Summer Crushes

by Jono Walker

Rumor had it Jimmy Brusco went to reform school for hitting a cop with a two by four in broad daylight on Main Street. I have my doubts about that. Most of the folklore that circulated about Jimmy in those days couldn’t possibly have been true. All I can say for certain is that he was the scariest greaser in town and that for one long summer back when my cousin Bud and I were around twelve years old he was also a pretty good friend. Of course, I can see now that the crush he had on our older cousin Kelly had a lot to do with that. Why else would he have hung out with a pair of little squirts like us? Although we were too young to actually realize it at the time, unless my memory has totally failed at this late date, I can assure you that Kelly was a stunningly voluptuous 14 year old, which explains a lot.

It all began when Bud and I were riding our bikes down Mayfair Lane, the long private drive of what my Uncle Toppy dubbed the “Wassell Arboretum,” an eight acre enclave with housing lots Bud’s grandfather, YiYi, had set aside for each of his children. A sizeable part of the estate was eventually turned into the three-hole golf course that we remember from those years—that golden decade not long after three of YiYi’s sons who were meant to build their houses in the big field were killed in the war. In spite of its tragic history, Bud’s neighborhood was an idyllic spot to grow up—a protective cocoon with only one occasionally worrisome drawback. We were uncomfortably close to Narrow Rocks Road, a heavily wooded tunnel leading to some neighborhoods of much smaller houses that adjoined the railroad bridge with its splintery walkway and rusted railing that served as a gateway to the nexus of the real danger: Saugatuck, the part of town where the greasers lived, the kids with rolled-up sleeves for cigarette packs, pointy black boots, slicked hair, and sinister sounding surnames like Izzo, Kondub, Shipple and Slez.

At the end of Mayfair Lane there was a traffic island with a patch of grass lined with Belgian bricks and a big maple tree, and as Bud and I got closer it was evident that some kids were hiding behind it. Bud, who had stronger territorial instincts than me, sniffed his disapproval and pedaled a little faster while I, feeling more cautious and sensing danger, was content to coast.  Something wasn’t right. Sure enough, first out from behind the tree were the Sendecke brothers, Al and Joe, and hissing out from behind them came that nightmare of nightmares, Jimmy Brusco. He was short for his age, but built like a bantam boxer, with skintight black Levis and a plain white t-shirt, icy cold blue eyes and distinct signs of stubble along his handsomely chiseled jaw.

“This is private property,” Bud announced with an air of authority as we neared the big tree, leaving me thinking he had lost his mind. Couldn’t he see who we were dealing with? We could get killed and he was worrying about property lines? Alas, there was no time to sound the alarm. We were already too close to turn around when the Sendecke brothers sprang into the lane and grabbed hold of our handlebars. In an instant, Al had me in a crushing half nelson and all tangled up in my bike just as Jimmy got up in Bud’s face, launching into a string of taunts that was solely intended to escalate matters into an all-out melee.

From beyond the sounds of my own gasps for breath I could hear Jimmy’s tirade—half of which I could only dimly comprehend—and I was now thinking okay Bud, do the right thing. Politely agree to everything he says about the rinky-dink golf course and our sexual preferences. Just tell him “Yes sir! … Yes Sir! … Yes SIR!!” but for reasons I can’t possibly begin to explain Bud took a more combative approach. I suppose his ill-advised comeback could have worked if it hadn’t been for his tone of voice which was so sarcastic and snotty I knew immediately we were toast. With just a single word our fate was set:

“So!” he said, and the punches flew.

Bud succeeded in fending off the opening flurry of blows and managed somehow to stand up on the pedals of his bike, pressing down with his full weight to get some momentum going. It looked for a moment like he may even escape (which, by the way, would have left me in a world of hurt) but as he leaned down for a second mighty heave on the pedals, the mechanical failure every boy fears most when riding a two wheeler occurred: the chain slipped off the crank set and sure enough, down Bud crashed with his crotch hitting the crossbar with such force I swear I heard a “pop” and half expected to see his family ornaments bounding onto the macadam.

The poor kid slumped onto the crossbar while slowly rolling away in debilitating cross-eyed pain. His bike wobbled along with a mind of its own which happened to be down the gentle incline off the side of the lane and into the big green hedge. The best friend I would ever have in my life remained upright for a second staring mutely into the prickly branches of the hedge before he and his trusty Huffy Flyer—now fused between his knees—went down together like a felled tree.

