, dragged the heavy thing back into the living room, reloaded it with books—and the last state of this man ended up exactly where I’d begun in the first place.

That’s how I spend my days all too often.

But now I record such triumphs thusly:

Yes, Ginny’s Book Of Days reproduces illuminations featuring scores of birds from a Fifteenth Century manuscript from the Sherborne Benedictine Abbey in Dorset. For 600 years these birds graced the velum pages of the Sherborne Missal—now they decorate the record of me moving furniture here and back again.

That’s for the birds.

I don’t recall ever before having noticed this beautiful Book Of Days in Ginny’s library. As I browse through the pages, a line of poetry keeps occurring to me “They tell of days in goodness spent”.

That’s a line from Lord Byron’s Poem, She Walks In Beauty; I often quoted this to Ginny because every line described her so well:

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellow’d to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

On The Bench

06/10/2013

Monday, June 10, 2013

Sometimes I wonder if God has placed me on the bench–still on the team, but on the sideline, out of the game.

Apparently my May 25th posting upset some readers.

In it I admitted that I seriously thought about a fling with that school teacher I happened to meet on a park bench while I was on vacation trying to recover about a month after Ginny’s death.

I did not do anything. But, I thought about it.

Were I condemned for every wrong thing I’ve ever thought but didn’t do, I’d be serving simultaneous multiple life sentences.

Oh well, wisdom is justified of her children. (Whatever that means).

Although that trip to Blue Spring was weeks ago, two other incidents involving park benches stick in my mind. Recently, as my arthritis pain flares, I spend a lot of time just sitting in the shade here and there.

One day at the spring head as I sat on a park bench smoking my pipe and watching bikini girls swim, a man who turned out to be a New Yorker, approached me to strike up a conversation. He was recovering from a heart operation, the most recent of several he’s had.

He identified himself as a Christian and began to talk about the Second Coming and End Times events.

I don’t find such subjects profitable to talk about much, so I just listened.

I asked about his heart surgery, and about his family.

He boasted—yes, that’s the right word, boasted—that for years he has not spoken a word to several of his grown children. He refuses to have anything to do with them because they are sinners. “Until they stop their sinning and get right with God, I want nothing to do with them,” he said.

I suggested that in the light of his failing health, it might be time to forgive and be reconciled with his family.

He ranted about how Christians ought not to be unequally yoked with sinners and how that until his children stop their sinful ways, he wants nothing to do with them.

The man appeared to feel relieved that he’d found a fellow Christian to listen to him; he was sure I’d side with him in his family squabble.

Now, the whole time we talked, I sat there smoking my pipe so I found his next statement ludicrous. When I asked what terrible awful sin his children were engaged in that he found intolerable, he said, “They smoke and they play Bingo”.

For these offenses, their father disassociated himself from them.

I said that it is more important to get along with people, to be in love and charity with family and neighbors than to be self-righteous. If smoking and playing Bingo are the worst thing people do to offend him, then he ought to thank God.

I told him, (phooey on non-directive counseling) I told him to immediately go to a phone, call his children, be reconciled to them in so much as possible, before ever saying another prayer or paying another tithe.

He did not want to hear that. He demanded that they repent first.

I pointed out that God the Father always makes the first move. It is not that we love Him, but that He loves us.

The yankee father decided to move away from that shady bench. Maybe he could find a real Christian to talk to further down the boardwalk.

Another day, a hot day, on another park bench, I saw a raggedy man headed towards me across the parking lot; he looked to be zeroing in on a soft touch.

From his shaggy beard, unkempt hair, tattered remains of fatigues, and scruffy boots, I pegged him as a Viet Nam vet—still walking wounded after all these years.

I began to dig in my poor pocket (a special place where I habitually carry the money I intend to give to the next beggar. I expected the man to ask me for change.

“What do you need?” I asked.

“Just a bit of shade,” he said. Then sat in silence.

I waited for him to ask me for money; I did not want to offer any until he asked. So I just sat there, silent in the shade beside him smoking my pipe and waiting.

After about 20 minutes, the man stood up.

