Telegram

Bazaar

The church bazaar, Meyersville. We were signed up or the 6:15 seating of the turkey dinner. I got down a little before five to check things out. As I drove up I saw Peggotty's sister talking to Mrs. Bodgers at the produce stand. I went in and saw that Peggotty had sold quite a few of the books. She took a break and made her husband and I go through the funhouse. About six the Micawbers showed up and we obtained our tickets for the dinner, then stood in line outside the fellowship hall. A little gentleman in line with us introduced himself around: Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen. I suppose i can use his real name as he is a public figure. He seemed nice enough. I did not ask him any tough political questions, or anything at all. I imagine he's going to win; I thought of asking him the name of his opponent because I couldn't remember it (as it happens, it's James Buell). The dinner was good, the hall noisy, the pie excellent. Goodbye to Peggotty and all my rummage friends.


David on 10.30.04 @ 08:56 PM CST [link]

Parade

Today I saw a dozen princesses, several Spidermen, Some pirates, dogs, knights, doctors, dinosaurs, farmers and their animals, Wonder Woman, kitty cats, Power Rangers, and other creatures pasing strange. It was a tough day for the teachers.


David on 10.29.04 @ 05:29 PM CST [link]

Sexton's Holiday

Peggotty's church is having its annual bazaar this weekend: Hallowe'en fun house, tricky tray, turkey dinner, and Grandma's Attic. In other words, rummage. So I went over today to help her set it up. I organized books, checked out games and puzzles, looked over the donated snowblower, taste-tested the pie, and put price-tags on frames. A lot of excellent, intriguing old books came in, and among them, two Bess Streeter Aldrich novels I had never seen. Sometimes the last thing you expect is the very thing you need.


David on 10.28.04 @ 07:40 PM CST [link]

The Fall

Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. When the bloom of love was a fresh bud, nodding its head to the summer sun, I shook and leapt with the joy of it all; and then that love was disappointed, the bloom fell, and the icy grip of winter set in. But the bloom, and the hope, came back, and its fulfillment was, oh, so close...and then the winds blew and the rains fell and the blossom was crushed once more. And so, season after season, year after year,until every time the blossom rose I knew its glory could not last, and really didn't expect it to ever come to full fruit. And now: here's this bloom again, and here's this stone where once there was a heart. A heart of stone can yet become a heart of flesh, but it needs the right touch to be transformed. The winters have been long, the summers short and cold. After the zenith even the sun must fall. But, maybe I'll be surprised: the Red Sox will win, the flower will never fade, love will last forever, and there will be an endless summer.


David on 10.27.04 @ 05:42 PM CST [link]

Saying

Today I was four places: home, car, work, the public library, back to work, back home. While I was at two of those places (home, car) no one else was present. spoke to no one at the library, although I had a conversation with one person on the walk back to work. The two locations are diagonally across the street from one another. Nevertheless, I can count conversations with twenty different people over the course of the day. Conversations have to be more than greetings and involve both people present -- and I exclude also the two unsolicited phone cals I received since I got home. I don't intend to leave home for the rest of the night, and I doubt that I will have any more conversations. But twenty, without going out of my way....that's quite a few. "On behalf of the session", I presented a Bible to a former deacon. I joked with Mrs. Fibbitson about bears. Mr Chillip and I spoke about Saturday's wedding; then Mr. Murdstone came by and interrupted to ask Chillip about the community Thanksgiving service. Mr. Murdstone did not actually address me or include me in the conversation so I do not consider that I spoke with him. I asked several teachers if they would work outside for me; they refused. I told one a friend was in the hospital. The receptionist told me how she gave the money for the griddle in the kitchen, in honor of her late husband. I explained why I refuse to discuss politics. I discussed history, politics where all the political figures are dead, instead.
David on 10.26.04 @ 06:48 PM CST [link]

Mrs. Fibbitson's Dream

Mrs. Fibbitson dreamt a dream. She was in her basement -- the ceiling is of planks laid across the space beneath the first floor, and some of the planks are missing to accommodate electrical and other construction work -- she was in her basement, I say, and looked up at one of those gaps in it, and some fishes came a-tumbling out. She turned around to warn her husband that fish in the ceiling were likely to attract some highly undesirable BEARS when, sure enough, she spotted one in the corner! She sat bolt upright in brd, so frightened by this horrid apparition. His semi-conscious assurances were little comfort to her, and in the morning she found the outside door to the basemet open. An invitation to BEARS, who, finding, no fish, would no doubt be even meaner for the disappointment.


