Gordon Grice's Blog, page 43

Carp

Photography by Dee Puett

Rattled Leaves

I've already done my annual post to celebrate the onset of autumn, but there's no stopping me. Music performed by Incorporal Air, written by Conrad and me; photo by Parker Grice. 

Sentimental Journey: Cypress

I meant to take a look at my old dorm. Everything I
passed on campus was nostalgic. Here was the grassy slope where I had ditched
class to sit talking with a young woman named for a painter. Here was the time
capsule, left by the generation of students before mine and meant for those yet
unborn, jutting like a marble mushroom into the geometry of the flower garden.
And here, almost the last thing to see before my dorm, was Theta Pond.




The pond is eternally haunted by my memory of the
first weekend I spent at college: sitting on a bench in my loneliness, soothed
by the waters and the shade, wishing, paradoxically, for greater solitude—for I
had never felt at home since we left our country house on the High Plains, and
here I was in a town of tens of thousands, where trees loomed all around. And
as I sat feeling lonely and admiring a wooden footbridge that spanned a part of
the pond, a rat emerged from beneath it and foraged at its footed support. I
took it as an emblem of despair.




Often in the past I have regretted being such a fool
when I was young, but on this sentimental journey I wasn’t so hard on my former
self. I felt tender toward him. He’s young enough to remind me of my sons. I
chose a bench of weathered boards in old-fashioned cement, one that might
feasibly have been the very one from that lonely memory. The pond has parts
that flow into each other, and several bridges, and many cypresses, and a
dedicatory slab—none of that was clear in my memory. I looked at the particular
footbridge; it was ratless. Further out, however, a white duck with chocolate
trim inverted itself in the water and paddled its fleshy legs like mad against
the air and finally righted itself with something stringy hanging from its
beak.




I took a berry fallen from a cypress, and a lichened
flake of its bark. Something to remember it by. And then I sat on a bench,
drenched in a sadness beyond my power to describe, but a kinder sadness than
the one I’d felt when I was young. And as I sat a detail with no nostalgia
value finally made its way into my attention: a police car with active lights.
In fact I had noticed it when I arrived at the pond and assigned it no
particular significance; I suppose I thought someone had been caught speeding.




Now I noticed that the police car with active lights
was not singular. And I became aware of something that was, I think, obvious,
if I hadn’t been so drenched in memory: That all along the avenue something
solemn was going on. Yellow police tape, and cops stationed on foot at each
compass point, facing outward, hands on their belts, staring at nothing. An
ambulance; many other cop cars. I counted a dozen sets of rotating lights.
Something awful had happened—just before I arrived for my reverie, as it turns
out. I wandered up. A motorcycle lay on its side. A huge planter stood beside
the crosswalk. Ceramic pieces of the planter lay broken out. Skid marks
suggested the geometry: the bike had hit a speed bump, ricocheted off the
planter, and come to rest twenty feet beyond. Next to the planter lay a sheet
covering a shape, but the sheet looked like a Japanese flag, for a red sun
coincided with the human head beneath.




I asked other rubberneckers what had happened.
Someone said the cyclist had been fleeing police when he hit the speed bump. (Next
morning, the campus newspaper quoted the police as denying the pursuit.) I
stood there as the afternoon mellowed into dusk. The red and blue lights kept
turning. The police moved within their cordon, seeming to accomplish nothing.
The sap of the cypress lay in the whorls of my fingers, too viscous to rub
away.



Related Posts:

Sentimental Journey: An Abandoned House

Edgar Allan Poe's Trees



Photo: "Cypress Pod as Human Head" by Parker Grice

Silly Goose vs. Aquatic Bird

Evil Goose



I never thought of golf as a contact sport, but it seems I was misinformed.



Golfer injured in bird attack sues the county - Mauinews.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Visitor's Information - The Maui News: 

"In a claim Sakamura filed against the county in March, he said he was golfing with five other men when a duck or goose "charged me and bit my pant leg." He said he tried to back away and fell onto his back and side as the animal continued to attack, biting his hand hard enough to cause bleeding. He said he pulled the bird off and went to his cart to get a Band-Aid. Sakamura's claim also says he suffered an L-4 compression fracture in his back from the attack."

