Linda L. Zern's Blog, page 7

CHICKENS I HAVE KNOWN

“Run,” I screamed. “Go! Go! Go!” I turned the van key in the ignition. The engine rumbled to life.
In the distance, the glare of eyes like cold, hard glass swung toward us.
Aric and Heather were the first to stumble their way from the house to our family van. Heather tripped and staggered halfway to the open door of the van, and Aric, without thought for his own welfare, turned back, grabbed her by her shirt, and began to pull her through the driveway dust to safety. (He grew up to be a soldier. Heather grew up to be a ballerina.)
Maren hustled across the yard next, diving headfirst into the van. (She grew up to be a political science major.)
In the distance a small, white juggernaut of rage fixated on our van, and began its headlong pursuit of us. I thought I caught a glimpse of a few white feathers exploding up from the racing, pumping body to waft away in the afternoon breeze.
“Move it!” I revved the gas.
Adam, dragging his own diaper bag, toddled to the car to be hauled headfirst into the vehicle by his siblings. (Adam grew up to be an exceptional daddy.)
I heard the van door bang shut. The children strapped each other in for the getaway. I slammed the gas pedal down and gunned the van—gravel spewing from the rear tires.
The small white body covered in feathers gained momentum, hunkered down close to the ground, clawed feet tearing at the turf, beak and burning eye pointed at our now retreating van. We cleared the driveway.
Once we fishtailed onto the paved road, I said, “We made it.”
The children cheered.
In the rearview mirror, I observed the little, white rooster raise its head in frustration and crow a challenge at the back of our van. Light glinted off of its razor-like spurs.
“Psycho chicken,” I muttered to no one at all.
 I headed to the library with my four children and tried to ignore the feeling of dread that sat like a lump in my stomach, knowing that it (that miserable, filthy rooster) would probably be hiding in the bushes when we got back—waiting, watching—plotting.
“Psycho chicken,” I repeated in disgust.
It was too.  I saw that chicken attack a boy on a bicycle—more than once. Maybe the meanest rooster I have ever been acquainted with, that rooster would stop doing whatever it was doing when it saw us in the yard and run, full out, to get a chance to rake us with its spurs. Sometimes it would run two, three, or four football fields to get at us. We started having to go outside armed with brooms and swords. It was chicken terrorism at its worst.
Not all chickens are created equal, though. We once had another rooster that got his butt beat in the barnyard so badly he ran away. He ran away to our mailbox, where he sat in the wind and rain—alone—for the longest time, waiting for the mail-person everyday, bedraggled and pitiful (the chicken not the mail-person) until some dark unknown forces carried him away—never to be heard of again. I suspect the mail-person.
Then there was Edger the Chicken. We got Edger as a chick, and chicks imprint on the first thing that they see when they hatch, and in this case, Edger imprinted on our son, Adam. Edger turned out to be a little brown hen that would follow Adam around like a dog, waiting for Adam to feed her juicy crickets because Edger thought that Adam was its mother. Adam still speaks fondly of Edger.
Once, when our chickens got into the horse worm medicine and poisoned themselves, it fell to my husband to “put them out of their blind-staggering-around chicken misery.” There is a little known clause in the Man Manual (Section B, Paragraph 6, Sub-Heading 12-A, titled - Duties of the Executioner) that reads, “All distasteful and potentially icky tasks fall to the man or man surrogate in any casual relationship—‘cause if you don’t kill that sick critter you’re going to wish that you had.”
The problem is that chicken killing has gone somewhat out of fashion, and so my husband was at something of a loss as to how best to put the chickens out of their worm poisoned misery. He's a suburban boy.
Watching the staggering chickens stagger about, he said, “What do I do? How do I kill them? Do I smother them with a pillow?”
“Not my pillow,” I replied.
My husband is no chicken. He used his own pillow.
This has been a discussion of chickens—real live pecking chicken animals. This should in no way be seen as a symbolic discussion of some of the two-legged human chickens I have know throughout my life. Like the psycho chicken person who cannot stand to see anyone, anywhere enjoying this life more than they do themselves, so they want to peck you to death if they can. Or the cowardly chicken type, who refuses to return to the war once he or she has lost a battle or two, or the Edger chickens who somewhere along the line learned to wait around for everyone else to catch their crickets for them—good for pets, not so good for folks. This has been a discussion about chickens and nothing but the chickens.
Linda (Chicken Master) Zern

How Does My Garden Grow?