He looked me straight in the eye and said, “I am putting you out of my mind forever. I will forget you exist. I will never think of you again”.

With that he turned and walked away across the parking lot without looking back.

A Storm Like Christmas

06/06/2013

Thursday, June 6, 2013

As I write this post torrents of rain sheet past my window as Tropical Storm Andrea approaches Jacksonville this afternoon.

In Hurricane Seasons past I prepared for each storm with all sorts of precautions; this year, even as NORAD Weather Radio issues tornado warnings, I’ve done little. I figure that after the loss of Ginny last month, what more damage can a mere tornado do to me.

However, I did fly my hurricane warning flag in front of the house because so many of my neighbors watch cable tv that it’s not unusual for them to not know a storm is brewing. Back when Ginny and I were more active in neighborhood watch, we actually visited each home in the neighborhood to check on folks before and after each storm.

By rote, I also checked my Civilian Emergency Response Team equipment in case I’m inclined to try to rescue any of my neighbors in trouble.

Funny thing: when the Hospice social worker questioned Ginny about what we would do in a hurricane, Ginny, who had the CERT training also, thought the worker was asking how we could help. Ginny said that in the circumstances of her dying, “The neighbors will just have to take care of themselves”.

Confused, the worker asked, “What about going to a shelter”?

Also confused, Ginny, who had Red Cross shelter management training, thought (so did I) that the worker wanted us to help in a shelter!

We laughed when we realized that the lady wanted to know if we wanted to be evacuated to a shelter (as storm victims) in an emergency. But Ginny was so accustomed to helping others that it didn’t even occur to her that she was being asked if she herself wanted that kind of aid.

Anyhow, as Andrea passes tonight, I intend to mainly observe on tv as I sit in my recliner sipping hot tea and watching trees fall on other people’s houses

My social concerns dim as I mull on grief and death.

Ginny is going to take a lot of “getting over”.

By pure happenstance, yesterday as I sorted more of Ginny’s papers, I ran across this flyer comparing Christmas and hurricane preparations:

Epherma

06/02/2013

Sunday, June 2, 2013

When I was a boy I once put a penny on the railroad track in the path of an oncoming train. The rolling boxcars flattened the penny into a copper disk.

I could not spend that penny; it was no longer worth even one cent—worthless, with no intrinsic value—but all these years I’ve held onto it. It rests in my sock drawer nder lots of other ephemera—the Greek word means “lasting for but a day”.

We hold onto things that in themselves were only meant for the moment, but we keep and treasure these things as though they had great value.

Last week I began to go through Ginny’s collection of ephemera.

When Ginny retired last June, she intended to put together a scrapbook of the ephemera of our life together: ticket stubs to the Peter, Paul, And Mary concert, a pressed rose from a long ago romantic date, brochures of places we visited—and we visited places as diverse as Indian mounds, street dances, museums, art galleries, rodeos, and old sailing ships. She kept such brochures coast to coast—from the Charles W. Morgan, a whaler docked in New Bedford to Star Of India, a full-rigged barque docked in San Diego.

Ginny also kept love notes from me and love notes she wrote to me.

We passed notes to eachother all the time. I’d pack her lunch for work and enclose a love note (some suitable for public viewing, most not). And many’s the morning I’d find a post-it-note from her on my computer screen.

What a treasure trove I found in the big box she’d collected such stuff in.

Here is page three of an undated, graded list she made of reasons she loves me:

And here is a love note I gave her:

That note was written 26 years ago; I could have written it all over again yesterday. Not all our notes to eachother were so lengthy; here are two short ones

Going through all these hundreds of scraps of paper with no intrinsic value—yes, I threw boxes full of Ginny’s ephemera in the trash—made me think of God’s love.

We are all ephemera.

We humans last but a day and have no intrinsic value. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes.

But for some reason God collects people. He loves us. Yet, we have no value but the value He places on us.

No intrinsic value?

Sure.

None whatsoever.

There’s not a teddy bear in the lot of us.

God values us for some reason within Himself. Christ thought we were worth suffering on the cross to redeem us. He gave His life for us—other than that we were all destined for the trash heap

But doesn’t satan want souls?

