My Brain was Interrupted

 

 

I don’t know how writers, particularly nonfiction writers trying to compose essays about real and perhaps current events, stick with a topic when a more pressing one emerges.  I was in the middle of writing about my recent road trip through West Virginia, a short account about people I met and things I learned when I was completely interrupted by national news.  Emotionally ripped away by the slaughter of fellow Americans in an upstate New York supermarket and an elementary school.  It’s been hard for me to think about anything else.

I read a New York Times account of the newest classroom tragedy, after hearing earlier reports from news conferences held by local officials at the scene.  The news comes at you in so many ways these days.  I was listening to an NPR interview in my car in which an expert of some kind was talking about nineteen children killed in one classroom.  The NPR interviewer, to his credit, asked this question.

 “Do you know for a fact they were all in the same classroom?”

“No, I don’t.  I assume so because Texas mandates no more than 22 kids in one classroom.  It just makes sense to me.  But no, I don’t know.”

It made sense to me, and I accepted his assumption.  Until my brother called.  My brother, older than me and as tuned in as anyone I know to the news, was the first to suggest otherwise.

“I couldn’t sleep the other night, got up, and tuned in to cable news.   Now they’re saying he was in more than one room.  The rooms are adjoined.  There were more than nineteen kids who went through that hell. Some lived through it.”

I had been grieving for nineteen kids, and two teachers (team teaching perhaps?) all of whom died.  Now my grief expanded to include the lifelong impact that experience would have on those who were in those rooms but live on.

For thirty-some years I was the director of a youth service/child welfare agency that expanded its expertise and programming from troubled teens, including runaways and those caught up in the juvenile justice system, to include services for those suffering neglect and physical and sexual abuse.  It was the sexual abuse that was most chilling, although it is open to debate as to which experience is most devastating.

Physical abuse and neglect are at least understandable to the public.  Sexual abuse was a taboo rarely considered until the mid-80s.  In the early days when Americans first felt able to openly talk about the sexual abuse of children, after a network news show called “Something About Amanda” starring Ted Danson, my staff couldn’t make a public presentation about our sexual abuse treatment program without some adult coming up after the talk and divulging their own traumatic experience.  The lid came off the dynamics of sexual abuse, most often familial, and the specter of its damage, the sheer extent of the trauma suffered by those abused and not believed, or never sharing their secret, was breathtaking.

It was my job as director of a child welfare agency to read and sign unusual incident reports, familiarize myself with court reports being submitted by my staff, to understand the problems confronting both the children and families we served but also the depth to which our staff and foster parents were affected by hearing their stories.  It was as simple as taking the material from my inbox, mail received and information from staff, walking back to my office, sitting down, and reading it.  What I read was often horrific.

And confidential.  Children and families involved in our child welfare, juvenile justice, and family court systems have a right to privacy.  I could talk to my staff who were involved about what I was reading, and I did often, but not to family and friends close to me.  It was hard.  I knew things about my community that others did not, and I couldn’t talk about it.

I retired over ten years ago. Things have changed. Privacy laws and confidentiality measures have remained the same, but we have changed our attitudes about volunteering information about ourselves.  Social media has made us all reporters.  Both journalists and everyday people are giving us more information than ever before.  You must look at it closely for accuracy, but there is no shortage of material to review.  In fact, I sometimes feel we’re drowning in it.

After the initial press conference following the mass murder in a Uvalde Texas elementary school, in which the Governor of the state flanked by its ranking U.S. Senator and others told the world a school resource officer confronted the gunman and brave law enforcement officials ran towards the deadly attacker, we learned otherwise.

The school resource officer was not on school grounds.  Upon returning to his post, he drove past the alleged killer who was in the vicinity of his wrecked truck, and never challenged the alleged killer’s entry into the school he was hired to protect.  (I’m dropping the alleged adjective.  To my attorney friends, I admit I’m wrong to do so.)  The killer entered the school through a propped open side door.  He shot his way into a classroom before the teacher could lock it.  That room adjoined another classroom, and methodically, over time, he killed both teachers and students in both rooms with an AR-15-style rifle he’d purchased legally days earlier on his 18^th birthday.  He was armed with more rounds of ammunition than is supplied to U.S. soldiers in battle, clip after clip of deadly merciless bullets.  Shell casings at the scene told police he had fired 142 rounds of that ammunition.

A law enforcement official in charge, commanding 19 or so armed policemen inside the school, delayed engaging the killer who was inside the classroom for nearly an hour until proper equipment and additional personnel arrived.  Even after they arrived.  His rationale was that the threat of further death was over, and the shooter barricaded in the room was no longer a danger.  He was wrong.

Journalists have helped us reconstruct the scene inside that classroom by conducting sensitive interviews in which survivors and their families agreed to participate.  CNN reporter Norah Neus interviewed Miah Cerrillo, age 11, who was wounded but survived in her fourth-grade classroom where so many of her classmates died.

Present at the interview was Miah’s mother.   Miah was scared to speak on camera, or to a man, because of what she experienced but told CNN she wanted to share her story so people can know what it’s like to live through a school shooting.  She hopes that speaking out can prevent a tragedy like the one she experienced from happening to other kids.

There was a time when journalists would never expose children to this type of coverage.  Again, times have changed.  Miah and her family freely consented to allow her voice to be heard.

Click this link, and click the redirect notice to view the video

Norah Tells Miah's Story

The story recalled in the video is hard to hear.  It’s a memory that will never be erased in her mind.  Hopefully, it can be dealt with in therapy and its impact blunted, the damage contained at some level.  The video speaks for itself.  If Miah is brave enough to share her story, I think we should listen.  It’s 6 minutes and 47 seconds out of your day.

Near the end of the tape, CNN reporter Norah Neus mentions something that struck a chord with me as a former supplier of therapy to survivors of trauma in a rural area.  You can hear Norah’s words in the video about the question of therapy for Miah.  They go something like this.

“Miah’s parents are trying to get her some kind of therapy help, they’ll probably have to drive to San Antonio for that.  They’re starting a Go Fund Me page.”

Excuse me, but it’s bullshit that the parents of victims should be left to their own devices to get help for their kids.  There should have been social workers in that community starting to gather resources and bring help to that community the day after the shooting.  San Antonio is 83 miles away from Uvalde.  Google maps says it’s an hour and twenty-minute trip.  It’s not just Miah that needs help.  Parents and students throughout the school need help.  Teachers need help.  Extended family members need help.  And police and first responders will need a whole lot of help after this one.

Some will require good debriefing, an assessment, and a limited amount of follow-up sessions.  Others will require medication and ongoing psychotherapy for years.  They deserve great care, and they deserve to have it delivered to them in their own community.

