Baby, I Was Wrong

Our Maine Experience

 

It will be a month today since we packed up the big truck in Bangor, Maine and pointed her nose for the Mojave Desert of California.  The trip from Bangor to Ridgecrest totaled 3,351 miles, took seven days, several hotels, Thanksgiving dinner at a Denny's in New Mexico, a few disagreements, a fender bender, $1500.00 in gasoline, $3,600 in truck rental costs, and a four-day hotel stay at our destination at $200.00 a day while we waited for the sale process to complete and we had keys to our new home.   It wasn't a pleasant experience but from the beginning we treated this move as a mission, not a pleasure drive.  It was a required journey. 

One thing I know for sure- while we miss the people we worked with and the friendships that we forged,  we do not miss everyone we met. Here is another truth, if it wasn't for Maine and Covid-19, and for a flooded walkway to our home last Spring that turned into a major landscaping project, we wouldn't be living in this lovely home we own in California. We are grateful for the bounty for it came from hard work with no thought of reward.

We fell in love with Maine through several vacation trips over ten years. The scenery is astonishing, diverse, and no trip was the same, each visit was an exploration  of another natural area within the State. The seafood was beyond delicious, it was culinary excellence. Some of the people were rather cranky, but we had been there several times and had only had a few unpleasant encounters,   So we moved there with every intention to spend the rest of our lives in Maine. Three years later?  Maine is no longer our home.

I won't linger long on our time in Maine. There won't be a Diffle County or some other fictional piece based upon our Maine experience. We explored, we ate delicious seafood, explored some more, and lived a quiet life in a quiet mobile home community.  We also nearly died from Covid-19, fought the  good fight trying to do our jobs against prejudice, resistance, unnecessary roadblocks, passive-aggressive obstructionists, threats of bodily harm, and even an offer of murder. After three years we both knew that it wasn't the Maine winters that we couldn't handle. As the saying goes, it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the whole barrel.  

To understand Mainers you only need to know this - they would rather vacation in their own State than anywhere else.  Maine is not your vacationland, it's their vacationland.  Mainers know tourism is important for their State and it is the perfect place for tourism to thrive,  but then when the tourist season is over they would like you to leave, thank you very much. They have sheds on sleds at their camps and as soon as the lakes freeze, those sheds slide out onto the ice. Let the ice fishing commence.  That's not all.

When the snow flies they are on the trails with their snowmobiles and ATV's,  enjoying the land their Great Grand Daddies fought to keep against the weather, the bears, the wolves, the bobcats, the weasels and fishers, the chiggers and ticks,  against the British, the Bostonians, and sometimes the French, and against those folks "from away" who did not sacrifice as their families had, and then against the weather again and again and again.  Maine mud is real and if you get stuck chances are the tow truck will get stuck trying to get to you.  Put on your big-boy pants, Maine is not a resort, it is hard living and its inhabitants are rough and ready for anything that gets thrown at them.

Sadly, there are the provincial Mainers who don't want outsiders to tell them how to improve their community, they don't want advice, they're insulted when you provide guidance, and because of that they will tear down anyone "from away"  who actually may want to improve their town.  In the end, the outsiders usually leave and isolationists win- and Maine takes another step backwards in time. Just like my bosses told me when they hired me, "We don't want anything to change."  I wish they understood that's impossible. Change will come, it always does.

But let's stop with the negatives right there. There were so many kind, caring people I met and worked with that I do not want to twist this into something it is not.   I loved every member my staff, my road crew, and almost every firefighter.  (That last sentence was for Char-lin.)  I loved my elected bosses, except the newest one (who lacks a moral compass to rise above her own self-interest.)  She's an exception. I've already developed a fictional character based loosely on her actions-  named La Meer, she will be a very large Maine Coon Cat, and will be featured in a future novel. She will not be the heroine.

 I truly love these good people, of solid Maine stock, who care about their community and serve it so well. They are my friends and I am honored to be their friend also. 

We will miss the Western Mountains, the Lakes Region, the Mid-Coast, the Bold Coast, the Northern Wilderness, the cities of Bangor and Portland, the Central Highlands, and Baxter State Park, We will miss Acadia, Blue Hill, Camden, Rockport, Rockland, Belfast, Brewer, Greenville, Dexter, St. Albans, and Moosehead Lake, possibly the most beautiful lake I have ever seen.