No. What would satan do with your soul?

Satan wants to thwart God. He never even gave a hangnail to gain a human soul. To him we are trash. Worthless. He goes about like a roaring lion seeking to devour, but he is roaring at the living God, not at puny people.

And we can’t sell our souls to the devil because we don’t own them to sell in the first place.

Besides, the evil one is not in the business of buying. He lives to steal, waste and destroy. When we rebel, we rebel against Christ alone—the only One who values us.

As I delved through Ginny’s boxes of ephemera, sometimes I laughed, sometime cried, always remembered, always thanked God for life with her. We lived and loved in joy. And we left this silly paper trail more or less meaningless to anybody but the two of us..

Of course over the years we gave eachother costly gifts too. Once she gave me a free Coast Guard tide table to help me plan shrimping expeditions back when we lived in poverty. I still treasure that outdated scrap of tattered cardboard. I would never throw it away.

And I once lavished 33 cents to buy Ginny a styrofoam bird glider. It was Number Eleven, just one bird in a series produced to teach little kids to identify different birds. Ginny laughed and laughed when she opened it. And she kept my gift all these years: here is the envelope I put it in:

And here is the little bird that made her laugh:

Form Filling & E-Mails

05/31/2013

Friday, May 31, 2013

Death complicates matters.

Practically everything I do or think recently relates to the fact that Ginny is no longer here with me. I can’t drink a cup of coffee without thoughts of her. My prayers revolve around being thankful for her. Buying groceries for one reinforces that we are no longer two.

And then there’s the matter of filling out forms—that’s what I did all day Wednesday as I visited 12 different businesses, stores, and government offices. And almost every transaction involved filling out forms:

Name…..

Address—

Zip Code (all nine digits)….

Social Security Number:….

Your wife’s best friend’s cat’s name…

Annual average rainfall in the Amazon Basin…..

One place supplied me with a 14-page instruction booklet on how to fill out their five-page form. Another office (government naturally) required information from my 1970 income tax return application.

Isn’t it great that God doesn’t require us to fill out application forms for salvation? His standard is so much lower than the government’s. Jesus said, “He that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out”. The Scripture says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved”. God already has all the information on us required—all the information; No form needed.

St. Paul wrote that if we confess Jesus as our Lord and believe in our heart that He is risen from the dead, nothing else is needed for salvation. Just believe what your own mouth speaks.

Ginny, Bless her, kept our home files in such an orderly fashion that I could readily lay hands on 1970 documents for such information without a bit of trouble.

God, I miss her so.

In every area of life. For instance, without thinking, yesterday I bought two pool floats, one for me and the other for…

The rest of my day I spent answering e-mails:

Dennis, from Newton Abbot, UK, mailed me a copy of a 1985 book, From The Splash Of The Paddle-Wheel: Tales Of The Steamboat Era about paddlewheelers on the St. John River. Thank you for your kindness, Dennis.

Cathleen, from the National Park Service, plans to reprint an article I wrote about Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, who won the Metal Of Honor during the Civil War.

Cecil asked about a piece I wrote on identity theft.

And Julee wrote to tell me she’s found two of the bronze screens my father cast. About 1945 at the C.I. Capps Foundry, Jacksonville, my father, Zade M. Cowart, who was a master molder, cast dozens of these bronze grills. Branches of the Florida National Bank used these ornamental screens around the teller cages instead of the traditional iron bars.

J-Lo wrote—No, not that one—J.L. wrote thanking me for ideas on Bible teaching she got from reading one of Uncle John’s Bible Stories For Kiddies

That reminds me: during our guys’ get-together last Monday, Wes presented a reading from Job 28.

Once years ago I taught the Book of Job to an adult class at a society church.

For teaching materials I used a beach ball, five funny hats, a mechanical pizza deliveryman, a paper shredder, an auria from Handel’s Messiah, a shoe store display, and lumps of coal each one marked XXVIII with white marker.

Where did I find coal in sandy Florida?