I’m not a trained psychotherapist by any means but I could write a budget for a project like this.  I’d start with staff: a team of well-trained and experienced therapists, supported by consulting psychiatrists including a child psychiatrist.  I’d give them a good case manager (maybe more depending on the numbers) that can visit kids at home, with their families, and in the community.  Included should be community education about trauma, and integration with natural supports in the community like churches, police, and whatever exists to support kids and families.

And rather than choosing which resources to provide from a fixed number of dollars picked out of the sky, I would budget whatever it costs to make this happen.  Is there an existing building that can be remodeled and furnished as an inviting, comfortable place for therapy to be delivered?  Then rent it and get that done.  Is there nothing suitable?  Then build one.  There is work to be done in Uvalde, Texas for years and years.  And Buffalo.  And on and on and on.

Come to think of it, it’s not just victims of mass shootings that need this kind of help.  Victims surviving daily gun violence in cities and towns across the country suffer from trauma.  In our data-rich world, I think we could map the incidence of gun violence and find neighborhoods and communities that need a large amount of mental health treatment but have no local source of help.  Let’s set up centers there too.

And for God’s sake let’s not depend on Go Fund Me as the way to pay for this help.  Our states and the federal government should provide comprehensive and ongoing treatment for their citizens as long as it persists in allowing such senseless violence to occur and until it stops it.  If it proves expensive, I suggest a healthy tax collected from gun manufacturers and sellers.  It’s an industry you know.  They should bear the burden of the havoc their products wreak out of the profits they enjoy in our capitalist system just as oil companies fund the clean up of petroleum spills that foul our environment.  Money should not be the issue.

Helping Miah and her family and others like them should be the issue.  We should be guided by what they want and need to be whole and healthy once again.   And we shouldn’t rest until that job is done.  

 

Cameron West Virginia

Cameron West Virginia was the town that most intrigued me.  Aside from the city of Fairmount, it was the largest community I would drive through on Route 250, and it had a new school and an intriguing past.

Coming from the north, I passed the new school in the woods perhaps a couple miles before entering the town.  It’s a gleaming, spanking new middle/high school, built at a cost of $31M, by an engineering firm that received awards for its green design. 

It serves 323 students and draws, I suspect, from a much larger area than Cameron.  It was by far the most modern building I’d seen since I crossed into West Virginia.  I expected to see a town that was a hub for all the little towns I’d driven through, with maybe a Dollar General and a good chain grocery store.  I had it figured as a place to stop for lunch.

But when I got to downtown Cameron, at the bottom of a valley, I was surrounded by old brick buildings, many of which appeared vacant.

I drove by two tall churches.  There was something of a food and clothing distribution going on near the Presbyterian church. An older woman with a young child, likely her granddaughter, was crossing Church Street heading towards folding tables near the sidewalk stacked with canned goods and neatly folded piles of clothing.  I stopped to let her cross the street.  She took the little girl by the hand, waved, and smiled.

On Railroad Street, I slowed down at a newer concrete building with no sign.  It was across from the grade school.  There were cars in the parking lot.  This sign on a lamppost close to the building caught my eye.

 I pulled in, parked, and walked to the door.  I still couldn’t tell what was inside, but as I got close to the door, I saw shopping carts through a large window.

When I walked in, I saw it was a grocery store.  There was a young man in a stocking hat at a cash register by a bleak produce section. 

“I saw a sign in your parking lot.  Do you sell prepared food here?”

“No. We ought to take that down.  That was for a little event they had in the parking lot a while ago.  We’re just groceries.”

“Thanks.  Do you have a restroom for the public?”

“Yeah.  In the back past the meat counter.  You’re welcome to use it.”

He pointed to the far corner.  Walking there gave me a chance to take in most of the store. I became used to empty shelves during the pandemic, mostly in the paper aisle.  But no store shelves I’d seen in Illinois compared to those in Greg’s Market.  There was very little fresh food of any kind.  Mostly canned.  A very small frozen section.  People were moving slowly up and down the aisles.  Big carts with little food in them. 

There was a lot of looking but little buying going on at the butcher’s counter.  A thin man with faded jeans stroked a long gray beard as he studied the price of the beef cuts.  The beef prices were even higher than at home.

When I got to the corner where the bathroom was supposed to be I encountered swinging doors that divide the front of the store from the back and a sign that said “employees only.”  I stopped.  A voice from behind me said.

“You go right ahead on.  That bathroom is for everybody.”

I turned and saw an older man with cases of canned food on a pallet jack making his way toward me.

‘Don’t pay that sign no mind.”

“Thanks.”

 As I left the store a man was talking to the kid with the stocking hat clerking at the cash register.  Both looked up at me.

“Is there a restaurant here I could get some lunch?”

“You mean a sit-down restaurant?” the clerk said.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, we have a pretty good one.  Follow this street just to the other side of the American Legion, that gray steel building over there.  Bridge Street restaurant is just behind it.”

“OK, thanks.”

I left the store and was just opening the door to the Buick when I heard a voice from the driver’s side of the pickup truck parked beside me. 

“Excuse me sir I want to second Paul’s recommendation of the Bridge Street restaurant.  Pretty good food and a lot of it.”

“That’s good to hear. I haven’t seen much in the way of eating places since I got on 250.”

“Where you coming from?”

“I started this morning in Zanesville Ohio, but I’m from Illinois.”

‘You’ve come a ways then.  How’d you like that drive from Wheeling?”

“I got to say it’s been a challenge.  I don’t have much experience driving on roads like this.  I come from Illinois.  Pretty flat.”

“Whereabouts in Illinois?”

“Ottawa.  About 90 miles southwest of Chicago on Route 80.”

“Ottawa huh? I’ve been on 80 going west but I don’t recall that town.”

“About 18,000.  Good farm ground around there.  It’s on the Illinois and Fox river.  Where they meet actually.  Say, what’s this river that winds around these hills?”

“Not a river.  Grave Creek.  Flow’s past that tall mound in Moundsville where the Adena Indian tribe buried their people.  Ends up in the Ohio River.”

“You lived here long?”

“All my life.  My great-great-grandfather lived here when this town really was something.  Nothing like it used to be.”

“You have really big churches and lots of downtown buildings for a town of 946.”

“That was the 2010 census number.  2020 census has us at 807.  Our high point was 1920.  2,404.  In a hunnert years we’ve lost nearly two-thirds of our people.”

I’d shut the Buick’s driver’s side door and we talked to each other over the hood. He turned from looking at me to looking over his town’s center.

“This town is circling the drain.”

“What happened?”

He turned and looked at me.

“Well, for starters we lost our train.”

“I was looking for tracks.  We’re on Railroad Street but I don’t see any.”

“Nope.  They pulled up the tracks in 1975.  First passenger train ran in 1853 and the last passenger ran in 1956.  Then we lost our freight traffic too.  Took everything they could out of these hills, then walked away.”