I deeply miss my St. Albans family, in spite of all the harrassment from the unsullied,  I will always love Maine and my Mainer friends have a place forever in my heart.  I'm sure we will be back sometime soon, probably after the spring thaw.  

Even though they can't make a cheesesteak to save their lives, and their pizza is a travesty,  they are some of the finest people I have ever met. 

Rick

  

 

Reality Defeats Wanderlust in Final Round

Would You Buy a Dead Cactus?

 Wanderlust started strong, with several right jabs and a good uppercut. Reality was stunned, bloodied, and ineffective with its counter punches.  But Reality prefers the fifteen round fight and has an unbeaten record.  But we fought on, scoring punches with trips to Maine from Pennsylvania, and then actually moving there - nearly a 7th round knock out - and then exploring all the natural sights that Maine has to offer.  We mapped our trips on a large map of Maine that was tacked to our door,  and we even started a website "We Explore Maine" but reality had a great counter punch to that - Covid-19.  Who was going to explore Maine under those conditions?  

Reality, sensing victory,  added more hard blows to the body and then to the head. Our dear Uncle Jim died after a short bout with cancer.  My father passed away. Our niece lost her baby in child birth.  My Great Nephew was murdered in cold blood on a sunny Sunday in the parking lot of a Target Superstore.   My wife's brother died suddenly due to alcohol poisoning, an addiction he couldn't beat.   Then our dog Sonnet became seriously ill and had to be put down.

Wanderlust tried vainly with some clever moves, floating like a monarch butterfly, stinging like a small bee with weekend trips to the coast.  Wanderlust was getting beat, and a knockout was likely.   Dinner at Masons Brewery on the Penobscot River- nothing more than a glancing jab.

Finally,  Maine got in the corner with reality and after a flurry of punches that hit hard, we saw the victory ahead for reality and Wanderlust threw in the towel.  We packed up, retired from boxing, and moved to California to be closer to family.

Wanderlust lost the fight because it needed to lose the fight, and to lose every fight. Reality wins because for all its harshness, it also brings clarity, responsibility, and love into union.  Our health improves, and our view of the world improves as well, because it is based upon the undefeated, the reality of our own lives.

The Call of the Sea

Tall Ship Hawaiian Chieftain in Salmon Bay

I have always wanted to live at the ocean. When I was a child, every summertime Wednesday we would pack the station wagon with beach gear and my father and mother would drive us (Robby, Randy, Ricky, and Rusty) to Ship Bottom, New Jersey.  This is where I discovered body-surfing and Yoo Hoo chocolate drink.

When I was in my mid-twenties I worked for a ship reporting service in Philadelphia as a dispatcher and later held a similar job with a tugboat company. As nearly every sailor will tell you, there is something about the sea that draws you in and never releases you.  You are as hooked as a marlin on the end of a fishing line. 

Tall Ship Lady Washington

 

 The magnificent beauty of the Puget Sound is a tonic for a damaged soul, a vibrant combination of sight, sounds, and smells that will stay strong in your memory for many years. I fell in love with the sweet Pacific Ocean breezes that poured in through open windows. 

In the photographs above and the the right,  the steamship paddle boat Queen of Seattle was turning around in Salmon Bay near the Ballard locks.  Suddenly out of the locks appeared two tall ships.  Lady Washington arrived first. She starred  in the first Pirates of Caribbean movie. Following her out of the locks was the tall ship Hawaiian Chieftain.  The Lady Washington actually circled our ship and our Captain jokingly exclaimed  "We're surrounded by pirates!"

From July through October of 2012, I  spent most of my working days on the steamship paddle boat "Queen of Seattle".  Once owned by Alaska Travel Adventures, a company that lost its way with this purchase,  she was built in a Sacramento  backyard by a wealthy Californian obsessed with steam engines.

The Queen of Seattle is a 149 foot long steam-powered paddle boat- the largest such vessel west of the Mississippi River. Her capacity is 243 people.  She was built to reflect an earlier time in history. She is a combination of old and new construction.