A lot of folks think that when (not if) the world goes into the apocalypse dumper they are going to be able to walk outside, throw some lettuce and tomato seeds on the ground and grow a salad with croutons. A lot of people are going to die hungry and sad.



I am a gardener. I grow things in dirt. I crawl around on my bony knees, scrabbling around among the grubs and weeds, trying to grow stuff in dirt. Once in a while, I succeed but not always.
Here’s what I’ve learned from years of being next to the dirt.
DIRT IS NEVER ENOUGH:  Most dirt is a sad excuse for potting soil from Home Depot. Most dirt requires big help to be useful in the growing of anything more than weeds and blisters. In Florida dirt is mostly sand mixed with heartbreak.  
POOP IS GOLD:  The stuff that falls out of the back end of animals is better than cash when it comes to fixing the heartbreak of sand. When other people see nasty rabbit pucky, a gardener sees ambrosia for squash. 
MOTHER NATURE IS A WITCH (WITH A B): The natural world is one of two things, too much or not enough. Not enough rain and the harvest looks like pretend vegetables for a doll house. Too much rain and the harvest looks like the mushy stuff that comes out of the back end of animals. Perfect is not a state known in nature. Quit waiting for perfect. Adapt. Adjust. Anticipate.        
THERE’S A LEARNING CURVE TO EVERYTHING: A lot of people in cities think they like nature, natural stuff, and organic as long as their apples don’t have wormholes in them. News flash! Organic means wormholes!  Bugs chewing on a cucumber means that the cucumber wasn’t raised in a waterfall of bug poison. Think about it!
LADYBUGS ARE NOT THE DELTA FORCE: Organic gardeners like to tout the benefits of buying ladybugs from the ladybug store and unleashing them on the ravaging hordes of “bad” insects poised to eat my garden right down to the sand. I garden in Florida. Ravaging hordes of “bad” insects in my state are like Visigoths mixed with Nazis. Unless ladybugs come armed with flamethrowers they’re going to lose the bug wars. I tend to crop dust.
BE PREPARED TO WEEP:  I have learned over the years that I can do everything right. Right plants. Right soil. Right time. Everything seems to be growing along fine, and my vegetable garden looks like the rosy cheek of a newborn baby, full of promise and life and hope and joy, and      then . . . flood, fire, famine, cricket swarm, cutworm pirates, rabbit herd, deer swarm, the neighbor’s goats or chickens or don’t ask . . . and it’s back to sand and heartbreak.
BE PREPARED TO REJOICE: But when it works . . . Watching my grandchildren pick green beans, that they have helped me plant, makes me hopeful. They have watched and waited and weeded and worried. By watching they learned to look beyond themselves. By waiting they learned patience. By weeding they learned to work. And with worry came the ultimate relief of success.
GARDENING IS ABOUT MORE THAN DIRT. MAKE MINE A GARDEN.
Linda (Growing My Own) Zern        
    


         

G is for Goat

If I say, “I love goats. Goats be fun,” are these statements opinions or facts? Or are these statements a combination of both opinion and fact? Or are these declarations the ravings of the madwoman of Kissimmee Park Road?

First, for our discussion, let’s examine the difference between opinion and fact. An opinion is a belief or judgment that is NOT based on measurable evidence, and a fact is provable on a color-coded graph.

Can it be proved that I, in fact, do love goats?

I own goats. I take care of goats. I talk of goats. I talk to goats. I preach of goats, and I post pictures of goats in public places, next to thousands of kitten and puppy pictures
.
It is arguable that I do love goats by a measurable rubric.