David on 10.25.04 @ 06:48 PM CST [link]

Fire

Local church burns.
David on 10.25.04 @ 06:20 AM CST [link]

DJ-ES

When I first got involved with the church, he was the youth pastor; he got his own church a few miles further out and I would see him nowe and then. Today he came back to get married, no longer a youth, but still boyish. His present church, those of us who remember him, her kindergarten class, all gathered together; with five Presbyterian ministers and one Catholic monsignor on the premises, there was no doubt a wedding was going to happen. A beloved friend I hardly ever see any more was there. The groom's sister caught my eye. He declared his vows strong and enthusiastic. Every other church in town, it seemed, was also throwing a wedding, and it was a beautiful day for it. They all left, and I locked up and went home.
David on 10.23.04 @ 05:23 PM CST [link]

The Summing-Up

I got my laundry done early so I could be at the Board of Education building in time for the Rummage meeting. I was fifteen minutes early. Two of the other guys were there, talking in the hall about health issues. We went over how the post-cleanup-cleanup had gone; then we went into the meeting room. It was steam heat. I went back outside as Mrs. Grayper came up. There had been a huge accident on 206 and traffic was diverted down her street; she was recounting this to her husband on her cellphone as she came up the steps. The Rummage committee began to arrive and the meeting started. We went over financial matters, discussed problems and future changes, folded letter, checked mailing lists, had little private digressions. Agnes came in late and left in a hurry. Just as things were winding up Peggoty came in. Afteer the meeting some of us ligered to clarify some issues and brainstorm. Mrs. Wickfield left to go to her house, next door, and cook for a lunch she was going to. She turned off the lights on Peggotty, Grayper and I, the last ones left and with plenty still to discuss. We walked downtown and went to a coffee shop, next door to the storefront that had been Grayper's store, a few years ago. They had grilled-cheese sandwiches, I had coffee. We left after forty-five minutes and walked back to our cars. We stand around talking. Mrs. Wickfield pulls out of her driveway, late for her lunch, and stops by us, amazed that we have lingered so long. We part, each back to our own lives, until we meet again.


David on 10.21.04 @ 06:00 PM CST [link]

25,000 words

In lieu of a regular entry this evening, a link to my photo challenge gallery. Further links to twenty-five pages and images.
David on 10.20.04 @ 07:42 PM CST [link]

Out of Touch

Mrs. Gummidge has been in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and nobody knew. She has been declining physcally, and slipping mentally, for some time, but she is feisty and gritty and depends on those qualities to get her out of trouble. I have often seen her, in recent years, out of breath, anxious to plunge into some activity, but baffled as to how she got the day, or hour, mixed up. So her friend took her to the doctor, she was rushed to the hospital right from the doctor's office, and she was fitted with various appliances to assist her heart and lungs. Her daughter came to visit and one of the grandchildren flushed a Beanie Baby down the toilet; no more collectible plush and the daughter was afraid to come back. Finally, Mrs. G started calling acquaintances to see if she could arrange a lift home when she was discharged; one was a church secretary who notified the deacons and the pastors.


David on 10.19.04 @ 06:45 AM CST [link]

Rededication

The eminent organist Jon Gillock performed a recital at our church yesterday afternoon, on our newly refurbished organ. To my surprise, several friends of mine from the rummage sale are members of the families whose historical association with the church led one of them to dedicate a legacy to the refurbishment of the instrument.
David on 10.18.04 @ 06:16 AM CST [link]

October Surprise

I changed the epigraph above a few days ago; did you notice? It signalled an intention on my part to adjust the focus of these pages, away from my self and its thoughts and toward actions and other people. The text is from David Copperfield, as is the inspiration. In the manner of some demiurge I hope to bring life to characters by the act of naming them, and that book has become my first storehouse of names. When enough characters have been introduced I'll provide a key.