“Who’s they you’re talking about?”

“The company that bought the company that bought out the B&O Railroad.  Ended up being CSX I think.  It was the first public access train built in America.  Ran from Baltimore Maryland on the East coast to Wheeling Virginia and the Ohio River in sixteen hours.  It was a big deal for its time.  Like the Erie canal before that.  Set up a way to move goods and people fast.  Spent a lot of money on it too.  Between Cumberland Maryland and Wheeling, they built 11 tunnels and 113 bridges.  That’s what made this town.  People took the train in, took the train out.  This part of town right here was jammed with people making a trip through the mountains.  Slumming it maybe, but they came.”

“What was your great-grandpa doing back then?”

“Made a business out of derrick well drilling.  He dug wells first but ended up making the equipment. You drive pipe into the ground, slam it over and over, then take out whatever.  Mostly natural gas, but water wells too. They took coal outa here, sand, iron ore.  We had an ironworks at one time, and steel was made nearby.  That business mostly all went to Weirton.  But Cameron was a booming place.  And that’s all gone.”

“You got a heckuva high school out there though.”

“Yes we do, and we’re proud of it.  Gotta keep kids in it though.”

“Where’d you get the money for that?”

“$23M from the state and $8M from the county.  Kind of amazing.  We tried to restore our old train depot in the early 2000s, make a community center deal out of it, still can’t find the money to finish it.  But you’re right, we have a great school, and that’s important.”

 “How was the pandemic around here?”

“Well, we live fairly separately anyway.  Social distancing is not really new for us in the hills.  But we didn’t take to masks or shots as well as we probably should have.  I think we lost more neighbors than we had to.  My idea though is some people died of sheer loneliness, especially the older ones.  We didn’t get many visitors like you in the past two years. Not that we ever do now that we’re down to just that winding road.

He paused.

“Covid was terrible.  But I tell you what the opioid thing was worse.  Still is.  We’re going through a lot, and we don’t know what’s going to happen next.  I’m very worried for our young people.”

“I understand.  I don’t think the drug companies did you any favors on the opioid epidemic but you’re right.  I don’t think anybody knows what’s around the corner.”

I had intended to talk to West Virginians about politics.  69% of West Virginia voters marked their ballots for Donald Trump in 2020, a full percentage point more than in 2016.  Marshall County voters, one of which I was talking to, cast 75% of their votes for Donald Trump in 2020 after voting for him at a 77% clip in 2016.

I wanted to ask the nice man I was talking to why.  I wanted to ask him how Joe Manchin keeps getting elected as a Democrat in such a Republican state.  I wanted to ask him what Donald Trump had done for West Virginia to earn such trust.  But I didn’t.  I had the chance, but passed it up.  It felt wrong.  Like I would be badgering him. 

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Dave.”

“I’m Dave too.”

I was going to ask if I could take his picture but when he chose not to tell me his last name, I didn’t do that either.

“Well Dave, it was nice talking to you.  Enjoy lunch in our town.”

“I’m sure I will.  Nice talking to you too.”

I opened the door of the Buick again. Dave’s voice stopped me from getting in.

“Hey, I might tell you.  Don’t know how far you plan to go on 250 but past Elkins it gets pretty rough.”

“Rougher than from Wheeling? “

“Yeah. Lots.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.  Thanks for the worry.”

West Virginia

I crossed the Ohio River and entered West Virginia on I-70 East, then took the Moundsville/South 250 exit.  I’d been on Interstate highways since I turned onto I-80 in Ottawa.  It was April 20, 2022.     

The road to Moundsville takes you down the Ohio River Valley and West Virginia Route 250 takes you up into the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.  When I took the South 250 exit and the Buick began the steep climb up, I breezed past the very spot where, in April 2016, a squad car with flashing lights and a barricade stopped me from going farther.  They said it was due to icy road conditions and assured me it was for my own good.  I generally don’t like people making those decisions for me.

On that day in 2016, the skies were dark, and I was in the middle of a terrible snowstorm.  In 2022, it was clear sailing.  I’m still not sure the pandemic is over, but at that moment it felt like it.  I was alone on a road I’d never traveled and was free to go wherever I chose.  I’d waited a long time for that feeling.  During my life, I’ve had no luck duplicating it.

Route 250 is a two-lane road that will take you clear across the state and into eastern Virginia.  Slowly. On that initial climb up a steep grade the pavement was rough and patchy.  At the top of the climb, the road followed a high ridge for only a moment and then turned sharply downward.  A speed limit sign advised me not to exceed 15 miles an hour. At the bottom of the descent, the road turned quickly back up.

That was the first of many kiss-ass turns I’d been told about years ago at Amy’s Candlelight Fine Dining and Sports Bar in New Martinsville.  That same pattern of climb and descend, with a slowed-down switchback turn at each transition was repeated over and over.  I couldn’t imagine driving that road when it was icy.  I give grudging thanks to the cops that stopped me that day in 2016.

The trees had not greened up for the most part, but redbud trees just blooming added faint purple blotches on the hillsides.  I wished I could have gazed at the scenery more, but my eyes were locked onto the road.

The pavement could have been better, but the task of maintaining that winding track of two-lane asphalt must be huge.  Road shoulders were narrow, and I believe every bit of flat land large enough for a foundation contains a building of some kind.  Homes and farm buildings are few and far between.  The few pastures cleared of trees looked impossibly steep, yet cows and sheep clung to them.  Slope has the upper hand over human habitation in those hills. 

It was slow going.  I had considered the mileage but not the speed.  From Illinois, I imagined myself being in eastern Virginia by Wednesday night.  At this slow rate of travel that might not work.  But no matter.  It was a goal rather than a deadline. My overall hope was to be in Tampa Florida by Saturday night.  But if I wasn’t there, it was OK.  Lack of deadlines makes living easier.

I had researched the towns along South 250 on Wikipedia before I left.  Most are unincorporated, but I didn’t know they were practically unrecognizable.  Limestone is for the most part a road sign, a Presbyterian church, and a general store.  

Littleton is listed in Wikipedia as a CDP or Census Designated Place.  It was formerly incorporated but dissolved in 2004.  196 people lived there in 2000 according to that year’s census.  I turned off the road but saw little activity.  I didn’t look long, but mostly saw abandoned commercial buildings.  lllinois has small towns, but their buildings are grouped together.  I suspect Littleton’s 196 people are spread in houses spread up and down the hills rather than grouped along the main road.  There are precious few places to pull off and turn around on 250 South.  I kept on driving.

 

Burton in comparison looks to be doing all right.  It lost its post office in 2011 but still has a gas station and Discount Center store that sells everything from bread to motor oil plus hot food you can eat in a small dining area if you choose.   Core Oil is a full-service gas station that sells tires and does minor car repairs. Burton even has a body shop/car repair business that doubles as a West Virginia Vehicle Inspection Center.  Here’s an aerial view of Burton.