Now, let's examine the statement, “Goats be fun.” This can be refuted and often is by my son-in-law. He finds farm animals a curiosity, at best, and, at worst, an abomination. Of course, he was born in Bountiful, Utah where all the children and goats are above average.

The statement “Goats be fun,” is an opinion. Many people find farm animals a smelly bother or a confusing chore or a strain on the delicate balance of an entire planet.

Farm animals poop and fart. This is a measurable fact.

My Muslim neighbor finds goats tasty, and I can prove it.

Buck goats smell rank when they’re in “love.” (If you need proof, come on over sometime during the mating season.) Girl goats find boy goat stink irresistible. Truth. An invitation. Also True.

Boy goats pee on their own faces. True.

It’s horrifying when boy goats drink their own pee. Opinion.

Goats have the cutest babies on earth. Opinion. If someone else refutes the ‘cutest baby goat claim’ by saying, “Hedgehogs have the cutest babies ever, and you’re a disgusting, offensive idiot for claiming otherwise,” then you’ve got yourself a debate. Opinions, which are not facts but feelings about facts, lend to debate. Debates are the mother’s milk of free speech and protected by law in our country.

When someone accuses you of being a disgusting, offensive idiot, then it’s opinion. It’s very difficult to demonstrate a level of idiocy on a flip chart. Or is it? Let me think about that.

Summation: Freedom is hard. Free speech is challenging. Feelings are not facts. Statistics can make fact-finding tricky because of the innate biases and prejudices of the fact-finding team coloring those pie pieces on those charts.

I love debate. Fact. And I can show you on a bar chart demonstrating why that’s absolutely true.



Linda (Hold Your Horses) Zern

F is For Four Letter Words

Dear Netflix,
When the f-word is, by percentage, the most oft repeated word in a sentence, then the sentence has no actual meaning. This is my working theory. To test the theory, I suggest replacing the F-word with a replacement F-word and testing the hypotenuse of the angle for pointless fiddle twaddle.So, the F-word becomes FORK in my experiment.Fork you, you mother forking fork fest of forking forkery. Nonsense.Attention Netflix! Dialogue that relies on the use of the ever-popular F-word to the exclusion of actual . . . er . . .  um . . . DIALOGUE is boring, pointless, meaningless, and who the fork cares.I know that the use of the forking F-word is supposed to indicate a character’s bad ass-ery, but honestly wouldn’t clear and concise writing do that with more effect and less tedium. Think beats of actual action and blocks of actual dialogue. Answer: Fork yes.The argument is that “real” people speak this way. Perhaps. But their conversations are as boring, pointless, and meaningless as a Netflix original content movie written by twelve-year-olds—with potty mouths.Now, I’m no prude, and I think a well-placed, well timed expletive can add great comedic effect or dramatic tension, but an endless stream of a single word, any word, in various grammatical forms . . . Fork. Forking. Forked. Fork. Fork. Fork. Have forked. Getting forked. Mother Forking, fork face.Ugh.Essentially, it’s the same reason I don’t “shoot birds.” 1) I am a Southern lady and do not care to invite the attentions of someone who might mistake the gesture for an invitation. 2) My middle finger is rather knobby and does NOT look attractive stabbing skyward. And 3) It’s been done. Overdone. And has lost all real punch or veracity. And so, I ask with all sincerity, that we retire the ubiquitous use of the F-word. In college, I was required to read a book titled, Savages. Its entire first chapter consisted of two words. “Fuck you”.  Chapter One: Two words. I was unimpressed. Now if the author had written, You fuck . . . You know, mixed it up a bit. But no. NOTE and FYI:  I paid one thousand, six hundred dollars for the class.And so, we grow ever more desiccated in the great verbal desert of modern American word smithing. Fork that.Linda (Mumbles) Zern

"FIXTURE" (3rd Place Winner - 2019 Novus Annos Short Story Contest)