Illustration based on a photo by Joe Thomissen/Creative Commons

Pygmy Hippo Attacks Zookeeper

They look cute. Their name is cute. Their teeth--not so cute. 



Czech Pygmy Hippo Attacks Female Zookeeper At Dvur Kralove Zoo: 



"The female keeper, who was experienced, was being treated in the intensive care unit at a hospital in the nearby city of Hradec Kralove.



Hospital spokesman Zdenek Tusl said the woman had lost a lot of blood due to right-leg injuries and doctors were battling to save her leg.



Pygmy hippos weigh up to 275 kilograms (600 pounds)."

Mystery Animal Kills 3

D. Momaya/Creative Commons



A man-eating animal has attacked four people in India--but what kind of animal?



Meerut villages on edge as mystery animal kills 3 - Indian Express: 



"Three women have been killed and one seriously injured in attacks by a wild animal.



However, it is still not clear whether the tormentor is a leopard or hyena or stray dogs. While villagers claim that it is a leopard, Divisional Forest Officer(DFO) Lalit Kumar Verma said it could be either a hyena or a group of wild or stray dogs since no pug marks could be collected."



The photo shows the distinctive pugmark of a striped hyena--exactly the kind of evidence the authorities need to solve this mystery. 

Suicide by Crocodile

MartinRe/Creative Commons



A surprisingly common method of committing suicide: a trip to the zoo. 



Thai woman feeds herself to crocodiles - Indian Express: 



"A 36-year-old depressed woman 'fed herself' to crocodiles at a popular tourist attraction in Thailand.



The hard pressed woman had told her husband that she was going to see a doctor and after that she would visit a popular crocodile Farm in Samut Prakarn just outside Bangkok.



She reportedly never returned home."

Autumnal: The Birds

A Murmuration of Blackbirds/Dee Puett




Sunday
morning, September the second, we saw birds fly by the kitchen window. When the
supply of birds should have run out, it didn’t. On and on they flew, half a
dozen visible at a time, all of them passing to the north. They were dark,
though not dark or large enough to be the usual crows. We guessed from their
numbers they must be starlings. Outside I found they had come to rest in my
neighbor’s cottonwood trees. We could not see them at first, but their noise—a
high-pitched rustling, as of water heard in a dream, made us know to keep
looking for them, and after a moment my eyes picked them out, dark leaves among
the golden ones. A moment later they took flight again, rushing off to the east
this time; but each tree remained full, because the tree beyond it refilled it
with more birds even as it emptied. For minutes on end we watched, the same
spectacle renewing itself, and then Tracy said, “That’s nature for you.
Fascinating, yet boring.”




I had not
until this episode realized the cottonwoods had gone gold. Most days I stroll
around my back yard, which is defined by pines. They stay the same color. I had
to raise my eyes to see the gold flickering like flimsy coins. Now the
cottonwoods were rustling at their own lower pitch; it seemed like the same
song I’d heard from the starlings, but played on a different instrument. It
made me recall that I’d already seen the sumac along the highway reddening. I
told Tracy how the change had sneaked up on me, and she smiled in a way that
let me know she’d noticed it long ago.





Last Year's Autumn Post



2010's Autumn Post

Bison vs. Fools

  Video: Bison Charges Kids

I mean, come on. 

Coral Snake Bites Florida Man

Norman Benton/Creative Commons



Coral snakes belong in the same family as cobras. Their bites contain dangerous  neurotoxins. Despite their potent venom, they are considered less dangerous than rattlesnakes and other pit vipers, which can be bigger and more aggressive. Coral snakes in the US almost never bite unless a person handles them. . . or steps on them: 



Snake bitten: Miramar man survives venom of coral snake - Sun Sentinel: 



""I felt the most horrifying burn in my leg, and looked down and the snake was chewing on my foot," the 53-year-old Miramar resident said Sunday from his bed at Memorial Regional Hospital. "I almost died.""



Thanks to Croconut for the news tip.