The bad news is the town of Burton is not included in any cell phone company’s current advertised service area.  You can get a landline in Burton, and “high speed” DSL internet service through Frontier Communications.  And while there is outpatient health care available at “The Burton Clinic” housed in the now-closed Burton Grade School, hospital care is an hour away by ambulance.

All these towns are far ahead of Glover Gap which has a dot named after it in the Rand McNally 2022 Road Atlas but is listed in Wikipedia purely in hopes one of its readers can help them locate its coordinates and discover things like cemeteries or razed building sites to verify its existence.  This goes under the category of “we’ve heard of Glover Gap, but we can’t find it.”  Research in the region leads the Wiki people to believe it was once a community and not just a place name.  So, if you know anything about Glover Gap, let them know.

Hundred, a town of 262 people on 250 south, has a colorful history.  It is named after a man named Henry Church, a citizen of the town who lived to be a hundred (109 in fact, or perhaps fiction) and died in 1860.  Henry fought for the British in the Revolutionary War and was taken prisoner by Lafayette’s forces before being released and returning to his home in the hills.  I forget when I travel in Eastern America how much farther the history of white settlers on the continent extends beyond that of the Midwest.

Here’s a photo of Cleveland Street in Hundred.

Hundred also boasts the birthplace of Edward King who played Major League Baseball for seven years and drove in the final run in the 1922 World Series while playing for the victorious New York Giants.  You learn something every day.

Before I left home, I learned some West Virginia history in preparation for the trip.  In the run-up to the Civil War, a portion of the state of Virginia broke away and formed a new state, West Virginia.  I never knew the story.  Retirement is handy for filling in the gaps.

The land that is now West Virginia was taken from indigenous people in 1607 when Britain claimed to own both it and present-day Virginia.  That action formed the Virginia colony.  In 1776 when thirteen such colonies declared their independence from Britain, the hills and mountains of Appalachia stayed part of the state of Virginia and remained so until the state sharply divided over the question of slavery.  

I think we ignore the significance of slavery not only to our country's history but to its identity.  How Americans living in the land I was driving through felt about the moral question of slavery and wished to define their community created West Virginia.  

In 1861, at a convention in Wheeling (then Virginia) a convention of Northwestern Southern Unionists voiced support for repealing Virginia's ordinance of secession passed in April of 1861. Secession ordinances were boilerplate resolutions circulated among southern states who wished to retain the legal right to enslave black people brought from Africa and keep their status as chattel property of white owners.

After Abe Lincoln's election as President of the United States, secession began with South Carolina and was quickly followed by ten other states and one territory (Arizona).

Two states, Kentucky and Missouri, failed to formally secede but were considered by the Confederacy as southern states anyway.  Two states previously considered southern, Delaware and Maryland, rejected secession and remained in the Union.  No other states acted n the question of secession until, following the Wheeling Convention, a Unionist government formed from50 counties in western Virginia.

That state, West Virginia, was admitted to the Union as a U.S.state on June 20, 1863, in the middle of the Civil War.  Its borders reshaped the demarcation line those famous surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, laid down to separate North from South and divide our country on the question of slavery.  

But those events are over and done.  I was looking to be in the moment with people in West Virginia, to learn about their present reality and maybe ponder their future.  That started in Cameron.

Zanesville Ohio

 I don’t have anything against Indiana.  It’s “The Gateway to the Midwest” according to their marketing campaign.  At least it’s a descriptive phrase.

Going fast with the trucks on I-70 I found when I crossed into Ohio their tagline is an imperative sentence. “Find it here.”  Find what here?  And what if I don’t care to find anything?  I think states should go with the inviting sentence “Welcome to _______” and skip the rest.  Let the traveler define the territory they enter in their own words.

I made it all the way to Zanesville, Ohio on the first day of the road trip.  I planned to stop in Columbus, but when I reached the home of OSU and Ohio’s state capitol, I felt good, so I went on.  The Buick was running great, aside from an odd growling noise coming from the front end.  I first heard it at a gas station just past Yellow Springs, Ohio when I was pulling up to the pump.  My brother Darwin would know exactly what that noise meant, but not me. 

Zanesville is a town of 25,000 people located at the confluence of the Licking and Muskingum rivers.  My town, Ottawa, stands at the confluence of the Fox and Illinois.  I like how the word confluence sounds when spoken and its meaning.  Merging together, making one.  Zanesville has a famous bridge in the shape of a Y that spans both rivers.  Amelia Earhart said Zanesville, viewed from above, was the most recognizable city in the America because of that distinctive bridge. 

I stayed in a hotel on a high bluff above those rivers looking down on the town.  After the flatness of Indiana and western Ohio it was nice to be in rolling hills.  I was close to West Virginia.

I resisted the steak burger and chocolate shake calling my name from the Steak N’ Shake next to the hotel and made my way to the old downtown.  It was full of well-built brick buildings.  I passed a towering but aging brick church that reminded me of Open Table, my church back in downtown Ottawa.  From 1840 to the breakout of the Civil War Zanesville was also a stop on the Underground Railroad, history we’re just learning about in my town of Ottawa. 

When I saw this building, I figured Zanesville had to be a county capitol.

And it is.  Just as Ottawa is the capitol of LaSalle County, Illinois Zanesville is the capitol of Muskingum County, Ohio.  The similarities kept piling up.  Drive 500 miles and end up in a town that makes you feel you’re still at home?  Eerie.

Near that fine old courthouse was an independent Italian restaurant I’d read about online, the Old Market House Inn.  The hostess put me at a small table by a huge unlit fireplace and a waitress brought me a roll and butter.  When I picked up the knife to butter my bread it was heavy.  I have this unproven theory that the weight of a restaurant’s silverware correlates to the price of the food.  When I checked the menu, my supposition was again confirmed.  No data to support it though, only anecdotes.

I had chicken marsala over pasta and a glass of wine, pondered the next day’s route, and headed back to the Buick.  Before I started the Buick to go back up to the hotel, I rolled the car windows to listen.  It growled when I turned the wheels but not when I drove straight down the street.  What the hell?  I slept well.  Crazy dreams.

The buzz at the free breakfast the next morning was the breakdown of the pancake machine.  It was a fully enclosed unit that promised to spit out beautifully browned pancakes in a minute.  It was locked up.  Pushing any or all the buttons produced no response.  I knew that because the woman in charge of breakfast pushed them over and over.  A man in line suggested she unplug it and plug it in again.  My thoughts exactly.  But it was hard wired into a wall panel. 

As issues go in the world of hotel breakfasts, the broken pancake machine was major.  The breakfast lady took her job seriously, slowly laying down slices of French toast so the tops and bottoms made perfectly straight lines clear across the silver chafing dish.  When they didn’t, she nudged them into place with her tongs.