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” Daddy said when they arrived at the yard sale. He handed Mia her single one-dollar bill. She folded it in her hand and shoved it her pocket.         Mia hated the way the dollar smelled, but she loved how excited she felt having it. Shopping for treasures on the weekends was her special time with Daddy.         “Daddy, doesn’t all this stuff on the ground remind you of the beach?” she said, pointing.         Spread across the lawn were sheets covered with candy dishes and yellowed plastic bowls and worn-out shoes and old cartoon movies. A breeze tickled at the frayed edges of torn blankets. A quick gust of wind blew Mia’s hair and tangled her ponytail.         Looking over, she saw Daddy’s mouth turn up at the corners. His crooked smile made her think of a question mark. He didn’t understand, but that was okay. She tried again.         She grabbed his hand. “You know at the beach . . . that raggedy line of stuff on the sand after the water goes away? Like the seaweed that’s all mixed up with the bits of shells. Sometimes, if you walk slow and look careful, you can find a whole sand dollar that’s not broken to bits.”         “A sand dollar prize? Like finding a great hammer. Sure.” He nodded down at her.         “Like mermaid treasure.”         “You’re a funny girl, Mia,” he said.         When grownups said things like that to her, she felt itchy, not sure if it was a good thing to be a funny girl who saw seaweed in the fluttery edge of sheets on the grass at a yard sale. Once in a while, Daddy stared at her as if she were a sand dollar hidden under a pile of shells and barnacles.         He held her hand as they wandered around card tables draped with blouses, winter sweaters, and baseball hats. He always wore his greasy work coveralls when they went treasure hunting together, his name stitched in blue and black on his chest. He seemed tired and rumpled but in a nice way.         He walked her to a table with books, puzzles, and games.         “Here’s someplace where you might find a surprise. Wish me luck. I’m going to check for treasure over in the tools.” He left her and walked away. She watched him say good morning to the boss lady of the yard sale and nod to another lady who pawed through a stack of baby clothes.         If only he could find one of those strange-sounding treasures he liked. He told her their fancy names: torque wrenches and channel-lock pliers. They had exotic and mysterious names, but they were only greasy old tools.         Mia picked up a book and was disappointed to see that she’d already read it. The puzzles were too easy. She was admiring a picture of a kitten on a pencil box when the sharp glint of sun on glass caught her eye, distracting her. Something sparkled in the jumble. Was it glass? Crystal? Or even diamonds? Her heart jumped.          Her eyes searched the stack of dusty jars, the old dishes, and the banged-up pots and pans. Somewhere in the pile was a mystery that turned sunlight into fireworks.         Mia walked to the edge of the blue blanket. Light jumped out at her again. She squinted and found it, the source of the sparkle. It was the curve of cut glass arching away into the promise of a perfect circle: A crystal ball! A real one! Half hidden and tipped on its edge against a chipped bowl.         Mia forgot to breathe.         The sign at the edge of the blanket read Everything One Dollar. She checked the other shoppers. Had anyone else seen it? A lady and a boy rummaged through a box of belts and purses next to the puzzle table. Another little boy dragged at his father’s hand, begging to have a plastic horse with a black mane and tail.         Where was Daddy? Her heart thumped-thumped faster. He stood by a stack of tires. She waved her hand to get his attention, hoping that the others wouldn’t notice. She wanted to yell, “Hurry, hurry!” Please hurry before someone else finds the magical thing hiding next to a dented teakettle. They would scoop it up. She knew it. Instead of shouting, she waved harder. He waved back and walked toward her.         “Daddy,” she said, grabbing at his shirtsleeve when he was close enough. “Daddy, do you see it?”         She didn’t want to take the chance and point, so she dipped her head toward the blanket and whispered, “Daddy, there! Next to that broken bowl. There. Right there. Can you believe it? And it’s only one dollar.”         He followed her pointing finger and then shrugged. “Mia, what do you want me to see?”         “There, Daddy.” Desperate, she took two steps onto the blanket. Mia bent down, pushed away a mixing bowl and wooden spoon. She picked up the crystal ball and held it out in front of her like a fragile egg.          He squinted at the dazzling magic she cradled and then stared at her with a confused frown.
Pulling the globe out of her hands, he studied it. “Mia? What do you think it is?”          She peeked around him to check on the other shoppers. They must not find out about her marvelous discovery. “Shhh, Daddy. Someone will hear you.”          “Hear what? What are you talking about?”           How could he not know? How could he not see what a prize she’d found? She waved him down next to her, so that she could whisper in his ear. In a rush, she said, “Can’t you see? It’s a crystal ball. The kind fortunetellers use.”           He blinked hard, surprised. “But, Honey.”           In his big, rough hands the crystal ball looked delicate and mysterious. He turned it over and put his fist into the opening in the bottom, and he rubbed the inside with his knuckles. Did he know some wonderful way to use its magic? Was this how it worked?           He tipped the globe upright and shook it. A shower of brittle, dead mosquitoes fell out of its hollow center.           “Honey, we have one just like it in our bathroom. It’s called a fixture, a light fixture.” He held up the cheap glass dome used to cover up light bulbs.           “Oh . . . but I thought it was . . . something else. ”
            Mia covered her mouth with her hand to hide the way she needed to bite her lip—hard.  Her hand smelled sweaty and dirty like the dollar bill.            Daddy tossed the glass fixture back into the heap of junk, and patting her head, he said, “Next time, Mia. Next time you’ll find treasure.”             

