I told Mimo it was father’s day.
“Is that another of those coffee editor things?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Granted.”
Me, “I meant, ‘What on earth are you saying?’”
Mimo, “You were begging; I granted.”
“Start again, ‘it’s father’s day.’”
“I met someone who said she had been a coffee editor, spent her life correcting
gods’ mistakes. I said, ‘Like what,’ expecting that she be talking about
feeding errors, but no. How to use a colon was what she wanted to discuss. I
said that was automatic with us chickens. Walk, walk, walk—colon use. No
errors involved.”
“And she said?”
“Word for word? ‘Chicken is not a plural word, though it is used as such in
country districts.’ Off her head.”
“Or chump,” I said. “Remind me how she came up?”
“You said it’s father day and I wondered if there was a further day too.”
“You didn’t say anything of the sort.”
“I thought it.”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/is-it-further-or-farther-usage-how-to-use
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/is-it-further-or-farther-usage-how-to-use>
My goodness how a dull day in June wakens you to limits. After charging around
the world, making deadlines, showing the right piece of paper here, not joking
with the customs officer there, you arrive home and catch up, play pretty bad
tennis, adjust. How would one joke with customs officers? When we walked from
gate G to gate F in Charles de Gaulle airport, after a long period waiting in
line I was wagged at with a finger when I tried to do what you do at other
airports—present your passport alongside your spouse. No family grouping
allowed in the French system of stamping. I was this close to asking the man
if he had any ketchup. “Est-ce que vous avez ketchup?” The thought amused me
because we’d had an episode when the kids were small. I asked a snooty
waiter. He said, “I think we have some of that in the cellar.”
“Aging it are you? The reserve ketchup? In oak barrels?”
Up at the school, I tossed a ball for Hamish and tried not to sneeze because I
refuse to be allergic to anything. With me it’s a principle. Sorely tested by
no-mow May, which has stretched into June. Unlike our last dog, who I think
had some lab in him, Hamish finds it hard to find anything that is no longer
moving. A herding dog is attuned to motion, a retrieving dog is attuned to
smell to the point that it can find a tiny fragment of a tennis ball in dense
underbrush. Hamish is bad at finding things when they stop moving, but this
does not diminish his desire to chase a ball.
What links these two moments? Empathy. The ability to be in the shoes of the
poor sod who has to stamp passports all day and in the paws of a dog who wants
to have fun but, olympic though he is in leaps and bounds and not letting
things get past him, he has limits. Like we do.
It has been raining more than usual and the days have been dark and dull. I’ve
been cautious this week—the bride and groom at the wedding we attended on
Sunday both tested positive for COVID, others too. One highlight of the week:
I cooked in the manner of the French countryside, as if rebelling against Paris
and centralized government. My brain was, I’m guessing, stuck in the Vendée or
some equally conservative, country spot. Brains under the stress of travel
apparently take cover where life seems satisfactory or at least less turbulent
and they cook herbed chicken legs with potatoes in duck fat and green beans in
garlic.
My father worked for BP, which in his day thought they ought to look after
employees. Salaries were probably not impressive, but the company established
the BP club in Sydenham: a swimming pool, tennis courts, archery, table tennis
and food and a bar. When my mother was tired, which probably was often, my
father would propose we could drive to the BP club for a swim and dinner. The
food was cafeteria style: you walked a tray along a support and pointed to what
you wished to be added to your plate. At the finish, the employee would add up
what this and this and this cost and it would be charged to your account.
After a swim, I liked a pork chop and beans and chips and veg. I now know they
were not particularly good pork chops, but I acquired the taste.
Long preamble to this. I learned this week that our butcher has not closed and
so I hie’d me over and bought a “bone-in pork chop,” which in beef terminology
would be called a T bone steak. After falafel and hummus and all that—which I
enjoyed, let the record show, for I am an omnivore—the prospect of pork was
glorious, with mushrooms and cauliflower and some ravioli and wine.
“Marketplace” was on the radio, a program I used to enjoy, but like much of
public radio it has turned into talk of what *ought* to be. At present I’m
into “is.” I shut the radio off and gave my attention to a New York Times
piece about Cheech Marin’s art collection, which has been installed in what
used to be a public library in Riverside, California. I do hope there’s a new
public library. I keep reading things—the latest was a piece about the
original Pinocchio being taught in college—wherein people say without
embarrassment, “I don’t read books.” I had students, at the finish, who were
determined to pass through college without reading a book. I bet some manage
this feat.
The good news is that Cheech Marin’s collection of art has found a home. I am
only judging by the photos in the New York Times, but what’s there seems like
something people would want to see. Good on yer, Cheech.
Funny how people turn out. Earlier in the day I talked with one of our
hereabouts readers, who lives in the neighborhood, and learned that her husband
had worked with Einstein. Since my meeting with the Australian Prime Minister
I’ve been wondering about and at the stories which lie like large sea creatures
close to the surface of water, waiting to be identified.
More than when my life is framed and informed by routine, I’m also intrigued by
how irregular are the energy supplies for writing. Pick up any biography of a
writer and you’ll get a version of this: full battery power one day, becalmed
the next. (Yes, I’m mixing metaphors, coffee editor). Why would power
distributed in this manner be the way of things? Why does one have the urgent
urge to describe and record, but no energy, and then the urgent urge to write,
but nothing, and then—joyous day— the two flow together in a flood?
The neighbor asked if I was going to get more chickens. I explained that my
wife is going off on trip to Africa soon, so when the committee members who are
against are no longer present to vote, who knows? Maybe I’ll order a
collection of something? Hamish is so bereft; it’s clear that he wants a job.
But what?
Pigs, you say. I do like pigs, but they get big and there’s absolutely no
chance that I’ll be involved in killing a big animal unless someone says, “You
can’t be an omnivore any more unless you do this.” At that point I believe I’d
do it. No proof though, except history. I read this piece about my ancestors
in Clan Chattan, who had been feuding with the Camerons for three hundred
years. To settle the deal finally, the king ordered the two clans to show up
with thirty warriors each. Clan Chattan were one short so they pulled some
giant out of wherever it was he was drinking (meme warning). Final result: one
Cameron left alive, ten or a dozen of “my” lot. Horrible, but I sometimes feel
that violent inheritance, particularly in days of yore when people were bumping
into me on the football field. When the guide in the Holocaust museum asked,
“what would you take if you were being rounded up by Nazis,” my answer was, “a
knife.” She said, “Bad idea; they would shoot you if they found it.” My
thought was, “Look around.”
No further explanation needed.
But I’ll give some.
Father’s Day, capital F and D, first celebrated June 19, 1910 in the State of
Washington. Mother’s Day, says the mighty web, was an effort to bring together
mothers of Union and Confederate soldiers in a West Virginia town. Spokane,
Washington was where Sonora Smart Dodd was one of six children raised by a
widower. She thought Dads worthwhile.
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/fathers-day ;
<https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/fathers-day>
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