She was not at all happy about the pancake machine, or the maintenance guy who, after a quick once over, told her there was nothing he could do about it.  I thought pancakes plus French toast was overkill anyway, but she obviously considered pancakes irreplaceable.  I had the fake eggs, a tasteless turkey sausage patty, and a couple of cartons of milk.  I kept thinking about the Buick.

Before leaving my parking place at the hotel I turned on the Buick’s engine and turned the steering wheel back and forth.  It growled most when it was far right or left, and not at all when the wheels were straight.  Then it hit me.  Power steering fluid.  Darwin would be proud.  I headed down the hill and over that famous Y bridge looking for help.

I found it at an Advance Auto Parts store.  Before going in, I popped the hood on the Buick and looked for the power steering fluid reservoir.  Dipsticks for the oil and transmission.  Reservoir for brake fluid. But the deal for power steering was nowhere to be found.   How could that be?  You couldn’t use brake fluid for both.  The store was just opening up.  I approached the guy behind the counter.

“I’m getting a growl from my front end that I think is low power steering fluid, but I can’t find the reservoir.”

“What are you driving?”

“2006 Buick Lucerne.”

“That one is hard to find.  Let’s make sure you need fluid before you buy it.  I’ll show you where it goes.”

He went right to it. 

“See where it is?”

I took my sunglasses off and bent closer.  It was under the alternator near the fire well.  Painted black, lid and all.  Blended in like it was camouflaged. 

“Who would think to look there.?”

“Yeah.  Right?  That’s why it gets so neglected.  Whoever is changing your oil should be checking this level, but they usually don’t.  I like Buicks, but the engineer that designed this deal should be fired.”

He took off the cap, wiped it and put it back, took it out again.

“There’s your problem.  Dry or damned near it.”

“Does that do damage to the steering mechanism?”

“Not usually.  Tells you it may have a slow leak, but we sell a product that usually seals those up pretty well. Let’s get you fixed up.”

I went with him to the shelves and bought two.  Best to have one in reserve in case I needed it.

As he rang me up, he made a general announcement to both me and the young guy just coming in the door to start work. 

“Killian here is going to get that skinny funnel we have and fill up that reservoir for you.”

Killian looked at his boss.  If his facial expression was a poster, it would have said in big letters

”Oh yeah?  Why not you?”

“It’s an old Buick Killian.  Under the alternator.  Make sure it gets filled.  Let it settle and check it a couple times.”

Killian grabbed an odd shaped skinny funnel and headed back out the door.  I trailed behind with my two bottles of power steering fluid.  He took off the cap to the reservoir and tried several ways to get the funnel situated.

I said, “Could they have made it any harder you think?”

“I don’t think so.  The guy who thought this up wasn’t a mechanic I can tell you that.  I’ll take that fluid now.”

He opened one bottle and took off the foil seal.

“I need you to get in the car, start it, and let it idle.  We need to make sure this fluid gets down in the lines and fills up.”

I got in the driver’s side and turned the key.  I couldn’t see him because the hood blocked my view.  He spoke loudly over the engine noise.

“OK sir, now turn the wheels all the way to the left, and again all the way to the right.”

“Good. Do it a couple more times.”

When I turned the wheel the first time the groan could be heard, but as I continued it faded away to nothing.

“OK, you’re full now.  Took almost the whole bottle.”

Thanks Killian.  I really appreciate your help.  Can I pay you something?”

“No.  That’s what we’re here for.”

My young mechanic back in Ottawa tells me the same thing.

I’ve been with this 2006 Buick Lucerne for a long time.  It was the last car Jerry Trost ever sold me.  It needs some care, but I like extending its life.  It’s a great ride.

With the Buick back in shape, I got on Interstate 70 and headed for Wheeling, West Virginia. 

Going for the Rare Do Over

Long life creates both obstacles and opportunities.  If you happen to be old, the obstacles become increasingly apparent.  Gradual loss of the senses, especially hearing and vision, even taste and feel, are hard to swallow.  Even worse, newly discovered concepts replace old fears.  That process of evolving fears that started when I dreaded the “boogie man” as a kid has never stopped. 

Now, at the age of 70, I consider the idea of “cognitive decline” even more terrifying than “cancer” which I believed not long ago was the scariest word in the English language.  But after having a minor brush with cancer some time ago, I’ve changed my mind. 

Losing the sense of who I was or am becoming, discovering blank pages in my private unwritten journal of what I’ve done and strive to do, that’s the fear that paralyzes me now.  And that set of fears based around the medical reality known as “Alzheimer’s disease?”  I don’t want to talk about it.

Instead, I prefer to look at the opportunities long life offers.  Like do-overs.  Consider this excerpt (edited a little because I can’t help it) from an old blog post six years ago, January 25, 2016, to be exact.

 I abandoned my plan to travel south down Route 250 beginning in Wheeling West Virginia.  It was a decision made instantly at the feel of the Buick’s four skidding tires and the sight of a deep ditch on a downhill turn.  Instead, I chose to follow Route 2 south down the Ohio River Valley.  Like all decisions it had implications. It implied I was giving in to the dangers of a snow and ice storm and turning my back on the communities of Limestone, Pleasant Valley, Cameron, Littleton, Hundred, Glover Gap, Metz, Mannington, Pruntytown, Phillipi, and Belington plus all the twists, turns, dips, valleys, hills, and vistas in between.  All true.

 On the other hand, choosing Route 2 implied I was opening myself up to the towns and the sights along flatter, safer, and more navigable roads running down the Ohio River Valley.  Equally true.  I’d been on neither route nor visited none of those towns.  Does it also imply I’ll never make it down Route 250?  Probably.  But not necessarily.  These are implications and not facts.  Life is long (hopefully).  And in the immortal words of Fats Waller “one never really knows, do one?”

There I was, 64 years old in 2016, hoping for more years and now, 70 years old in 2022, I’ve received that gift.  I have the chance to put myself back on Route 250 and complete the trip I once imagined.  I plan to take it.  Who said you can’t have your cake and eat it too?  Was that Marie Antoinette?  No.  She said, “let them eat cake” shortly before losing her head in the French Revolution.  I can still remember.  Life is good.  And that bit of advice from Fats Waller always holds true.

I’m tuning up and cleaning the Buick, buying an up-to-date road atlas, and planning a solo road trip to Florida including West Virginia’s Route 250.  I’ll spend four or five nights between Illinois and Tampa Florida, and when I arrive there, I’ll meet my wife who is flying down.  We’ll spend time with relatives and then take a slow route home. 

We used to do this often before the pandemic hit, four years out of the last seven to be exact.  Our last trip Florida trip was 2019.  It’s been too long.  What’s the lesson in this?  Travel when you can.  It will always be there, but you won’t.  Time’s a wasting.