"FIXTURE" (3rd Place Winner - 2019 Novus Annos)

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” Daddy said when they arrived at the yard sale. He handed Mia her single one-dollar bill. She folded it in her hand and shoved it her pocket.         Mia hated the way the dollar smelled, but she loved how excited she felt having it. Shopping for treasures on the weekends was her special time with Daddy.         “Daddy, doesn’t all this stuff on the ground remind you of the beach?” she said, pointing.         Spread across the lawn were sheets covered with candy dishes and yellowed plastic bowls and worn-out shoes and old cartoon movies. A breeze tickled at the frayed edges of torn blankets. A quick gust of wind blew Mia’s hair and tangled her ponytail.         Looking over, she saw Daddy’s mouth turn up at the corners. His crooked smile made her think of a question mark. He didn’t understand, but that was okay. She tried again.         She grabbed his hand. “You know at the beach . . . that raggedy line of stuff on the sand after the water goes away? Like the seaweed that’s all mixed up with the bits of shells. Sometimes, if you walk slow and look careful, you can find a whole sand dollar that’s not broken to bits.”         “A sand dollar prize? Like finding a great hammer. Sure.” He nodded down at her.         “Like mermaid treasure.”         “You’re a funny girl, Mia,” he said.         When grownups said things like that to her, she felt itchy, not sure if it was a good thing to be a funny girl who saw seaweed in the fluttery edge of sheets on the grass at a yard sale. Once in a while, Daddy stared at her as if she were a sand dollar hidden under a pile of shells and barnacles.         He held her hand as they wandered around card tables draped with blouses, winter sweaters, and baseball hats. He always wore his greasy work coveralls when they went treasure hunting together, his name stitched in blue and black on his chest. He seemed tired and rumpled but in a nice way.         He walked her to a table with books, puzzles, and games.         “Here’s someplace where you might find a surprise. Wish me luck. I’m going to check for treasure over in the tools.” He left her and walked away. She watched him say good morning to the boss lady of the yard sale and nod to another lady who pawed through a stack of baby clothes.         If only he could find one of those strange-sounding treasures he liked. He told her their fancy names: torque wrenches and channel-lock pliers. They had exotic and mysterious names, but they were only greasy old tools.         Mia picked up a book and was disappointed to see that she’d already read it. The puzzles were too easy. She was admiring a picture of a kitten on a pencil box when the sharp glint of sun on glass caught her eye, distracting her. Something sparkled in the jumble. Was it glass? Crystal? Or even diamonds? Her heart jumped.          Her eyes searched the stack of dusty jars, the old dishes, and the banged-up pots and pans. Somewhere in the pile was a mystery that turned sunlight into fireworks.         