She is a lovely ship, built from decommissioned World War 2 Navy ships that were struck from the Navy register and sold for scrap. She may be haunted by the ghost of her builder, or of the men who fought and died on the decks of the ships she was built from....

According to public records, some of the Queen's windows are from the USS Calvert (APA-32),  a Crescent City- Class Attack Transport  whose superior service to the U.S. Navy won her ten battle stars and a Navy Unit Commendation.  In Word War II, the USS Calvert landed troops in North Africa, Sicily, Philippine Islands, Gilbert Islands, Kwajalein, Marianas, Saipan, and the occupation of Japan. She was commissioned again for the Korean war and for a final service in the Vietnam war.  The builder of the Queen was transported home from the Pacific theater on the USS Calvert.

I washed those windows every week and often thought about our passengers looking through at the city of Seattle, not knowing that our soldiers and sailors once looked through those same windows on a journey a very different, and often deadly reality.  I owed it to those soldiers, many who never  returned, to keep that glass clean for the folks who rode the Queen in leisure in the summer of 2012.

Her controls were from the USS Interpreter, a radar picket ship that was part of our early warning defense system and would sail for weeks at a time on the Pacific Ocean.  Originally a private freighter, the USS Interpreter was purchased by the US Navy and outfitted for her mission at the Philadelphia Naval Yard- on the same Delaware River where I dispatched tugboats, including a few times to the navy yard itself.

I stood at the helm several times that summer and piloted the Queen of Seattle using the controls from the USS Interpreter.  "Keep her mid-ship  Mr. Fisher" the Captain would growl in that salty Captain voice after we passed under the Fremont bridge and entered "The Cut", a man-made canal that joins Lake Union to the Puget Sound.

Naval Personnel aboard the USS Calvert

The Queen of Seattle was originally christened the Elizabeth Louise. She was built over a ten-year span between 1975 and 1985 on a vacant scrapyard lot by 63-year old crane operator Hal Wilmunder.

Her paddle engines were built in 1884 and were installed on at least 5 different ships, finally ending up on the tugboat Detroiter, which worked on the Ohio River. The engines were later sold for scrap.  Capt. Wilmunder found them and then built a boat to fit them.  He launched the Elizabeth Louise on the Sacramento River in September of 1985.

USS Interpreter

Hal Wilmunder died tragically after he fell off the stern of the paddle boat and drowned in the Sacramento River on Easter Sunday, April 20, 2003.  That isn't something that was mentioned on the tour narration and probably for good reason.  According to published reports, the ship's door alarm had gone off and Hal went to investigate. At that time Alaska Travel Adventures (ATA) had offered Hal Wilmunder 1-million dollars for the Queen but he refused, his seller price at 3-million.  After his death, his widow sold the ship to ATA...for one million dollars.  They took it to Alaska and renamed it Alaskan Queen.  The venture failed and they moved her to Seattle and renamed her Seattle Queen but didn't bother to change the large AQ they installed between the steam stacks above the wheelhouse.

On the day he disappeared, Hal had placed his a wallet and watch on the upstairs bar of the Queen. Then he took his final swim.  His body was recovered 3 days later, a few miles downriver from the ship.  There were questions about how someone who built and knew every square inch of that ship could fall and hit his head on the paddle wheel. What does the paddle wheel have to do with the door alarm?  After a short investigation his death was ruled accidental.  But he was known to have enemies and there were rumors he may have caught a thief, or his death was arranged- that it was no accident- but if that were true, the  evidence died with Mr. Wilmunder,   Some say his ghost haunts the vessel and many of the mechanical issues that ultimately ended the Queen's daily cruises were of suspicious nature.

For some, questions remain:  Why was Hal Wilmunder on board the Elizabeth Louise on Easter Sunday?  Why do some of us believe his spirit may still be aboard the Queen?  Why did the ship constantly have major mechanical problems?  

We will never have the answers but here is my truth - Hal Wilmunder built a paddle boat masterpiece out of scrap iron from decommissioned naval vessels.  The Elizabeth Louise is a beautiful ship deserving better than the junk tours she barely endured.