That does mean though that I’ll miss an opportunity to revisit one of my favorite places in West Virginia’s Ohio River Valley,  Amy’s Candlelight Fine Dining and Sports Bar. Here’s more of that blog post from that rerouted trip in 2016.  You don’t find local color like this everywhere.  

I pulled under a canopy covering the gas pumps of a Marathon station in New Martinsville thinking I would get out of the snow.  I didn’t.  The wind blew it sideways.  The Buick was a mess.  Brownish frozen slush covered the headlights and streaked down the side panels.  I kicked big chunks of ice off from behind the tires.  I promised the Buick out loud that as soon as I get out of this weather, I’ll take you to a car wash.  I filled the tank and the windshield washer reservoir with blue stuff.  It was almost empty.  I had never gone through it that fast.

Inside the station refugees from the storm were wandering the aisles envying the candy bars, ogling the beef jerky, and coveting the doughnuts.  I approached a guy at the coolers trying to decide which kind of water to buy (remember when water was just water?) to seek a recommendation on food.  He looked like he missed very few meals.  Those are the best guys to ask.

“Is there was a good place to eat in town that isn’t a chain restaurant?”

“Hardly.  But there is a place back up the road called the Blue Sidecar that used to have good barbeque.  Mostly a drinkin’ place, but the food can be good, dependin on who’s cookin’ and how sober they are.”

“Blue Sidecar?   I musta missed it.”

“It’s on the river side of the road.  Just a cinder block place.  It’s blue.”

Made sense.  I headed back the way I came and couldn’t find it.  I pulled over.  As much as I hated to, I resorted to my phone.  Yelp.  It said the Blue Sidecar was 400 feet down the road.  There was a big sign down there but I couldn’t read it.  Too much snow.  I drove closer.  The sign said ‘Amy’s Candlelight Fine Dining and Sports Bar.’  Under the sign was a blue building, a concrete box.  I pulled in.

The place had a little foyer with doors on the right and left.  I tried the left door.  Inside were maybe a dozen folding banquet tables, each set for six, with plastic burgundy tablecloths.  On each table was a candle.  Three people were talking quietly at one table.  They looked up.  I smiled and tried the right door.

Inside was a long Formica bar, three big-screen TVs, some booths, and the smell of stale beer.  It was empty.  Standing behind the bar was a smiling bartender with a lot of makeup and a ridiculously thick scarf roped around her neck.  She had plucked her eyebrows completely out, looked like, and replaced them with a brown arc of eyebrow pencil.  She was short and had a full face. 

“Is this the Blue Sidecar?”

“It was till two weeks ago.  Now it’s Amy’s Candlelight Fine Dining and Sports Bar.  You’re in the sports bar honey.”

“What happened to the Blue Sidecar?”

“The owner drank too much.”

“I see.  Are you Amy?”

“No.”

“You serving lunch?”

“Sure am.  Want a menu?”

“Yeah.”

“How about a drink.”

“You got any craft beer?”

“No.  But when I get you craft beer types in here, I give them a draft Yuengling Dark.  You’ll like it.”

“OK.”

She smiled.  When she did her cheeks moved up and made her eyes smaller.  They had a twinkle though.  She had big teeth.

There was a single menu for both the fine dining and sports bar sides.  I wouldn’t put the menu items in the category of fine dining but then again, the sports bar had no candles. 

“What’s good here Amy?”

“I told ya I’m not Amy.”  She pointed to a badge pinned to that big scarf.  “I’m Katelyn.”

“Sorry.  I forgot.  So what’s good here Katelyn?”

“I wouldn’t have nothin’ but the brisket sandwich myself.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s all made up from the smoker.  The cook can’t mess with it.”

“OK, I think I’ll have the brisket sandwich.”

“You want fries, sweet potato fries, onion rings, or slaw with that?”

“Slaw.  Can you give me extra?”

“I’ll take care of you honey.”

I’d brought my road atlas in to figure out where I was going.  Another road, Route 20, would take me over towards Fairmount and then Elkins.  That was my preferred destination, if the weather would let me get there.

Another woman came in and sat on a barstool at the end of the bar.  She had a portable phone and a notebook in her hand.  She quickly punched in a number and began talking.  She was loud and all business.  I couldn’t help but overhear. 

“I need to place a liquor order.  These are all 1.75’s all right?  Handles.  You ready?”

She paused, not looking pleased. 

“Now you ready?”

“OK, I want 7 Jack Daniels, 3 Crown Royal, 2 Southern Comfort, and a Wild Turkey.  8 Captain Morgan.  Oh, and 2 Fireball.  That price gone down on Fireball yet? “

 Pause. 

“Salesman said the price was going down.  What’s up with that?”

Pause. 

“Yeah, I still want it.”

Katelyn was changing the stations on the TVs.

“Anything you want to watch honey?”

“No.”

The liquor order turned to clear spirits.

“OK, I need 8 Smirnoff, 4 Apple Smirnoff, a Grey Goose, 4 Bacardi white, a Malibu Rum, 3 McCormick Gins, and a Tangueray.”

Pause.

“I think that’s all.  How soon can you get it here?”

Pause.

“Yeah, I know it’s snowin’.” 

Pause.

“Ok, well we need this stuff damn soon.”

Pause. 

“OK Bye.”

Katelyn brought my sandwich.  It was huge.  She drew me another Yuengling and went to stand by the woman who placed the liquor order.  She was showing her something on her cell phone and they were laughing.

The brisket was delicious.  The bun could have been better but not the meat.  It had a sweet smoky flavor and a soft texture.  The slaw was homemade and chunky.  I put some on top of the brisket. 

“Sorry to eavesdrop,” I said to the woman sitting at the bar “but that was a whopping order of booze.  Sounds like you’re doing quite a business.”

“Yeah, well it is winter in West Virginia with not a lot else to do.”

“Do you mind me asking what you’re doing with all that apple vodka?”

“Appletinis.  We got a bunch of old women can’t get enough of ‘em.”

 “You must be Amy.”

She pointed to her nameplate too.

“Nope, I’m Kathy.  Jesus Katelyn, why do we even wear these name tags anyway?”

“Who’s Amy then?”

“Amy is the owner’s six-year-old daughter.”

They laughed.  Standing beside each other, the two women look alike, right down to their teeth and eyebrows.

“Are you sisters?”

“Cousins.  We get that all the time.”

“I see you got a map book there.  Where you headed?”  Kathy said.

“I’m taking the long way to Florida.”

“I’ll say.  Where you going today?”

“I’m trying to get to Elkins.  I was going to drive on 250 but decided against it.  There’s another road that would take me there, Route 20.  How’s that road?”

They looked at each other and laughed big, their eyes nearly disappearing into their faces.  Katelyn finally answered.