Mia walked to the edge of the blue blanket. Light jumped out at her again. She squinted and found it, the source of the sparkle. It was the curve of cut glass arching away into the promise of a perfect circle: A crystal ball! A real one! Half hidden and tipped on its edge against a chipped bowl.         Mia forgot to breathe.         The sign at the edge of the blanket read Everything One Dollar. She checked the other shoppers. Had anyone else seen it? A lady and a boy rummaged through a box of belts and purses next to the puzzle table. Another little boy dragged at his father’s hand, begging to have a plastic horse with a black mane and tail.         Where was Daddy? Her heart thumped-thumped faster. He stood by a stack of tires. She waved her hand to get his attention, hoping that the others wouldn’t notice. She wanted to yell, “Hurry, hurry!” Please hurry before someone else finds the magical thing hiding next to a dented teakettle. They would scoop it up. She knew it. Instead of shouting, she waved harder. He waved back and walked toward her.         “Daddy,” she said, grabbing at his shirtsleeve when he was close enough. “Daddy, do you see it?”         She didn’t want to take the chance and point, so she dipped her head toward the blanket and whispered, “Daddy, there! Next to that broken bowl. There. Right there. Can you believe it? And it’s only one dollar.”         He followed her pointing finger and then shrugged. “Mia, what do you want me to see?”         “There, Daddy.” Desperate, she took two steps onto the blanket. Mia bent down, pushed away a mixing bowl and wooden spoon. She picked up the crystal ball and held it out in front of her like a fragile egg.          He squinted at the dazzling magic she cradled and then stared at her with a confused frown.
Pulling the globe out of her hands, he studied it. “Mia? What do you think it is?”          She peeked around him to check on the other shoppers. They must not find out about her marvelous discovery. “Shhh, Daddy. Someone will hear you.”          “Hear what? What are you talking about?”           How could he not know? How could he not see what a prize she’d found? She waved him down next to her, so that she could whisper in his ear. In a rush, she said, “Can’t you see? It’s a crystal ball. The kind fortunetellers use.”           He blinked hard, surprised. “But, Honey.”           In his big, rough hands the crystal ball looked delicate and mysterious. He turned it over and put his fist into the opening in the bottom, and he rubbed the inside with his knuckles. Did he know some wonderful way to use its magic? Was this how it worked?           He tipped the globe upright and shook it. A shower of brittle, dead mosquitoes fell out of its hollow center.           “Honey, we have one just like it in our bathroom. It’s called a fixture, a light fixture.” He held up the cheap glass dome used to cover up light bulbs.           “Oh . . . but I thought it was . . . something else. ”
            Mia covered her mouth with her hand to hide the way she needed to bite her lip—hard.  Her hand smelled sweaty and dirty like the dollar bill.            Daddy tossed the glass fixture back into the heap of junk, and patting her head, he said, “Next time, Mia. Next time you’ll find treasure.”             