So, today, Saturday: after talking to the guys around the coffee pot, after letting the Sunday helper into the building, after buying the Sunday School snack, I stop back at the church. I find Little Em'ly walking the halls with a mewling, squirming infant in her arms. She has been pressed into babysitting or the new members' class, doesn't like kids that small, and wants to go out and enjoy her Saturday. Mercilessly, I leave. On the way home from more shopping, I see signs for a yard sale. I recognize the handwriting. I recognize the address. I detour and find my Rummage colleague Peggotty sitting on her porch, sipping soup, all bright eyes under tousled hair. She has some customers, a family I know from the pre-school. They spend their dollar and leave, and Peggotty and I visit for a while. She has teenagers. She gives me back a book I gave her, which she is offering for sale. I look at the rest of the books, and take one. She won't let me pay. David Copperfield.
David on 10.17.04 @ 06:09 AM CST [link]

Bell's Seasoning

Once again, it is the telephone. My efforts to use it on my own behalf are in vain; one trip through the automated directory roundabout takes me to the wrong party, another trip with the help of a human guide lead me to a discouraging message. The Wickfields are on vacation, and Agnes took the week off. At home, the machine is a needy pet crying out for attention. Several solicitations. Then, in the evening, I hear from two people who tell me separately of a strange incident at the church. The alarms went off for no reason around five o'clock. Some kids went home from the after-school without their backpacks; one of the Sunday helpers was thwarted in her preparations and needs to get in on Saturday. We had an alarm go off in the other building, earlier in the week, when a volunteer decided to spray paint near an alarm head. For this one, I can imagine no such explanation.


David on 10.16.04 @ 06:47 AM CST [link]

Called

I am not a natural telephone user; I was trained early to avoid toll calls whenever necessary and I maintain the habit. I also feel, for some reason, that my calls are likely to be untimely or otherwise an intrusion, and am reluctant to call my friends too often for that reason. I left a mesage on Miss Trotwood's machine and she called me back within the hour, and we spoke for an hour. About how she left cleanup day early, before anyone could say goodbye: it had been their anniversary and she was tired of Rummage. Anxiety over scary incidents involving her sons. The over-the-fence friendship she is developing with her neighbor. The pool cover. Some incidents and personalities from the sale. Her daughter's pickup truck. The matchmaker at the post-office. The single life. Agnes. We wind down our conersation, get ready to say goodbye, then find more conversation. We break the connection. Even so, I think of things throughout the rest of the day I wish I'd mentioned. Mr. Bell's device occasionally makes up for all the unexpected, intemperate noises it makes. Sometimes it opens a window, and lets the fresh air in.
David on 10.15.04 @ 07:28 AM CST [link]

Reading the Past

The first interesting thing about Rummage Roundup is how different it was from Telegram. It was a straightforward narrative of events, an honest-to-goodness diary. This was a deliberate decision I made at the time -- I wanted to have a record of what had happened every day. Even so, it's hard for me to decipher, with so many J's and K's and S's wandering in and out of the story. It's only been a year and yet the description of the event doesn't prompt memory to fill in the blanks sufficiently. Now, looking behind the story at the life I was leading then, the thoughts I was thinking and the hopes and desires I was sustaining: I continue to overlook the richness and variety of my life and its many relationships when I focus too much on one which is stagnant and disappointing. Time's winged chariot races on: we were unaware of Frank's illness in October, and he was dead by July. With that, the new growth of the spring was pruned back and hasn't been restored.
David on 10.14.04 @ 07:24 AM CST [link]

David on 10.13.04 @ 07:22 PM CST [link]

Sick

Illness breeds delusion, I think, and we are deluded enough when we enjoy fine health. When you're really sick you hold all of your perceptions up to the light of skepticism -- you believe none of it, even if you aren't sure what to believe instead. As the illness recedes, though, the strange thoughts, weird spins, and dreamy actions come to seem authoritative and plausible. You feel bad and you suspect the worst -- and human beings, already so mysterious, certainly seem capable of that worst. there is no truth, only perception, and if that perception is corrupted, there is no center.


