Can you imagine if each day you were given a snapshot of a moment that will happen in your life tomorrow? You sit down with your morning cup a'joe and there lays a Polaroid. Looks like you're in traffic with a grimace on your face. Or in some wild costume in a doctor's office. Or at a restaurant laughing so hard that tea comes out your nose. But you don't recognize any of these memories because they aren't memories. They haven't happened yet.
Why, I could cause a month's worth of buryings with that kind of knowledge. And it's not even knowledge, really. It's just enough insight to be dangerous. For had I seen a photograph of Grammy and me running down the middle of the street in our robes over Thanksgiving, we'd have worried one another sick and never have guessed the reason in a million giblets.
It was just us and critters in the old farmhouse that evening. Grammy stayed up late, awaiting my arrival, and we talked at the kitchen table until slumber overtook us.
We slept late the next morning, then sauntered to the kitchen for coffee and chatter, not bothering to properly dress for the day. We talked and snacked the morning away, until her phone rang.
I could only hear hysterics emitting from the receiver. Grammy said "we're coming" and threw down the phone. She told me to get my keys. I asked why, but all I got was "Sharon says Wally's gone!"
What? Who's Wally?
"Get'cher keys! Boots by the door!"
I stuck my bare feet in boots, grabbed my keys, and we were out the door for reasons unclear to me. Her daughter, Sharon, lives next door, and as I backed out of the driveway, I saw Sharon at the end of the street.
Sharon looked like a member of a new rap group called the Golden Spice Girls. Her 4½-foot frame was clad in black lounge pants, an oversized red fleece jacket that hung clear to her knees, and a blue bandana wrapped as a doo-rag containing wild wet curls. She was running as fast as her legs could carry her down the middle of Saxon Avenue.
Running far before her like Secretariat in the Belmont Stakes was a small tan dog who I, in Columbo-fashion, surmised to be Wally. I passed Sharon and rounded the corner to get ahead of the action.
The action passed us no sooner than I stopped the car. Wally ran in circles, jumped ditches and taunted us as we lunged for him through shrubbery. I can only imagine the view from the neighbors' plate-glass windows as three robed-and doo-ragged strangers clambered through their lawns like a private taping of The Jerry Springer Show.
It took 6six women, a closed gate and a turkey leg to stop Wally. As we walked toward the car, Grammy looked us over, raised her eyebrows and smiled. "Welcome home, Tooter. We never know what a day holds."
And that's probably for the best.
NAN Our Town on 11/29/2018