IMHO

Mid River Slink

While checking our route on Trip Maker near Charlotte, North Carolina, my laptop announced proudly that it had connected to Linksys, the name of the wi-fi network at the Rowland home we had left hours before. Eudora managed to downloaded a couple of my 18 messages before we were out of range.

It took about a day before I began to realize the potential here. By that time we were on interstate 70 crossing the wide Missouri where my personal favorites, midriverslink 2&3, popped up. ...No longer do we have to relieve the tedium of a long drive collecting license plates from the 50 states, or looking for dilapadated houses to dedicate to the use of our car-mates - now we can slink along our highways collecting network monikers.

I already see my future grandchildren bent double over their hand-me-down laptops gleefully shouting Belkin 54! ssid1 ! PrIcEGnadE! infiwtz! arkiktek! Doc Office 1! 3blindmice! and hpsetup unsecured computer-to-computer network!

Yesterday there was an accident around the corner from John's Natural Foods. A white haired man in the car with the crumpled hood just above the parking meter hit a jeep, then careened at high speed across an intersection on 5th Street on to the side walk on the oncoming traffic side, smashing merchandise set out by a consignment business, then turned 90 degrees and ended his nightmare by crashing head on into the brick side of the bank on the opposite side of the street. By the time I arrived the driver was standing in the street, talking to an officer, looking sane, sober, not at all like the drunken maniac you might expect.

John had been watching the proceedings in the reflection of this window. An ambulance had arrived for the driver, checked him out and left, empty. The incident didn't make the evening news, perhaps there will be a notice in the newspaper tomorrow. In a small community, local news enters a kind of black hole; it's not on the radio, it's not on the tv, we may never know what really happened. 

Feeding Fafnir

Fafnir is a turtle. Snapping, we think. His shell is about eight inches long. He loves meat, and is inclined to dine in one of two pools on the hill above my Red Mountain brother�s house.

Feeding Fafnir is something of a meditative experience. If you pop up to the edge of his pool, he lunges to the bottom and waits for you to leave. Instead, you must approach cautiously, looking for movement, for bubbles, standing at a distance to avoid startling him. Carry a nugget or two of dog food, throw one from a distance, like a softball, under, up and down onto the surface.

Ripples. Silence. Surely the white streak to the left among the plants runs along his neck? Lean a little to the right - it�s the reflection of a leaf. Back by the log - certainly that shape is the outline of his head? You watch intensely, then realize a shape is rising slowly through the murk at the near edge - Fafnir�s head. To the left, the somewhat brighter claws appear. Not a single ripple mars the surface. He snaps and dives.

Now you know he's here; It's time to bring on the meat. He can eat carrion, may even prefer it, but his meat is kept fresh enough for us. So you trek down the hill for freshly thawed chicken gizzards, liver, the last half of the Granny Smith apple he has been consuming this past week.

This time he is ready. When you arrive he begins floating ever so slowly upward. The chicken liver, lighter than the murk he makes by stirring up the bottom is visible until he swallows it all. He sinks. You wait. Another lunge and the chicken liver disappears. He sinks again. The pond is still.