I got a clear view of all of this through the pungent strands of Al’s hairy armpit, and when Bud went over like he did, all four of us—Al, Joe, Jimmy and I—said “whoa” in unison. It was an accident breathtaking to behold. Before anyone could fill the awkward silence that began building over the moans emanating from beneath the hedge, I feigned one of those laughs that come sputtering out like a cough, and before I knew it I was released from the headlock and found Jimmy, Al and Joe laughing right along with me. Sure, we were having a hoot at poor Bud’s expense, but I did all I could to encourage the sudden surge of merriment that seemed to be miraculously clearing danger from the air.

By the time we caught our breath, Bud was sitting up. He was going to live.  Jimmy and his henchmen were wiping tears from their eyes, and I realized the moment had arrived for some audacious diplomacy; something ventured that just might change the subject and avoid any further bloodshed. “You guys want to come for a swim in the pool?” I asked as casually as my pounding heart would allow. After shooting quick glances around at one another, the trio of the meanest looking greasers I had ever seen shrugged their shoulders and to my profound relief Jimmy replied in his best tough guy accent, “Sure, what da fuck?”

We made our way slowly up the lane towards the distant sounds of kids playing in the pool. Jimmy gently nudged Bud aside and took up his bike with its drooping chain. This touching act of kindness allowed Bud to limp gingerly along behind us, nursing the ache between his legs. The Wassell’s in-ground swimming pool was a magnet for the entire neighborhood in those days so when we rounded the pool house and saw the usual swarm of kids jumping and splashing around the sheer chaotic volume of the scene made the three of them pause. They seemed suddenly shy and I think would have bolted had it not been for my Aunt Betsy who was just then walking down from the house. She looked over at us with one of her winning smiles and waved us in without a moment’s hesitation or a single question about the disabled bike or the lingering greenness around Bud’s gills.

Our new friends stood poolside wondering what to do. Behind them their shit-kicker black boots were lined in a neat row beneath the fence where they had hung their T-shirts.  I demonstrated for them a simple feet-first jump into the deep end and they tentatively followed suit. Jimmy, Joe and Al were awkward swimmers at best, handicapped all the more by the weight of their long jeans.  I wondered how guys who just minutes ago could look so menacing could now look so harmless—vulnerable really—as schools of well-tanned little kids darted to and fro like dolphins beneath their pale and pimply backs. That’s when Kelly stepped up to the diving board in her emerald green two piece bathing suit.

Jimmy was off to the side treading water when she made her dive, intently scanning the surface in anticipation of her return for air. I might have been only 12 years old that summer, but when Kelly came up and blinked the water from her eyes, I could tell she was conscious of Jimmy’s stare and was keeping him in her periphery as she calmly breast-stroked towards the aluminum ladder. And in that moment I received my first inkling of just how far away those houses at the other end of Narrow Rocks Road actually were. When I turned back to Jimmy, who was still sputtering in place, I knew he knew much more about that distance than I could understand and saw for the first time the look of someone hopelessly surrendered to love at first sight.

Jono Walker is a writer and book review blogger who moonlights as an advertising executive and marketing consultant. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Julia, their big weedy garden, a couple of poorly behaved dogs, and his trusty fly rod. Visit his blog at http://www.jonosbookreviews.com/

Mr. X, Links Master

by Jono Walker

In the mid 1960’s, the absolute ruling monarchs of Longshore’s weekend golfing set in Westport, Connecticut was a single foursome of men who played together just about every weekend from Memorial Day through Labor Day. The men didn’t pal around with the other morning regulars. They were far too classy for that raucous crowd. Each one took a caddy of his choosing, arranged in advance with the Caddy Master to meet with them on the First Tee before their round. They all drove slick cars, wore expensive looking polo shirts, and walked up to the starter’s window carrying huge golf bags stuffed with enough gear and personal effects to fill a hotel suite. They had low single-digit handicaps and were far more serious about their game and the money they gambled on it than any of the other men who took caddies. Playing a $10 dollar Nassau and goodness knows how many side bets meant serious money was at stake. After accounting for sandies, greenies, and the inevitable press towards the end of the round, there could be as much as $100 on the line—per guy—which in those days was about the price of a reasonably serviceable used Lincoln.