Well, long years ago there’d been a train derailment—I walked the tracks collecting lumps of coal for the Bible class.

The black coal relates to Job Chapter 28 because that chapter tells about how precious ores are mined from the earth. The white Roman numerals, XXVIII, on each lump of coal remind us of verse 28 in Chapter 28, a key verse to understanding Job:

“Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding”.

A couple of months ago at the bank, I ran into a lady who had been in that Job class; she told me she still has her lump of coal paperweight and she still remembers what it stands for.

Good of her to remember. Good to know that lesson had some carry-over value. Good to know that people seldom went to sleep in Bible class…

There’s a reason for that.

Once, as I was painting a poster to illustrate the Bible talk I was giving, a guy fell asleep during my lecture. Hushing the class not to make a sound, dipping my brush in poster paint, and continuing to speak in my same tone of voice, I crept up to his chair, and as he still dozed, I painted his nose red.

Can You Grieve Riding A Segway?

05/25/2013

Saturday, May 25, 2013, a long post with photos, please give it time to load
Should anyone ever write the story of my life, it would be a love story.
Ginny and I had talked it over and decided that after she died it would be wise for me to take a few days by myself in the woods to grieve, think, and reorient myself.
I chose to spend time in a cabin at Blue Spring State Park about a hundred miles south of Jacksonville. The park features boardwalks along the spring run and I figured I might hobble around on my aluminum walker with ease.
Ha!
I expected a time of renewal spiritually, emotionally, and physically in the beauty of nature.
Ha!
What do I know?
Spiritually, I got zilch. Yes, I carried my Bible but I didn’t even open it the whole time I was away. I understand some people draw solace from the Psalms in time of sadness; me, I just did not want anymore input from God at the moment. He’s done quite enough in my life recently, thank you.
The beauty of nature surrounded me; here’s a photo of the spring run:

Crowds of happy people also surrounded me:

I’ve noticed that my behavior after Ginny’s death borders on irrational.
For instance, as I drove south, I stopped at a flea market where I bought a bronze unicorn, a statue I knew Ginny would like—then I realized anew that Ginny is not here to be pleased with it anymore. I placed it on a cabin ledge where each evening I watched it in campfire’s flicker—a gift for a girl who will never receive it:

Packing for the trip, I brought some treasured photographs I’ve taken of Ginny over the years; here’s a 44-year-old Polaroid I snapped of her as a passionate, adorable, wild, sex-kitten, dynamo on our Honeymoon trip at Yosemite Falls:

As I browsed memory photos, I expected tears. I thought the memory of all the love we shared would make me sad and spark grief.
Not so.
Instead, each evening as I perused the photos, joy welled up within me. Exquisite thankfulness to the Lord Jesus for the privilege of having her in my life and letting me be her husband.
For years and years it has been a source of wonder to me that such a beautiful, charming, accomplished woman would fine me attractive, that she saw in me some quality I can’t fathom. But for some reason known only to herself, Ginny adored me.
And I adore her.
She made me so incredibly happy and I miss her so much.
But the overall tone of my musing always turned into thanksgiving for the goodness of God for giving us to eachother. He must really like us to grant us such favor.
Again and again, I expected to grieve, but instead, I worshiped the Lord in thankfulness—in the dark, in flickering firelight, an old man and his faded photographs of a living love, laughing aloud, smiling, remembering, worshipping, enjoying.
One day I took a boat cruise to view wildlife along the St. Johns River aboard  Eagle II with Captain Jason, a knowledgeable naturalist, narrating the sights. We saw a good many alligators:

But my biggest thrill came from seeing for the first time a Sandhill Crane, a tall wading bird with the red blaze down it’s crown:

Unfortunately, during that cruise my arthritis pain blazed in such agony I could hardly stand to sit in the boat. There seems to be no rhyme nor reason for when the pain flares, it just does when it darn well pleases.
I thought I might have to call rescue that day.
I didn’t.
Rescue came later.
On another day.
Damn it!
This gets sticky now. Bare with me. I write to describe my own Christian life as it is lived in real time, not as it ought to be. I is what I is. And I do what I do because I do it. I am a Christian, but I don’t always make sense even to myself (Remember my buying the unicorn for Ginny?)
A surprising discovery I’ve made about being a widower is that I’ve become incredibly horny. Where did that come from?
Of course, I’ve always been horny, but it always been unidirectional; I’ve desired Ginny only and we’ve enjoyed an active and joyful sex life. Ginny teased that I’ve become a dirty old man because I was a dirty young man.
Never have I been unfaithful to her…yet, the thought keeps cropping up, Hey, I’m single now. I want a woman! No reason not to.
So, I’m sitting on a picnic bench in the shade, smoking my pipe, thinking my thoughts when this woman comes up—a mature school teacher chaperoning some pre-teen kids kicking a soccer ball around the grass field. She’s slipped away from her group for a secret smoke out of sight from the other teachers.
Am I reading this right?
Is this woman hitting on me? Or is she just being friendly the way strangers are in a park while spending a week in another town? Am I out of date, or are her remarks suggestive? Has she approached me with something in mind or am I misreading signs magnified by my own mind as a dirty old man?
She mentioned that she might hang around the riverfront park around sundown, after her group left, and that I might bump into her there again.
Does that mean what I think it does?
Here’s a photo of a heron fishing at sundown:

Yes, I wandered down that way at sunset for a while thinking irrational thoughts, imagining what this teacher and I might do or say if we accidentally chanced to meet and happened to go back to my cabin to share a glass of wine….
Then I thought: John Cowart! What the Hell do you think you’re doing! Get real,Dumbass. What do you have to offer a young woman? You’re old, fat, broke, toothless, and stiff everywhere but where it counts.
Do you suppose I was hearing the Voice of the Holy Spirit?
That internal Voice reminded me that while I can no longer technically commit adultery since I’m not married any more, fornication is no great favorite of the Lord’s either. Then the internal Voice, which may have been the Holy Spirit or plain, old Common Sense, went on to convince me with one final and overwhelming argument for my virtue and sexual purity:
Besides, Dumbass, the Spirit said, You left your Viagra prescription at home.
Sexual purity is a bitch.
Anyhow, listening to reason, I left the almost-could-have-been meeting place and walked up to the spring head where I had another adventure.
Yes, by stealth I stalked a wild turkey.
Florida Cracker hunters regard wild turkeys as one of the most elusive and wary of game. But, I spotted movement in the bush and realized I was near a turkey.
I crept up on the beast with my camera at the ready. Patiently, I stalked, keeping undergrowth between me and the bird. My prey, ever on guard, raised it’s head to survey for enemies every few seconds. I froze when it moved.
Closer and closer I prowled. Only a palmetto thicket separated me from the turkey. I raised my camera and snapped. Alas, the wily bird heard the shutter click:

If National Geographic needs a wildlife photographer, tell them I’m available.
I’d almost forgotten, but I want to go back and talk about sex again for a moment:
A few days before Ginny died, during a rare time when all kids, nurses and friends were out of the house, I suggested we enjoy sex. The idea intrigued her and she questioned how we’d manage with all the machines, tubes and medical equipment entangling her bed. We got to talking about some of the near-acrobatic antics we’ve enjoyed in our younger days. She giggled in glee, tickled at the very idea.
She said she was in too much pain at that moment, but, smiling happily, she said we’d try it soon …
Soon never came.
Ginny lapsed into a comma.Her last word was to speak my name.
I think my irrational suggestion about sex pleased her greatly. It delighted Ginny to know that even with her disease, even with all our years, even with all the cancer deprivations, I always regard her as my beautiful, desirable Bride.
I thought about her as I snapped this photo of three turtles on a log with a garfish below them in the spring run the night before my next big adventure:

At age 73 and crippled weak with arthritis, as I cared for Ginny constantly lifting her to transfer her from bed to bathroom to recliner, my biggest fear was that my legs and strength would falter and I’d drop her. Thank God He gave me renewed resources of strength to lift her in an elaborate dance we worked out to keep her safe. Now, I also fear falling myself. A broken hip at this point would become a life sentence.
So naturally, when I heard that Segway lessons and tours of the park are available, I just had to try! I told you I’m not necessarily rational recently.
A Segway is a platform with two side-by-side wheels. The base contains a lithium battery and gyroscope features which keep the platform level and upright. The balloon tires make this an all-terrain, silent, mode of personal transportation.
In this photo, there are some Segways parked behind Mason, the young man who teaches people how to ride the machine:

Mason aspires to become a canine officer with the Florida Highway Patrol. He will make a great cop. He is strong, courteous, smart, skillful, patient… and he has an understanding heart.
After my initial lesson…

 Mason led me on a back-country tour of Blue Spring State Park. I felt I was flying! The Segway zips along. Raised a foot or so above surroundings, it gives a panoramic view. The balloon tires enable you to scoot over roots, rocks and branches. The machine anticipates what you want to do: fast, stop, right, left, back , slow; it seemed to read my mind. Remember that scene in the first Superman movie where he takes Lois Lane on a test flight—riding the Segway reminded me of that…. But, notice my cane hanging from the hold-on post:

Now here is a strange thing. As Mason and I rode along an old logging road and through brambles and bushes, I began to tell him about Ginny, about the love we shared, about our happiness, our trials, about how the Lord Jesus gave us joy in gruelling hardship—and I began to cry uncontrollably.
This time, riding a Segway of all things, grief really incapacitated me.
What a strange circumstance.
Mason led me to a ravine at the spring head, parked our Segways, and let me cry it out.
We scooted back to base, flying low in silent companionship.
It was a highpoint of my trip.
I did not fall off my Segway. I did not set off the alarm buzzer. I did not need to be rescued… no, that came the next day.
That next day, I avoided the area where I might bump into the teacher again, instead I drove west of DeLand and rode the ferry across to Hontoon Island, a place I’ve dreamed of visiting since I was a boy. Back then, the Jacksonville Library had copies of Clarence B. Moore’s folio volumes about his archaeological excavations along the St. John’s River. I read them all.
During the 1890s, Moore, a millionaire, cruised in his steam yacht, Gopher, along the river excavating every Indian mound he could find. He accumulated a treasure trove of artifacts from Hontoon Island. The river mud there even preserved wooden artifacts including an owl totem pole, the largest ever found on the East Coast.
Sometimes, Moore excavated three Indian mounds a day.
How could he do that?
I don’t know if it’s true, but rumor has it that dynamite helped pop open a mound so Moore’s work crew simply gathered artifacts from the exposed surface.
Hontoon Island, now a state park, contains one of the largest shell middens in Florida and I felt compelled to see it.
Unfortunately, the shell mound lies about three miles from the ferry landing. Obviously, I could not hobble that far on my aluminum walker…
Let’s see.
The trail starts out with a boardwalk built up over the swamp.
Looks like a snap, I thought.
I wheeled along a couple of hundred yards. The boardwalk ran out.
Time to turn back said the Voice of the Holy Spirit or Common Sense (is there a difference?)
I’ll just go a little ways into the jungle, I thought:

Lots of roots, vines, mud patches, and deadfalls block my way, but if I lift the walker over them, and carry it, I can get a little closer to the mound.
John, give this up and go back.
I’ll go just around the bend, another hundred yards, I thought.
I entered a large stand of arrowroot; many of the yellow flowers bloomed around me. Like intoxicating poppies on the Yellow Brick Road:

I pressed on. Thought of turning back now, I rationalized, would be letting Ginny down… Where did that thought come from?

Reaching the mound obsessed me.
I met a hiking couple. They asked if I were ok. They advised me to turn back because things got rough ahead.
I kept going.
Encountered another couple of hikers. They said I looked beat and ought to give up. “Nothing to see there but a hill of dirt and shells,” the lady said.
I kept going.
I felt I had to prove something.