I will never forget the  Queen of Seattle. I loved those few short months I rode her, and she will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Crazy Billy & Rafter Kat (Waiting for You)

Time to Write New Stories

I have decided to place music on the back burner. Let it simmer.  Stir occasionally.  Add a few seasonings from time to time.   While I am passionate about creating new songs, there comes a point where it feels rather absurd, self-centric, and maybe childish too.  It can be very cathartic and relaxing. There is fun in the creation, but there is also so much work to perfect it and that takes time.   I don't have an endless supply of time.  

Stories from Diffle County, The Adventures of Nikolast, and The Ice Bridge will be my focus for the next year.  The click click click of the keyboard will be my music.  There will be no political commentary of any kind, at least not in a real world setting- I can't guarantee that my stories won't reflect the changing political playground we call a Democracy.

I also am aware that some people believe that all the birds on the planet have been replaced by bird-like drones and they are watching us.  That explains why my bird feeder isn't that popular.  Drones don't need to eat. 

Also, would someone tell the U.S. Bird Drone Replacement Agency to move the mockingbird away from my bedroom window.  He/she is talented and also very obnoxious at 4:30 a.m., so please re-station him/her to another street, closer to the guy in my neighborhood who hates squirrels. 

Have squirrels been replaced by drones as well?

A quick shout out to my 4 loyal followers.   Wow.  Are you also drones?   

RDF

The Failure of Our Home Healthcare System

There are clear choices that have to be made in a pandemic on who gets a hospital bed and who gets an IV and sent home to work on recovery from there.  

Then there is the support system for both choices. The first is following an established regimen for treatment of a virus that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.  The support for this is strong and effective.

But what about the latter of the two?  If a person is sent home, the follow up with a home health care professional would be a critical component to maintaining bed space in the hospital while also treating patients just below that level of care, but needing an elevated care as well.  This level of care doesn't exist

The health service companies and most assuredly the insurance companies would like you to believe that a system of aftercare does exist and there is an after care available- weeks afterwards where the crisis is over and you don't need one more retired nurse to remind you to take your meds. 

What is missing in this pandemic is clear, multi tiered approach to fight the virus at all levels in in every patient in an immediate manner.

Why is it missing ?  I don't know because there could have been community outreach training, identification and allocation of required essential equipment personnel just for this purpose.

When the Secretary of the Treasury takes back 500 billion in COVID 19 because it went unspent, then one can only conclude it was never designed to be spent.

I don't place the blame on our elected officials who failed us and yes, they did fail us in dramatic and deadly ways.   I blame us.  This is our country and we have allowed fringe players with conspiracy theories to join in our national conversations, we have chosen popularity over passion, power over prudence, and our own beliefs over the beliefs of others. 

We supported banks making money off college loans and dragging down our brilliant students into a service economy geared for corporate profit. Binding them like serfs to an unfair, monetary system that rewards the top one percent at the expense of the 99 percent is a disgraceful act.  So the banks and quasi govt. Lending organizations can make a little side money  as well on interest and penalties.

I blame us for giving selfish and greedy false prophets  the power over us, to lie to us, to encourage our baser instincts, and to divide and conquer our shared American experience. 

Problems require solutions from level headed people. We don't need to fly flags on  our trucks as if we are the American Isis or to wear our prejudices on our sleeves as if that gives them a value they do not deserve and will never be worthy of. 

We have a constitution that protects our Right to bear arms so why do we argue on known facts?  We also know that mentally ill people shouldn't be able to purchase  automatic rifles. Front line workers in health care need PPE and  our support and there is no legitimate reason we cannot support that request.  There are solutions to these types of problems.

There needs to be a new area of health care where professionals and patients have a third choice, not just Doctor office or the emergency room. In one newspaper article after another we read of an elderly couple who waited too long to get treatment because one did not want to leave the other behind.  They both get too sick and die within minutes of each other and we think how romantic that they had one last kiss. I'm betting they would have wanted more than that if they had a choice, if our nationwide healthcare system had a treatment regimen for them.  They get the kiss of death from a broken system, designed to work in sunny weather and to the benefit of the insurance adjustors who want everything just perfect for their bottom line. 

 It's woeful and it forces older couples to stay home together for fear of leaving the other partner home alone with Covid19.  It's not sweet, it's cold, heartless, and terribly inhuman and cruel and we must demand that a third tier of treatment be established  and bring permanent change to this wholly inadequate pandemic threatened health care system.