On the greens these masters of golf crouched down from both sides of the pin to line up their putts. When they weren’t sure about an out of bounds stake, they looked to the back of the scorecard for clarification, and they faithfully observed all the correct rules about direct, lateral, and casual hazards. The idea of a mulligan never entered their minds, and no gimmes of any length were ever granted on the greens. Caddying for one of these guys was the ultimate honor. They were the coolest of the cool.

Throughout my final summer as a Longshore caddy I was one of lucky kids anointed to go out with these guys. Everything was perfect until one weekend halfway through the summer when for some reason they couldn’t make their usual morning tee time and had to suck it up and go out in the afternoon. They took carts and went out late in the day. I had finished my morning loop and was up in the woods that bordered the Second Hole tending to my golf ball business when they rolled up to the tee.

The Second Hole at Longshore is 150 yard par three. In those days the trees and underbrush on the ridge along the left side of the fairway were allowed to grow deep and thick. In the long hot and humid afternoons, after getting in from my morning loop, I used to hide in the woods and wait for golfers to pull their tee shots into the trees. That was the first step in my vertically integrated enterprise. The next step was to build the inventory which led to the sales operation that I set up on the Third Tee, offering barely-used top-sleeve golf balls for a quarter. I had very high ethical business standards. I absolutely never picked up a ball in the woods or the tall grass that curled around the left side of the green until after the guy who hit it had given up looking for it. From my perch deep in the shadows up the slope and behind some rocks I had a clear view of the golfers teeing off. On average, there’d be at least one golfer per group who’d rattle one into the trees, especially during the weekend afternoons when the skill level of the golfers was generally lower than those who booked tee times in the early mornings.

Looking down from the ridge, Longshore’s finest foursome looked odd to me.  It was so strange seeing them driving in carts with the late day August sun bearing down on them just as harshly as it did on ordinary golfers. The first three guys put their seven irons on the green, but the fourth guy, we’ll call him Mr. X, pulled his tee shot into the tall grass over the left side of the green. I could see exactly where his ball landed but knew, because the golfer was blinded from that section of deep rough from the tee box, it would be extremely difficult for Mr. X to find. I sat hidden, waiting.

Mr. X jumped out of the cart to look for his ball while his partner and the other two guys parked on the other side of the green near the next tee. He swished his wedge haphazardly through the tall grass. As I had suspected, he wasn’t looking anywhere near where the ball was actually buried. I thought he was probably wishing he had a sharp-eyed caddy in tow when I saw him reach into his pocket and drop another golf ball into the rough in a spot just before the grass got really tall and where he would have a relatively easy chip onto the green.  He then continued to give the impression that he was looking for his ball and after a few moments of this charade one of the guys he was partnered against walked up behind him to help out.

“You playing a black Titelist?” he asked.

“With three blue ink dots?” Mr. X replied.

“Yee-up, here it is you lucky bastard …”

I felt sick, but excited too. I mean, this was front page Caddy News. Not only had this exalted master of the golf links cheated, he cheated with such sly forethought, with such convincing effectiveness without a moment’s hesitation or the slightest glimmer of guilt that you knew he had to have done this sort of thing many times before. This man wasn’t just a one-time opportunistic cheater, he was a finely tuned expert. When they all finished putting and were walking off the green, I slipped out of the woods and retrieved the ball that nobody else had found. Mr. X was a serial cheater all right, and I had the irrefutable proof.

As they rode in their carts up to the Third Tee, I ran after them with the intention of setting up my usual sales display even though I realized that this group of purists would never be in the market for used golf balls. While they were hitting their drives I carefully arranged the dozen or so balls I had found in a straight line along the railroad tie at the edge of the tee box right next to their carts. I put Mr. X’s black Titleist right smack in the middle with his three signature blue dots turned up for everyone to plainly see. I knew that these guys knew my modus operandi. Everybody was aware of the racket. They’d see Mr. X’s ball and would know exactly what had just gone down. This was going to be really, really sweet, but then, for reasons I can’t quite explain, just before they turned from the tee markers and started making their way in my direction, I snatched Mr.X’s ball away and put it back in my pocket.

The four came over and paused for a look at my display, and while some patronizing jokes were flying around about what sort of rascal had the nerve to sell golf balls back to the sad sacks who had just lost them, Mr. X and I made eye contact. I’ll never forget that look, with a hint of raw terror behind his eyes and traces of red creeping out from the corners of his usually perfectly composed face. I knew that he knew I had seen what he did behind the green, and I knew that he knew I had the incriminating evidence hidden on me somewhere.  Mr. X sat sullenly in the cart waiting as his partner struggled with getting his head cover back on his driver. The delay must have been agony. It gave me time to reconsider and to come out with the ball, but instead of blowing up their scorecard and ruining Mr. X’s reputation, I let the man escape.