David on 10.12.04 @ 06:50 PM CST [link]

Flesh, and Its Demands

I knew I was coming down with a cold yesterday, and probably the day before. I made no allowances for the demands of the flesh, going off to the URWA Fair and spending a couple of hours there causing cognitive dissonance in the people who weren't expecting to see me. Then back to the church for the spaghetti dinner, where I ran into some of the same people, not so unexpectdely. Now, today, I have a cold. I am exploding and producing cataracts and my mind is about four feet to the right of my head, muttering stuff I can barely hear. What? "Plotinus had a shoe shine?" What does that mean? And in search of something to write about, I rediscover an old journal called Rummage Roundup. I'll have to think about that.
David on 10.11.04 @ 05:46 PM CST [link]

Fading

We have had a series of golden October days. The mornings are cool, sometimes with dense fog. It clears and the air warms up. New grass is growing, yet the leaves are turning and occasionally fall. The bagpiper arrived early and enjoyed his afternoon in the country, looking at the old oak and old gravestones. He's in counterterrorism in his other job.


David on 10.10.04 @ 06:27 AM CST [link]

Lives

Of course, I am a character in a novel; in fact, many characters in many novels, depending on the angle from which the tale is viewed. I am John Dobbin, good-hearted, slightly dense, patient, out of his depths, but assured of his prize in the end. I am Lewis Wetzel, the half-savage Deathwind, the hero morally indistinguishable from his enemy, and felled not by a villain's arrow but by the creep of civilization and the loss of love. I am anyone from Dickens, surrounded by threads of plot, in a maelstrom of arriving and departing and reappearing characters, blithely accepting of every fortuitous coincidence. I am the smart, plain sister in any of Jane Austen's. I am on an island with a Bible and a gun, and too much time to think. I am Queequeg and Jim and Meyer and Watson. I am Richard Hannay, Rudolf Rassendyll, David Balfour, Harry Feversham. I heard the owl call my name.
David on 10.08.04 @ 05:24 PM CST [link]

States' Rights

I went to the post office to mail a package this morning. In line in front of me was my next-door neighbor; we exchanged pleasantries and then she asked me if I was "seeing anyone". I said I was not but that there were certain possibilities, which I hope is both an accurate and a true answer. She expressed distress at my continuing single state, pledged her efforts toward finding me a mate, and proceeded to ask the clerk if she were married (she was). She completed her transaction and left.

I guess most single adults find themselves in this kind of situation from time to time, though maybe not in so aggressive and explicit a fashion; several times a year some friend or other tells me that a nice guy like me should have someody and promises to take on the task of finding me that somebody, though they never follow up -- probably a good thing.

This interests me not only personally but also philosophically. My neighbor, and these others, accept the proposition, "All people are better off married." Having accepted it, they put their convictions into action, making an effort to pair the unpaired, even if the effort soon falters. The proposition contains a moral imerative, and they accept that.

More troubling are the people who accept the proposition, but resist the imperative; they seem to resolve their dilemma by revising the proposition into "All deserving people are better off married;" the burden of proof is on the single person to show his or her worthiness. The proposition, "Singleness and marriage are both potentially good states," is generally not accepted, though it seems to me more defensible than the aforementioned. Iron is drawn to the magnet, gold is not; but gold is not defective because it is not found clinging to the magnet.
David on 10.07.04 @ 01:47 PM CST [link]

Sunset

There were only a few of us yesterday; Pete and Ralph, Bill, Frank, Jack, Gus, and myself. We picked up trash. Our dumpsters were gone. We moved the recycling to the little gazebo. We picked up the green stuff and put it inside the big barn. We moved the last of the pallets into the other barn. We pulled up stakes and recoiled the ropes which protected the athletic fields. The water guy came and took the water bottles away; I drained the water cooler. We picked up hay and put it in the woods. I put some hay into the sinkhole. Herself came down with the Crown Prince in his car seat, and she looked things over. We talked. She had family in who had been at the wedding, and her mind was on hospitality. Everyone went away, one by one. I locked all the doors and went back to work.



David on 10.06.04 @ 06:18 AM CST [link]

The Fog at the End of the Road

The fog descended early in the morning and enshrouded our rummage cleanup. Midmorning it lifted, physically, but I find myself still in a metaphorical fog the next day -- from exhaustion, confusion, uncertainty. The passing fair has nearly disappeared with the morning mist, a few hours of clean-up for the last of us and the fairgrounds will go back to the people of Far Hills. The tribes have dispersed and the stories we started are unfinished. It is, formally, at an end, but life is messy and there are no real endings.

David on 10.05.04 @ 06:12 AM CST [link]

Rummage!

We open to the public in two and a half hours. I'm on my way out the door.
David on 10.01.04 @ 06:45 AM CST [link]