Richard Fisher. COVID PATIENT , ICU , EMMC, BANGOR, ME

 

The Amazing Adventures of Nikolast the Cat - Chapter 2

 The Amazing Adventures of Nikolast the Cat - Chapter 2  - The Ladybug Compact

By Richard Dean Fisher

The dying embers of the fire cracked and crackled as Nikolast slept.  The air cooled and a cold draft blew from under the Thomas Cottage front door. Nikolast woke up, stood on all fours and shook and ruffled his short fur.  A ladybug who had been sleeping on his tail catapulted into the air and only due to a furious beating of her wings did she avoid the hot fireplace.  The Ladybug landed on the tip of  Nikolast's ear. He took a white paw swipe at her and missed as she floated above him, then landed again in a tuft of fur just inside Niko's ear.

  "Hello?"  said a very tiny voice. Nikolast froze.  "Hello, can you hear me?"  said the very tiny voice in Niko's ear. Niko nodded.

"Who are you?" the minuscule voice asked.

"I'm Nikolast or Niko. Who are you?  I can't see you. I can barely hear you." Niko replied as he slowly turned his head to look around the room.    

Ladybug giggled and tickled Niko's ear.  "I'm in here. Miss Tennelope Ladybug at your service and pleased to meet you.  Nikolast walked over rubbed along side the couch, making certain to turn his head to try to stop that tiny itch in his ear.  Tennelope flew out of his ear and landed on his nose.  "Can you see me now, Nikolast?   You haven't answered my question who are you?" Tennelope Ladybug shouted as loud as she could,  "I wasn't asking your name, I was asking WHO are you that  crows would place you under their protection?  They only do that by prophecy."

Nikolast  tilted his head slightly.   "First, Miss Ladybug, I don't know anything about a crow prophecy or that I am under their protection.  I spoke with a crow today and we became friends."  Niko shook his head but the ladybug was faster and floated above and then gently landed on top of Niko's head.  She landed so lightly Niko didn't even know she landed at all! 

" That is a problem for you indoor animals.  You spend all your time with humans inside their homes and get no outside education at all.  I will let the crows explain their customs to you but I am going to  be tagging along.   You probably don't know this but ladybugs are good luck and it is very bad luck to kill a ladybug.  Once the crows placed you under their protection, the ladybug nation, in accordance with the agreement forged at the Great Circle join in the protection. We provide a good luck shield for you. And so I am here."   She busily fussed with her dotted wings.  "I just don't understand how an indoor cat can be this important,."  

Nikolast shook his head several times to ride himself of this insulting little bug, but every time she was faster and landed on him again.  "Are you going you be in my fur the entire time?  He was exasperated.

"Not all the time,  I have ladybug business to attend to. I will tell you when I am leaving and when I will return."  shouted the tiny voice from on top of Niko's head.

Niko shrugged, " Miss Tennelope I am not certain how this is necessary or how one ladybug will protect a cat 50,000 times her size, but you are welcome to 'tag along'."  

"Nikolast, I am not the only ladybug here." As she spoke thousands of ladybugs emerged from every crack and corner in the walls, flying up to cover the entire ceiling of the room. Miss Tennelope Ladybug then flew three circles above Niko's head and just as quickly as they had arrived, they disappeared back into their hiding places. Then she landed on Niko's nose and smiled at him.

Nikolast was impressed but also curious, "Miss Ladybug, that was something to see. But how will that protect me?"

Ladybug smiled.  "We can create a screen that repels bat radar and blocks the keenest of night vision, say from owls or nighthawks. There are other uses too, but those are highly secret.  It is not a good day for you should we have to use our advanced skills to protect you."

" I don't know why I would need protection,"  Nikolast replied,  frustrated with all this nonsense, he jumped up onto the sofa and curled up on top of a decorative pillow of hand-stitched daisies and ladybugs.

Outside the window, the Watcher's Net had expanded one hundred miles to the North, into The County, as it is referred to by humans, and the great last wilderness in the Eastern United States.   Red Winged  blackbirds had now joined in to cover the farmland areas, to avoid confrontations with humans who love red-winged blackbirds but would shoot Crows sitting on cornstalks without hesitation.