EARTHLIGHTS (4th place winner in the 2019 NOVUS ANNOS SHORT STORY CONTEST)

 “Why can’t you two stop being criminals?” Midge sighed, scratched at a mosquito bite, and then patted Buck’s and Big Dog’s heads. They wagged their tails and smiled their doggy smiles over the evidence of their latest theft: a chunk of pottery, a bit of bone, and teeth. Human teeth.They did it all the time, digging up and dragging home souvenirs from the Indian burial mounds along the Little-Big Econ River.There was no real way to make them stop. Buck and Big Dog were just dogs, after all. They didn’t understand that when you dug up a grave it was like peeking through a neighbor’s bedroom window and seeing your best friend’s mom in a towel. Some stuff was supposed to stay all covered up. Midge always felt bad when the dogs brought home other people’s teeth and bones.The only thing she could think to do about it was to take the bits of bone back to the river. She never could find the exact right spot where the dogs had dug up their treasures, but she tried hard to make a good job of it anyway and hoped the owners of the teeth didn’t mind too much that she reburied them in whatever burial mound she could find. She always said a few words, making sure it was something respectful and poetry pretty.“You bad dogs come with me, and we’ll go for a walk to the river to do the right thing. Again.” Buck and Big Dog wagged their tails harder. They plopped their butts in the sand to wait for her.The bones would go back to the river, but the pottery Midge kept. She always put the shards of clay in a pile in her sock drawer. Bones and teeth were one thing, but bits of busted up old dishes felt a lot less serious. Whenever she added another hunk of clay to the collection, she had to admire the crosshatch marks stamped on the side.Someone, some long-dead somebody, had managed to take ordinary old mud and smash and bend and dry it into a bowl or a cup. Not only had they turned mud into something good, they had taken the time to try to make mud beautiful. Midge loved that about that long-dead somebody.At the Little-Big Econ River, the dogs watched while she reburied their latest stolen treasure. After that, Midge wandered the river’s edge. The dogs sniffed and ran.She enjoyed the way the river got lazy and low in the dry season. It seemed to be saying the ocean could wait.Low water left the banks raw—carved and crumbling mud. Tree roots reached out for the water with tangled fingers. Midge climbed over exposed roots and navigated the deadfalls that piled up where the river turned in on itself. She kicked through sugar sand heaped up in snow-white dunes along the bank. Buck and Big Dog poked their noses into animal dens and gator holes.The rustles and skittering hidden under the folds of heavy green drapery sounded like the magical chanting of some tiny, invisible world.There was magic in this jungle, everyone knew it: globes of light that floated out of the steam and mist. Some called them spook lights. Others called them ghost lights, or said the lights were balls of lightning trapped in the muck. The science guys at the university called the lights swamp gas. Even that idea seemed touched with a kind of magic.And everyone knew that the biggest magic hung around the Snow Hill Road River Bridge, where the river widened, deepened, and swelled. When they reached the bridge, Midge thought someone had left a pile of blankets in one of the rectangle boxes under the bridge. Nosy and whiny, Big Dog climbed up. He started sniffing the blankets.“Come on down here you big, dumb dog. There’s nothing up there for you.” Midge climbed the incline under the bridge to grab Big Dog’s collar. He growled and worried at the edge of the blankets, pulling them free as she dragged him away.That’s when the old woman sat straight up like a wasp warning off an intruder. Bam.She was a gray-haired tumbleweed of a woman tucked up under the bridge, dressed in a red bathrobe with a rabbit’s foot hanging from the zipper pull. Midge could hardly breathe.“Don’t tense yourself up, little girl. I can barely bite, now can I?” the old woman said, and then smiled a broken-toothed smile that might have been frightening but wasn’t. Big Dog dropped the blanket and retreated to find Buck, and Midge was alone with the old woman.The old woman’s eyes were the color of the river, the dark brown of tannic acid and the curve of dark mud. Midge saw the earth.“Have you come for the stories?”It was the best question anyone had ever asked Midge. There was a secret delight in even being asked such a question. Usually, grownups talked around Midge and never to her. Too small, too quiet, too ordinary looking, Midge understood that she was never going to be one of those most- likely-to sorts, the kind of kid that adults favored and petted and fussed over.“Do you have stories to tell?”“I have to tell stories. It’s the way of things when you spend your days under bridges for a living,” the woman said, smiling her worn-out smile. The woman’s grin made Midge think of stitches on the skin of a dried-out apple. It wasn’t beautiful, but it wasn’t scary either. There was nothing of harm in the woman’s face or in the promise of storytelling. “I love to hear stories, anytime.”“Yes, I can tell you would, and I love those slices of meat with the red bits made of pimento and green olives. I’ll take that in payment, so you won’t feel that you’re stealing from me, and I won’t feel robbed.”