Well by and by I begin feeling the boyhood summer vacation days sinking back in - 1298 miles (google map) from birth in the great Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It is a mid-summer funeral vacation and woe my Grandmother is dead – is dead – is dead. Blonde hair blue-eyed strapping Viking babies and rugose relatives never before seen by me. And by and by I see life on the Chippewa River is free and easy – just like I remember floating homemade mini canoes down imagined rapids and following with wide eyes to great beyond – never to learn its fate.
Now seeing big red rock bluff cut through the landscape with easy river below on which ancient feather Indians paddled white birch canoes. And lo and behold I am back in my room of central air conditioning (everybody has it out here) to escape from the cicada humming heat bouncing off vacant parking lots of a million Wisconsin summers. And Ahhhh day-time TV of infinite boyhood summer afternoon ennui (Price is Right, Gilligan, Monkees etc.) – you will never be as free with this glorious slow down of time and naaathin’ to do. And lo and behold – a Cubs game – the humm drum shhh shooosh of day time baseball game and soon – A NAP!
Later to be reacquainted with Jell-o salad, Brats, Beer and that ubiquitous macaroni dish. “go home and get married…boy I tell ya when I was your age…” ya good luck ho ho ho me thinks but don’t protest too much.
And OOOO don’t cha’ know visions of Franz Kline and Mayberry all rolled in to one.