“It’s no better than 250 honey.  I used to both them roads to Fairmount when I was takin’ classes down there.  Even in good weather, they’re hard to drive.”

Kathy chimed in.  “Them roads is just one kiss ass turn after another.”

“Kiss ass turns?”

Katelyn, standing behind the bar, grabbed an imaginary steering wheel in front of her.  She twisted the wheel far-right, threw her butt and head in the same direction, and gave a little air kiss.  She repeated the same move on her left, then flashed a big smile and said:

“That honey is a kiss ass turn.” 

The cousins cackled with laughter.  I laughed too.  Three of us in a bar in a snowstorm storm enjoying the naming of a new American concept.  New to me at least.   Kiss ass turns.  You learn something every day.

“That Route 20 is awful.  For starters, you lose cell phone service as soon as you get on it.  And they don’t plow it.  Don’t take care of it hardly at all.” 

“Doesn’t anybody live out there?”

“Oh, hell yeah.  But they aren’t going anywhere.  They come into town as little as possible.  They like it out there.  And if you go in the ditch and get help from one of ‘em you might get more than you bargained for, if you know what I mean.”

The door opened and a man covered with snow walked in.  He took off his WVU Volunteers stocking hat, his grey hair wild and sticking up, and slapped it on his knee.  Snow flew. 

“Damn girls, it's winter out there.”

 Katelyn mixed him a Captain and coke without him asking.  He ignored me.

“What happened after I left last night?”

His eyes twinkled.  It must have been quite a night.  Kathy answered.

“Well, we wouldn’t let Darryl drive home.  Had to call him a cab.  He was pissed off but oh well.  Place finally cleared out but not till almost three.”

“Jesus Christ, was Darryl was on a bender or what?” the man said.

“He’d been up for 72 hours,” Kathy added.

Katelyn came down and took my empty plate.

“So, it sounds like it would be smarter going down to Parkersburg on 2 and take 50 West to Clarksburg,” I said.

"Yeah, that’s the smart way to go today.  There’s a good road to Weston too.  You can get to Elkins easy from there.”

I paid my bill and said goodbye to Katelyn, Kathy, and Amy’s Candlelight Fine Dining and Sports Bar.  When Katelyn handed me my change, she winked at me.  I was half tempted to see if I could find a room in New Martinsville and experience the sports bar at night but then thought better of it.  I’d been down that road too, a long, long time ago.  Better to stay off that one as well.    

A Trip to the City

My wife and I try to get to Chicago once a month to be with our kids and our new Granddaughter June.  We’re doing that by booking Air B&B’s in neighborhoods close to them.  We used to find deals on hotel rooms downtown but somehow the pandemic has changed that vibe. 

We drive to Joliet, take the Metra to LaSalle Street station, then an Uber to where we are staying.  We’ve decided it’s not the accommodations but the location that matters, the neighborhood around us.  Last week, we ended up in an old brick two-flat in the 2000 block of West Wabansia.  It felt like we were living in the city instead of staying as tourists.

We were in Wicker Park close to where Milwaukee, Damen, and North Avenue intersect.  There’s a Blue Line station close.  If we learn just a little more, we can figure out how to navigate from there to anywhere in the city.  But for this stay, we were anxious to walk outside.  It had been a long winter and the weather promised to be warm. 

We had Tuesday all to ourselves and would stay the next two days with June.  I started Tuesday early by making coffee and walking a half block to Sylvia’s Market on the corner to buy a Tribune.  My wife shopped there the day we arrived, buying some basics.  I looked for a snack to put in my bag for later.

Finding no candy bars, I spotted a small package labeled CASHEW FIG CARROT.  It was described as Plant Based Paleo containing dates, figs, cashews, carrots, vanilla extract, nutmeg, and Himalayan pink salt.  $4.95 for less than two ounces.  I bought it.  That along with a Trib for $3.00 and tax meant I got a buck and some change back from a ten.  What are you gonna do?

My wife plans these trips.  She figured we were close to something called the 606 or the Bloomingdale Trail.  Our kids talk about it as a raised walkway/bike path.  Turns out it was two blocks north of Sylvia’s Market.  We went there straight away after breakfast.  The sun was out, and it was warming up quickly.

The Bloomingdale trail was a rail line built in the 1800s, elevated 16 feet above street level in 1914, and finally abandoned in 1969.  In 2015, Chicago opened it as a linear park, a ribbon of cycling, jogging, walking trails along with other areas for gathering and relaxing.  It runs for 2.7 miles through Bucktown, Logan Square, Wicker Park, and Humboldt Park.  It’s often connected to park areas below.  The 606 has also become a magnet for newly created apartments and condos which have raised rents and increased property values, likely pricing others out.  That’s gentrification for you.

The 606 is lovely.  You are in the city but looking down on it as well, removed from the cars and busses and bustle of the street.  They built a soft path for walkers and joggers running both ways that is easy on your feet.  Occasional ramps bring you up and take you down to the street at various locations.  It was just what my wife was looking for.  I don’t walk as far as her, so I found a bench in the sun overlooking a dog park at the corner of Bloomingdale and Winchester.  My wife continued walking east determined to make it to the end of the trail.  I worked on the Trib crossword puzzle.  The 606 was getting busier.  So was the dog park.

Whereas humans on the trail engage in sitting, walking, jogging, biking, rollerblading, skateboarding, and riding scooters separately; the dogs in the park had a whole communal thing going on.  They were sniffing, panting, running, jumping (some more than others), barking surprisingly little, growling almost not at all, but doing it all as a group.  They were a big active pack.

I didn’t count them, but there were a lot of dogs within that fenced area representing many breeds.  Most all looked to be purebred: a Weimaraner, a Flat-Coated Retriever, all the Labradors-yellow, black, chocolate.  A Bernese Mountain Dog came trotting in through the gate, a double gate like a salle port you find in prisons where one door locks behind you before the one in front of you is opened.  All the other dogs came up to sniff him, which he seemed to patiently endure before moving away slowly, looking shy and overweight.  If I were to name him, I’d call him Wally.  Just a big nice guy.

There were not one but two big Standard Poodles.  You could easily tell them apart because one had the whole deal, tricked out, frou-frou haircut.  Big ball of fluffy hair on the end of his tail and on his forehead.  Shaggy patches of hair on his hindquarters and front feet and shaved down everywhere else.  I feel sort of sorry for such dogs.  They must feel silly looking like that.  The more casually trimmed Standard Poodle appeared to be much more chill. 

I was looking for an Irish Setter.  I knew one named Casey in the ’70s that was a beauty and hoped to see another.  Maybe next time.  There was a skinny and sad-looking Whippet or Italian Greyhound walking around slowly.  Dogs like that make me want to feed them. 