Soon reports were carried back through the net to Johnny Crow.   Hawks in the North had begun flying in crossing patterns above the net,  canvassing the land from above.  Johnny Crow, King of the Eastern  Sunrise Nation, was stunned,  This was told and retold for generations that a great  war of the wild animals would arrive soon after the birth of a kitten named Niko, last of its litter.   Johnny Crow sent a message back through the net- send in the sparrows to disrupt the hawks and chase them off.

~end Chapter 2 

 

 

  

The Amazing Adventures of Nikolast the Cat - Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Friendship

 

Chapter 1 - An Introduction to Friendship

By Richard Dean Fisher

Nikolast is a cat.  He started out in life  (like all cats do)  as a kitten.   And he wasn't an extraordinary kitten either.. He was the runt of the litter,  a  calico kitten with flecks of tabby orange around his face and a thin, black stripe on each ear, from base to tip, right up the center.  He looked like a baby bobcat.  Basically, Nikolast was very much a normal kitten with a few unusual markings.  I forgot to mention his paws.  One was completely white. The other three were black as a crow's feather.

Johnny is a crow.  Big and black, with a black beak, and marble-black eyes, and dark gray claws. He enjoys talking to humans and following them around with his cousins, brothers and sisters.  'Hey Jim, you're 5 minutes late for work."  "Hey Jeanie, did you forget your phone again?"  "Travis, Travis, you better hurry and get out of there, you'll be late to your wedding."   "Kevin, drop the french fries, you know you can't eat them all.  Hurry before those pesky sparrows show up."  

 Johnny Crow and Nikolast had never met before Sunday, March 7th in the 1300th year of the crow revival or the Year of the Cat, No. 2225.  Yet they had something in common that is rare in the animal world.  They both had deciphered the verbal  English language. No, they weren't bit by a radioactive spider. This isn't a super hero story.

It was a foggy March  morning in Fortune Oaks, Maine.  Nikolast was outside Thomas family cottage, laying low, silently watching blue-jays at the feeder.  He was 12 weeks old and had learned to walk between Bert Basset's paws to get  through the doggy- door, although the rubber door smacked him back several times before he found his balance and timing. To Niko's benefit, Bert Basset is an old hound dog, with a slow gait and the door does stay open a long time.  Sill, Nikolast was proud of his accomplishment, now for a nice plump blue-jay.

Johnny landed on a thick pine branch near the feeder, behind the cottage.  The taunting was about to begin.  

   "Hey big blue, how many of those seeds you need to eat to fill that big blue belly?"   Hey, big blue, the sky called. He wants his color back. Hey, how come ya'll have the same last name? That's all kind of seedy. "   

Johnny flew down to the wooden lighthouse feeder and landed on top.  The Blue Jays scattered.  Nearby the cawing of several crows could be heard as the flock of blue jays flew through the  neighborhood.  Then he flew down to the ground, looking for a french fry or piece of cheese.

Nikolast pounced and it was a good pounce, but perhaps a tad too high and maybe a second too fast, which he realized as he flew over the back of the black-feathered bird and tumbled across the lawn.  Johnny Crow noticed the breeze as Nikolast flew past.  

   "Do you want to try that again?  It was an elegant attempt.  I feel bad you missed. Of course, grabbing you in my talons and dropping you thirty feet will not result in an elegant landing at all."

Nikolast, looking suddenly disinterested, sat and groomed his paws before replying,

   "I wasn't trying to catch YOU for dinner, I was after a big, plump blue-jay.  YOU are all skin and bones," said Nikolast in a dismissive tone.  Besides, I'm too heavy for a bird to carry."  

 Johnny found a piece of old bread and poked at it with his beak, while keeping one eye on Nikolast.

   "You're a cute kitten, ya look like a baby bobcat, and I could fly with my talons dug into your soft, furry back.  I might just do that too and drop you off outside a Chinese restaurant, then dumpster dive tomorrow for  kitty-cat lo-mein.  Yum.  I'm getting hungry thinking of it."

Nikolast laid down facing Johnny Crow.  A lady bug landed on his ear.  