I sat on the railroad ties and watched as they rode into the distance up the fairway with Mr. X’s golf ball burning a hole in my pocket. They had all hit good drives and from best I could tell they had all gotten their next shots onto the green. It would likely be another push, just like on the previous hole when Mr. X managed to chip up and sink his putt to halve it. From behind me the sound of the next group making its way up to the tee roused me from my thoughts, and before they came into view I took Mr. X’s ball out of my pocket and threw it into the woods as far as I could.

The shame of it was safe with me.

Jono Walker is a writer and book review blogger who moonlights as an advertising executive and marketing consultant. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Julia, their big weedy garden, a couple of poorly behaved dogs and his trusty fly rod.

My Mother's Marbles

by Jono Walker

My mother Joy was a fearless body surfer and taught me to be one too. There wasn’t a wave we would hesitate to swim out to in any weather short of hurricane force winds at any point along the two miles of beach at Biddeford Pool. Stretching out in the clear hollow of a towering breaker and seeing your shadow appear for a split second on the sandy bottom just before everything crashes down in a pandemonium of sound and foam is such a rush. We’d fight through the icy undertows looking for the next great ride until our feet could no longer feel the sand and our lips were blue as crabs. But Joy wasn’t just about daring and speed. She had a contemplative side and was an inveterate explorer of tidal pools with a life-long collection of blue and green sea glass that will never be surpassed in terms of color and opaque purity. No raw edges in her collection. Nothing see-through. Every piece different. Each one perfect.

Her grandfather was an Episcopal Minister who built the church that now stands on the golf course in what was just a sleepy fishing village before President Taft decided to make Biddeford Pool the location of his summer White House. This turned the place into a kind of secluded resort for extremely wealthy people from Ohio…and us. When my mom and her brother and sisters were small and August rolled around they’d all pile into the car in Westport at the crack of dawn for the trip up the old Post Road to Biddeford. Driving to Maine was a grueling ordeal back then. There were traffic lights and an endless succession of small town Main Streets to get through so that by the time they got past the city of Biddeford and were pointed out the Shore Road, the sun would be getting ready to set and they’d be ready to kill one another. But once they made the hairpin turn at Fortune’s Rocks and managed to get the windows rolled down, that first wonderful whiff of sea air would fill the car and wash away all the road grit and any lingering thoughts of fratricide. Off they’d trundle down the Stretch Road with the Pool on their left and the ocean dunes on their right. At the end of the isthmus, just up the hill and around the corner from Crowley’s lobster pound and Goldswaithe’s general store, they’d pile out of the car stamping the numbness from their legs on the painted wooden porch where their grandparents would welcome them to the Rectory, a modest clapboard house wedged between grand summer homes out on Bay View Avenue.

In those days the big three-story hotel maintained a boardwalk that carved a mile-long loop around the point, which was where the Reverend took his morning constitutionals with grandchildren in tow. The first side of the loop took them through canyons of scruffy pines and bayberry bushes offering bright blue glimpses of the little islands dotting the bay of Maine. When the pathway spilled them into an open field, the ocean was spread before them on all three sides, walking now straight towards the spot Mom used to call “The End of the World”. On good days the pounding surf on the ocean side of the point sent up rainbow mists that hazed upon their hair and onto the shoulders of their sweaters. As they began their return to the Rectory, the sun would be just high enough to ripple the air above the slats of the boardwalk. Tracing through the tall grass, breezes from the sea bowed the shafts of Goldenrod and sent Queen Anne’s Lace genuflecting to their feet.

When I was a kid some things began to change, but Maine was still Maine. The hotel was converted into a Catholic retreat (locals dubbed it “The Nunnery”) and the boardwalk around the point was left to rot except for a few splintery sections that remained half buried in the clumps of sea grass along the inside arch of Little Beach. Gardeners working for the people living in the enormous mansions that were eventually built out on the point started dumping grass clippings and kitchen scraps onto mulch piles that were strategically placed where the boardwalk used to be on the far edges of the long sweeping lawns. It was a deliberate attempt to discourage recalcitrant point walkers like us, but that didn’t put an end to our ritual. We just skirted around the steaming piles of debris determined to keep the public right-of-way open until years later when my kids were small and the mulch piles had finally grown too big and the bayberry and the scratchy beach plum bushes around them had become completely impenetrable, forcing us, at last, onto the beach for our morning strolls.