There was a Bedlington Terrier in there.  They always look out of place to me, more like a lamb than a dog.  But he (or she) was frisky and having a good time.  A very happy-looking Golden Retriever was always in the middle of things.  A dark-colored French Bulldog was one of the smaller but more active dogs. 

Mixed in were dogs I didn’t know.  A couple of short stocky dogs had kinky tails curled up over their backs.  They must have been the same breed, but I have no idea what it was.  Completing the group was a few obvious crossbreeds.  They carried themselves well among the purebreds.  Perhaps only on the corner of Bloomingdale and Winchester could mutts exude such an air of privilege.   

The canine activity dominating the park was sniffing, both the ground and each other.   And the human-directed sport that rose above all others was ball fetching.  Lots and lots of sniffing and dogs fetching balls tossed by humans.  I was surprised there was not more competition over the balls.  By watching the fetching, I could quickly match owners with dogs.  Balls thrown by owners were nearly always retrieved and returned by their own dog.  I think it was the scent.  One sniff and the dogs knew if the ball belonged to them. 

It was constant canine motion, a mob of interacting dogs, whereas the humans accompanying their dogs in the park were fairly stationary and aloof from each other.  The ball throwers stood, and the others mainly sat on benches.  Some watched their dogs intently while others were lost in the screens on their phones. 

At noon it seemed as if the whole dog neighborhood had arrived. One of the last to enter the salle port entrance was a beautiful German Shepherd.  It was a distinguished-looking dog with that little slouch to its hind end that distinguishes the breed.  Its owner was a quiet middle-aged man, wearing a tweed sports coat and a flat wool cap covering gray hair.  

As they do, the dogs all came over to greet and smell the German Shepherd latecomer.  Typically, after an initial smell, the pack goes on about their business of being dogs, and most did, save for the French Bulldog, who was apparently enthralled by something he smelled on the German Shepherd.  Couldn’t get enough of it.  Wherever the German Shepherd went, the French Bulldog followed.    

The well-dressed owner of the German Shepherd fished a tennis ball out of his jacket pocket and began lobbing it in the air not far from his dog. It was immediately obvious that this was a routine often repeated.  As the German Shepherd went for the ball you could see by the way it moved it was old.  When the dog went to grab the ball in its mouth, on the bounce, it gave a feeble jump.  Only its front paws left the ground. After it caught the ball, it continued a few steps to gather itself, stopped, then turned to trot slowly back to its human.

Watching this game between man and dog play out in the present I could imagine their past.  The then young man threw the tennis ball far across the dog park.  The young Shepherd ran towards it furiously, leaped completely off the ground, launching its body recklessly toward the ball before landing softly and spinning around to dash back to his dark-haired owner.  Time had caught up to them both. 

As I sat on the bench above the dog park the procession of bikers, joggers, and walkers flowed both ways behind me, but very quietly.  When things got slow in the dog park, I’d turn my attention to them.  I soon realized the quiet was caused by the earbuds they wore.  Their day wasn’t absent sound or music, but rather personalized and confined to their own ears. Their songs and podcasts couldn’t be heard by others, with one refreshing exception. 

A guy in his forties strolled by with a sound machine of some kind in a backpack blaring “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes from 1963.  Nothing like a little Motown blasting away in the neighborhood to pick up the mood.  He was walking slowly so I heard the whole song before it faded away.  I whistled along with the tune.

Back at the dog park, several things became apparent about both dogs and humans.  Dogs play joyfully without direction.  Ball fetching aside, being in the company of one another is joy enough for dogs.  I also concluded that dogs don’t care about appearances.  Even the frou-frou Standard Poodle and the skinny Italian Greyhound held their heads high.  We apply our own values to animals when they could care less.  It was obvious that small dogs felt equal to big ones, pedigree means nothing at all to dogs, and the French Bulldog was NEVER going to keep his nose out of the German Shepherd’s ass.

That last fact created the only real crisis of the day at the Bloomingdale/Winchester Dog park, and it was not a crisis among the dogs.  The owner of the French Bulldog, a young woman very absorbed in her smartphone, happened to look up at the very moment her bulldog went from sniffing the rear end of the old German Shepherd to locking his front legs around the Shepherd’s back leg and humping it for all he was worth.

The young bulldog owner was immediately off the bench yelling at her dog, who could not have ignored her more completely if he tried.  Never looked once in his owner’s direction, and never missed a beat.  As the German Shepherd moved away, the bulldog danced along with it, dragged in the direction of a just thrown tennis ball, still clutching the larger dog’s leg.

By this time the young woman who owned the French Bulldog, clearly suffering genuine shame and embarrassment (as if it were her fault, or anyone's, or even a problem) had her leash in hand and was walking quickly towards her dog who managed to stay just out of her reach yet still within a nose thrust of the German Shepherd’s rear end.

Oddly enough neither the German Shepherd nor its owner was alarmed by the French Bulldog's behavior.  The bulldog’s owner beseeched the German Shepherd’s owner with words.  I was far enough away that I couldn’t hear them, but her body language screamed apology and a clear plea that her dog (and her) be forgiven, to which the Shepherd’s owner responded with palms out, a shrug, a smile.

Being human rather than canine I can’t read dogs as well I can people, but the German Shepherd didn’t seem phased in the slightest either.  It would occasionally look back as if to see if it was still the little bulldog poking its hindquarters with that cold nose, but not once did it growl or show its teeth.  The Shepherd continued to mosey after the ball slowly and give a little jump when it caught it.

My wife came back about the time the crisis, clearly human, was concluded by the young woman leashing her dog and frantically dragging it through the gates and down the sidewalk.

My wife ignored the dogs.  She was pumped from having made it to the end of the trail and back.  She had stories to tell.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“Mostly I’ve been watching these dogs.”

“Woo Hoo.  Sounds exciting.”

“Actually, it was pretty good.  There’s a lot goes on in a dog park I’ve found.”

“Yeah, well it’s almost 1:00. Did you bring anything to eat?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.”

I pulled out the $4.95 CASHEW FIG CARROT paleo bar and unwrapped it.

“You want half?”

“Sure.”

When I tore the gooey dark bar in half, my remaining bit looked about the same size as the filling in one, two if you stretched it, fig newtons.  And it tasted about the same, minus the cookie wrapping.  My wife ate her half in two bites.

“Not bad.”

I can buy a whole bag of Fig Newtons at Kroger for about $3.00.  That’s life in the big city, I guess.

That night, old friends from Rogers Park came down.  We had wine and appetizers at the two-flat and walked to an Indian restaurant named Cumin.  Great food.  On the way back we tried to stop for a drink at a bar called Absinthe, but it was closed.  I think it was closed the last time I tried to go there years ago.  No absinthe for us.

As Mr. Rogers would say, it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, March 15, 2022.   The next two days we spent with June.  And on Friday we went home.  Good trip.