   "My name is Nikolast Octavio Leggier, 8th of my litter, born on the first moon of the Year of the Cat, No. 2225.  I am owned and cared for by humans named Thomas.  They kept me because I was the runt of the litter, I have very few friends.   Would you like to be my friend?"  

 The words burst out of Niko's mouth in a series of tiny meows.  Johnny tilted his head and observed Nikolast very carefully.  

   "You talk more than I do and that is saying a lot," said the young crow, "How do you know the name of your owners?  Is this a trick?   Do not pounce me again, you won't like the result.  OK, we can be friends on one or more conditions.  I do not accept fair weather friends, friends of convenience, or transactional friends.  I am free, un-owned and living dangerously in the outside world."   Johnny ruffled his feathers, stuck out his chest, and crowed or cawed but of crowing variety.

Nikolast replied with short laugh, 

  "Wow, you're kind of random, I don't know all those big words you spoke, we can just be friends.   Oh, and I know their name because they speak it all the time.  Nikolast stood up on his rear hind legs and bowed,  

'Hello Mr. Thomas, dinner is almost ready. Has your day gone well?" Nikolast pecked the air imaginatively, "Mrs. Thomas you are so good to me.  Leftovers are fine,  now where's our son Maxwell hiding today? And where's that playful kitten Nikolast hiding?"   Nikolast sat back down and smiled at Johnny Crow.

Johnny looked up into the trees.  He heard a hawk screech high in the blue-jay colored sky.

 "Buddy, there are only a few of us who can understand their words. That is a rare gift.  Now did you hear that screech?  A hawk is up in the sky circling.  He sees lunch and that's you.  He is twice my size and he doesn't like chit chat, just a dive bomb with talons first for his prey.  Get inside right away.  We'll talk again later."    Johnny waved his wings as he spoke, shooing the kitten onto the back porch where an old basset hound was patiently waiting (sleeping) to help Nikolast get back inside the house.

Johnny flew up into the higher branches of  the pine tree, one eye on the Thomas Cottage and one eye on the sky. Johnny thought ' I had better not be wrong but I think I need to establish a watch. Nikolast is completely unaware of the danger that is near this house.  The hawk screeched again.   Johnny began to call out to his cousins, sisters, and brothers.

"Set up a watcher's net, set up a watcher's net for a five long-flight radius, five long-flight radius," cried the crow over and over. Within minutes the call was  repeated and within a few hours  hundreds upon hundreds of crows took up positions in trees and rooftops, on poles and wires, extended for several miles. The crows repeatedly called out back and forth, standing as sentries into and throughout the day and long into nightfall.  

Nikolast was curled up asleep by the fireplace, the red flames of the fire licking at the seasoned red oak wood. Outside the Thomas cottage, for the first time since year 698 in the crow calendar, a watcher's net was in full force, and growing wider by the hour.

 End Chapter 1

 

 

 

 

New Song- Walk Along Your Jagged Line

Diffle County Report - Jack Taylor and the Civil War Inheritance - Chapter 2

Rabbit Run 

 
When he turned twenty, Jack Taylor married  his high school sweetheart Bonnie Weatenly and it wasn't very long before they had children,  Brandon and Marigold.  Jack built a modest 4-bedroom ranch house, dark green siding with white trim, with an attached two car garage, 200 feet back from Rabbit Mountain Road.  He snuggled the house as close to the gentle stream called Rabbit Run as possible,  He used a dirt road built by the previous owner as a driveway and that road follows Rabbit Run all the way to the bridge at the rear of the property where, according to local press, John Shenk of Shenk Auto died when he fell off the bridge while intoxicated and fracture his skull on a rock.  

Of course John Shenk's family found empty beer cans that were pierced all over and his pistol had been fired, and a tuft of black bear fur was lodged between his teeth.  Did he bite a black bear before he died?  Why was the gun empty of bullets?  Besides, John needed a case of beer to get drunk enough to fall off the bridge he built himself, his family concluded.  Some questions never get answered.

Behind the house, Jack built a 4 bay garage with a loft- man cave perpendicular to the house- with identical siding and trim.  He bought  4 ATV's, 4 Snowmobiles, several rifles and pistols. He built an inground swimming pool in the backyard of the house and built a small bathhouse in the corner of the detached garage with a doorway to the pool area.  He added 6' high privacy fence between the house and the garage.  Then he hired landscapers to to tie everything together with mulch, trees, rocks, and plants.