I was around ten and my sister Mary Paul was seven and my older sister Joanie was fifteen when we all took a break from the beach one afternoon and drove out as a family to Fortunes Rocks. We wanted to do some sleuthing around a big abandoned stone mansion that was about to be bulldozed to make way for the dozens of seaside homes you see there today. When we got to the long driveway of the old estate there was a chain with a NO TRESPASSING sign blocking our way. We got out of the car and peered down the drive. Dad wouldn’t go any further, of course, but he knew there’d be no talking Mom out of it so after some weak protestations, he simply threw up his hands and drove himself back to the beach.

That left the four of us free to jump the chain and creep towards the run-down house. Nobody had mowed all summer so the sun-warmed grass directly around the place was up to our knees and tickly. Joy suspected the house was headquarters to a Russian spy ring, and sure enough, when we stepped onto the porch and pressed our faces up against the dusty windows something moved from behind the pieces of furniture covered in bed sheets. Or maybe we heard something, but whatever it was it scared the beach sand right out of our bathing suits and sent us scampering to the safety of the rocks out on the point.

The red seaweed made the going slippery but we managed to get to a place where we were hidden from the sniper hiding behind the curtain in the attic window. Taking cover among the heaves of sun-bleached granite we looked out across the long arc in the shoreline and could just make out the Biddeford Pool beach through the summer haze in the distance. The row of cottages nestled in the dunes along the Stretch looked like little pieces of ribbon tied to the tail of a kite trailing towards the grey, box-shaped Nunnery taking flight over the last thin shimmering line of white sand. Beyond the Nunnery the tree line sloped to the old Coast Guard Station tower where the rocks at the end of Fletcher’s Neck pointed like a ghost blue finger out into the ghost blue sea.

Meanwhile, we had a job to do. The seagulls stirred into flight by our earlier shrieks were settled back on the water riding the gentle swells along with the bright confetti of the lobster buoys, while somewhere just below we knew a Russian sub was silently circling. The sun was hot on our backs as we formulated a plan. It was my little sister Mary Paul who found the piece of sea glass that just might do the trick. Early that morning, when we were walking on the beach we passed a nun. We often saw nuns taking their morning strolls, but there was something a little different about this particular one. Maybe her habit was a bit askew, or maybe she winked at us, but in any event she looked like someone who could be relied upon, and sure enough when Joanie flashed our signal, the earnest sister with the tortoise shell glasses was at her post on the roof of the nunnery far across the water. She signaled back a message with her trusty compact mirror: “Coast Guard Alerted.”

Mom lived the last of her days sitting in a chair in a place called Maplewoods. It was nice there and for a while a remote part of her brain could be summoned upon to belt out Sinatra tunes at the Snowflake Teas, but the old girl–who cheerfully admitted in a rare moment of cognitive clarity that she had lost just about all her marbles–was soon running on nothing but the microdots of distant memories. Her eyes grew good and dulled by a life well spent. One time, even though she couldn’t have told me what she ate ten minutes ago for lunch or name any of her grandchildren in the photos hanging on her wall or even remotely comprehend the fact she now had four great grandchildren, I caught her looking over at her mason jar of sea glass sitting on the windowsill and could see something bright and clear flickering across her eyes. Some faint synapses deep inside her clouded brain were letting in gentle breezes from summers long since passed. She was walking again through tidal pools. Suddenly, an icy wave came sluicing between the rocks and splashed white and foamy around her ankles making them ache for a second before sucking back out to sea over a chattering bed of small glittery stones. Maybe that was what I saw and remembered too.

“No,” she said to Mary Paul who had proudly snatched up the piece of glass left behind by the retreated wave, “the edges on this one aren’t smooth enough yet. Don’t you see? It will work fine for our signal but we’ll need to throw it back.”