Oh, here’s an odd thing. Among the roots hindering my progress, I encountered scores and scores of small broken eggs spread over yards of ground. I suspect crows or some predator had ravished a bird nest in the tall trees above the trail:

Next came the really big roots, deep mud, tangles of briars. I noticed some kind of snail shells on the ground as I struggled over mats of tangled roots. I was sweating like a pig.
Up in Duval County where I live, shell middens accumulate where the Indians harvest vast catches of oysters and left the shells to pile up; here on Hontoon Island, the ancient ones must have made a snail stew similar to donaac soup because these snail shells made up the huge  midden.
I had arrived at the top of the mound:

In triumph, I celebrated one of my life’s dumber accomplishments by drinking my strawberry soda… Now all I had to do was get back.
Well, I started back.
Made it about a half-mile.
A ranger met me. He’d parked his all-terrain vehicle down the trail a piece because it was too rough to drive up there where I was.
He’d been sent by the hikers to rescue me.
How embarrassing!
I’m a big boy now. I don’t need no rescuing. Those nosy yankees ought to mind their own business. I’m not bothering anybody. I made it up here; I’ll make it back.
And the Voice of the Holy Spirit or Common Sense said, Get in the fucking Jeep, you idiot!
In ignominious, rescued, defeat, I rode back to the ranger station where the four yankey tourists welcomed me, offered me water, put me on the ferry boat, and watched while I got in my car—and they would not start their own cars till I fastened my safety belt and started my motor.
I suspect they thought I might try to go back in the jungle.
You can’t even get old, grieve, and do irrational things without some busybody bothering you!
Damn yankees...
Thank God for them.
I could have died out there in the swamp.
If I had, I would have missed another highpoint of my trip. Here is a photo of Stacy, the lady who made it possible:

Stacy, an accomplished photographer who specializes in restoring antique photographs, coordinates the Segway and river cruise tours along with canoe and kayak rentals. She is also a reader.

And since I wore the tee shirt Eve, my librarian daughter, gave me– the one with the green alien and the script: Take Me To Your Reader—All Intelligent Life Reads, once, Stacy and I got to talking about books.
Stacy clued me into an antiquarian book store in DeLand and one rainy afternoon I spent hours browsing in the Florida Collection there.
For 35 years I have collected books and ephemera related to Florida history and I always look to fill gaps in my collection. In the Muse Book Store, I found an armload of materials to fill those gaps.
What a happy way to wile away a rainy afternoon!
Were I to win Lotto, I could spend every penny right there. Another tee shirt Eve  gave me quotes Erasmus as saying, “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes”.
I found an autographed first edition of Pleasant Daniel Gold’s In Florida’s Dawn; I already own his History Of Duval County & Vicinity, so that find thrilled me. I loaded myself down with many such literary treasures…
And the Voice of the Holy Spirit or Common Sense said, John, What are you doing? You know your sight has faded so much that you can not ever read such fine print again…
In swamp or bookstore, I find the Voice of God easy to ignore. I told you I’m not rational at the moment (As if I ever were).

I carried my armload to the cashier.
Unfortunately (or maybe it is fortunately) the store does not accept my type of credit card. I had to pay cash…

As I turned my pockets inside out trying to find enough money, the store owner, moved with pity at this pathetic old man, asked why I wanted Gold’s book. When it turned out I did not have enough cash and was about to put several books back on the shelf, she decided that since I recognized the value of the books I was collecting—she knocked a hundred dollars off my bill!
Gaps in my Florida history collection are being filled, even with books I can no longer see to read.
I even bought a copy of T.J. Cunha’s 1974 classic Swine Production In Florida! So if you ever need to read about that fascinating subject, I have the book.
And you can thank Stacey for leading me to it.
Anyhow, I drove back to Jacksonville wondering how I would feel walking into a house without Ginny. Is it still a home now without her? Or just a house?
How strange to walk into the living room and not hear her usual familiar greeting, “John, I’m so glad to see you”.
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
That’s true, but doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Time To Think

05/18/2013

Saturday, May 18, 2013

The more I think, the less I have to say.

God willing, I plan to take a few days off just to think and ponder where to go from here. In the all the activity of getting Ginny buried, I’ve scarcely taken time to grieve for her. I’m setting aside the next few days to do that.

God willing I’ll begin posting again after Memorial Day.