The Taylors were proud of their homestead and careful with their money.   They decided that it was no one's business where the money came from. They made modest donations to their Church and their favorite charities, placed their children in public school, and Bonnie got her Bachelor's Degree in Art Design online while Jack opened a gun and tackle shop at the old Batchelor Market, a few hundred feet south on the State highway from the Grinold Township building.

Of course, people talk in small towns and Jack's sudden purchase of  a large tract of land, a dilapidated Storefront property in the center of a rural township,  a new house built to spec, several adult recreation toys, a new Ford F-350, a complete remodeling of the Batchelor building, an all new inventory of guns and fishing gear, jackets and ammunition, hats, boots and hunting knives, and a year later, the addition of an indoor gun range, as well as a diamond ring on Bonnie's finger the size of a Kansas cow, and a modest donation to the Diffle County Food Pantry of $75,000 so they could afford commercial refrigerators- well that raised a few eyebrows and soon enough the gossip train left the station.

Jack didn't build his empire overnight.  Jack Taylor was 29 years old when stopped by the Township office to talk to Big Don about the State highway permit he needed for the shop that was painfully slow in arriving, holding up Jack's Grand Opening. It had been 11 years since he received his first inheritance check. Without fuel, even the gossip train slows back down over time. Jack Taylor didn't talk much and Bonnie was alrighty fine with that.  Still, Big Don had to ask,

" Jack, I'll call the State and see what I can do, but they aren't a friendly bunch,  Mind if I ask you a personal question?"

Jack smiled,  "Sure, go ahead. I may not answer if its too personal."

Don smiled back, "Did you rob a bank?  You may be the wealthiest young man in Diffle County!  I saw your dad last night at the Willow Inn, he was his usual self, a bit tired and muttering about a stolen inheritance. I'm told he's been drowning himself nightly in beer and whiskey, always talking to himself  and others.  I know that can be hard on family.  If there is anything you need..."  Jack interrupted him.

"Don, I never stole a penny in my life.  My dad needs help but until he admits he needs it, there isn't much I can do for him.  Yeah it's sad and at times I get angry but mostly I miss the dad I remember.  That isn't the guy drinking himself to death at the bar. I don't know that man. "  Jack paused for a moment before speaking in a quieter tone,

"As for the money, and I tell you this confidentially,  I was blessed with an ancestor from long ago who chose me without knowing who I am, on the chance that the alcoholism in his family wouldn't carry through more than three generations.  He held his fortune from civil war in trust on a prayer that one day our family would have an heir worthy of his fortunes. Don, I don't drink or smoke, I don't do drugs.  I never will and we will do great things with the money."  

For moment Big Don was speechless. He nodded his head as Jack's words sunk in.  "Jack, that sounds like a lot of money." 

Jack picked up his coffee and sipped after blowing on it to cool it down. He stood up and smiled at Don,

"The gesture is greater than the result.  My responsibility is to make the result greater than the gesture. We are blessed for it."  With that Jack readied himself to leave, but leaned in close to Big Don and whispered " Billions, not Millions"  and then Jack Taylor looked at Big Don with concern,

"If this gets back to me I will know it was you.  But if you can keep this to yourself,  there's a chance that Grinold Township will receive a blessing as well."   Jack winked at Big Don, who laughed, a merry smile on his face.

"Jack, I don't know how you do it."  Big Don stood up and stretched and the two men nodded to each other.  "See ya 'round Mr. Taylor."  

"Don't forget my driveway permit, Don."  Said Jack as he walked out the door,

A few months later Big Don was sitting , well.... where he pretty much sits every day, behind the big desk in the meeting room when town secretary Julie Winters walked in and handed him the mail.  Big Don opened the mail, as he had done the past 15 years. Inside one envelope with no return address was a check from the Taylor Foundation and a deed to the old Hasker farm, directly behind the Township building.

Don stared at the check for several minutes then, chuckled softly to himself, saying to no one in particular,  "I don't know how he does it."   The check was made out to Grinold Township in the amount of $250,000.  On the memo line there were instructions that read...

     Build a park with a playground. -Jack and  Bonnie