Let some other little girl come and find it later, when it’s good and ready…

Jono Walker is a writer and book review blogger who moonlights as an advertising executive and marketing consultant. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Julia, their big weedy garden, a couple of poorly behaved dogs and his trusty fly rod. Visit his blog at www.jonosbookreviews.com

Little Drops of Mutual Recognition

bioStories

sharing the extraordinary in ordinary lives

by Jono Walker

I read Gilead a number of years ago, which means I’ve forgotten most of it, but it is, nonetheless, a book that bubbles into my conscious thoughts from time to time.  It’s written as a letter from an old Methodist Minister to his very young son.  He lives in a forgotten little town in rural Kansas called Gilead, and he wants to write this letter because he realizes he won’t live long enough to see his son grow up.  I don’t contemplate my life in precisely the same terms as this minister does, but as I read the book I found myself treading with him on plenty of common ground. 

Mostly what I think about though when I think about Gilead is my Dad. From where I’m typing I can glance up and see its narrow spine wedged between some larger books, and what I see is Dad disappearing into the blueberry bushes along the fairway of the golf course in Maine searching for one of his errant drives. Another time when I look up I might catch a glimpse of him standing in the distance in front of a backstop on some muddy baseball field, tossing up a baseball and hitting me fly balls.

When Dad was alive we fought like crazy.  He talked too much, which irritated me, and I was often dismissive towards him, which no doubt caused him no end of grief.  The Vietnam years were especially stormy.  We got into some real knock-down drag-outs in those days—on one occasion quite literally so, with a black eye and damaged furniture to show for it.  We partook in no long conversations at any point in our lives. The only safe topics we could talk about tended to revolve around our mutual love of sports—how the Yankees were doing or if the Giants would ever get their act together again. I never remember him giving me fatherly advice.  Actually, that’s not true.  What I remember is him giving me advice about one thing or another while I sat blocking it out. 

Here’s a bit from Gilead that I underlined:

“A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.”

I like that quotation. Though I’d alter it by adding the word “recognition.”  I don’t think it’s contradictory for a father or a son to experience both mutual incomprehension and chances to share at least some occasional flashes of mutual recognition.  Maybe if the old man in Gilead had been lucky enough to see his son grow just a little older—or luckier still, see his son grow into a man and have a son of his own, maybe then he’d know what I am talking about.

One of the last memories I have of Dad is when he was elderly and walking with a cane.  He and Mom were down on a visit, and I walked the old centerfielder over the long stretch of uneven grass to a seat on the bleachers where he could watch my son, Ben, play baseball.  It was a blustery early April afternoon with a biting wind that made Dad’s eyes get oozy, but not oozy enough to dampen their sparkle as he sat there leaning on the handle of his cane taking in the action and hearing baseballs cracking into gloves.  At one of Ben’s at bats he hit a screaming line drive over the second baseman’s head that bounded out between the right and center fielders.  As Ben got midway to second base, he looked over his shoulder, and when he saw that the right fielder bobbled the ball, he made his commitment to try and stretch his hit into a triple.  We all knew that Ben was a fast runner, but when he put his head down and rounded second he notched it into a higher gear than I had ever seen before and was moving way faster than you would expect such an ungainly knobby-kneed 14 year old could run.  I saw Dad lift himself up just slightly from his seat and heard a little sound catch in his throat and I knew as Ben was streaking towards third, the wind rushing over Ben’s face was blowing across Dad’s face too, and that the crunchy feel of infield dirt being swallowed up by feathery baseball spikes was just then pressing up against the soles of his brittle old man’s feet.  Even though there wasn’t a close play at the base, Ben slid anyway, but too hard, and awkwardly, so that he rolled over the bag and had to reach back to it with his hand.

When I sat back down and the excited chatter from the smattering of parents in the stands had quieted, Dad and I sat there side by side with our eyes fixed on Ben as he dusted off his uniform. When Dad spoke, he didn’t offer any words of praise.  Nothing like that.  All he said was, and just loud enough so that only I could hear, “When are ya gonna teach that kid how to slide?”

Some people, especially daughters and moms might not understand this, but I’m telling you that these little drops of mutual recognition—which may only have materialized  from time to time—raised the river of my father’s and my mutual incomprehension just high enough to keep us from wrecking on the rocks. Moments like these kept us floating together in the sometimes swirling currents in what turned out to be—astoundingly enough—the same general direction.

Indeed, whenever I come up gulping and look around for a place of safe purchase, I can see Dad … just there, riding the currents with me still. 

 

Jono Walker is a writer and book review blogger who moonlights as an advertising executive and marketing consultant.  He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Julia, their big weedy garden, a couple of poorly behaved dogs, and his trusty fly rod.  Visit his blog at www.jonosbookreviews.com