“I’m not sure what kind of food that . . . Miss . . . what should I call you?”“We’ll come to that, but we’ll leave some mysteries for later.”***And that’s how it happened, that Midge went home and asked her mother for pimento loaf so that she could hear stories strung out like the yarn in a loom.She’d wait for her mother to run errands and leave Buck and Big Dog at home, so she didn’t have to keep a look out for dogs that liked to steal people’s teeth. It might hurt the feelings of an old woman with not many teeth of her own, and Midge didn’t want that. Midge visited the woman on Wednesdays. She heard stories about conquistadors and Indian princesses, tales of pirates and secret treasure, stories about clouds made of mosquitoes—so many mosquitoes that they swarmed into the noses of cattle, suffocating them—and stories of the river, always the river.The Snow Hill Road River Bridge crossed the Little-Big Econ at the place in the river where an island once sat. It had been an island made of graves, a Timacaun burial mound. When the bridge builders came, they knocked down the island of bones, letting all the molars and elbows inside tumble away from the Little-Big Econ all the way to the St. Johns. The bridge crossed the river. The river crossed the dead. And the old woman kept her stories tight underneath as the cattle trucks and SUVs rumbled over the concrete and steel above her head, making the cement vibrate and hum, shaking the spiders in their webs.Then came a Wednesday when the old woman told Midge no stories. “Help me, child. Help me,” the woman said, bending over her cement rectangle under the bridge.Midge stood at the edge of the water, looking up at the old woman who searched through her blankets as she tossed tuna cans and worn-out pillows over her shoulder. It was a waterfall of trash coming down the incline, all those cans that rolled down to land at Midge’s feet.“Hurry up now and help. Those science boys from that university will be coming to find out about lightning balls made of swamp gas, now that the mists have come back. All the science in the world and not a drop of dreams to swallow.”Midge crab-scrambled up to the old woman’s nest. When she stood up, Midge could touch the underside of the road without stooping, and so could the woman. They were the same size.Emptying the stone box, the woman snorted, “Those university boys think to figure out why the ghost lights live here. They won’t.” She pulled the last blanket free.The stone box was full of a dozen mason jars.“Were you sleeping on those? Wasn’t that hard for you to do?”“Plenty of blankets. That’s the key. Remember, plenty of blankets.” She lifted a jar out and shoved it at Midge. The glass was dulled by dust and grime.“Drink!” she commanded. “Start drinking, girl,” she said.“What? Why? I don’t want to drink anything inside that jar. It’s so dirty.”The old woman turned to Midge, searching for something in her face. Then she laughed. Taking the jar out of Midge’s hand, she grabbed the edge of the red bathrobe and scrubbed at the surface of the glass. Like a window in the grime, the clear spot glowed.She handed the jar back to Midge. Inside was a swirly light, bouncing around the jar like a ball. Glitter, like flecks of Pixie dust, winked at her. It was beautiful and cheerful in a frantic kind of way.“Don’t open it until you’re ready to drink, or the light will get away, child.”“What is it?”The woman paused, smacked her wrinkled lips, and then sighed. “I forget that not everyone knows what I know because I’m old.” She took the mason jar back and shook it like a snow globe. The ball of glitter went to pieces, filling the entire jar and then re-formed to become a bouncing ball again.“It’s the stuff that the stories come from. And if the science boys find it, they’ll try to measure it, and weigh it, and make a chart out of it. Stupid waste of perfectly good dazzlement and fizzle.”A truck rattled over their heads and the bridge echoed with hums. She held the jar up in front of Midge.  “Drink it up, girl. But do it right or the light will get away like I said, and then we’ll be bothered with sightings and reports and folks seeing will o’ the wisps all over this river. Drink it up now.”“But you do it. Why can’t you do it?”“Too old. The story glitter will leak out of my worry lines and then where will we be? Telling you the stories was the last of me being their keeper.” She shoved the jar at Midge, insistent. Midge hesitated to take it.“But how do you know the scientists are coming?”“Child, just because I can’t bite when I chew doesn’t mean I can’t hear what’s in the wind.” The woman’s voice turned sugar soft. “You brought me the meat with green and red in it. You brought me what I asked for, and I knew that you would be the one I could count on. No one sees old women under bridges. No one. And less than no one brings pimento loaf when asked.” She smiled her warm, hollow smile, and rubbed her nose on her sleeve. “Were the stories good? Were they not full of what you wanted?”Midge had to admit that she would have brought more than lunchmeat to hear the stories. She nodded and reached for the glass jar.“Unscrew the lid, shake the light, and swallow it down fast . . .”A dump truck banged past and the bridge vibrated with the weight of dirt roaring by. The mason jar slipped out of the woman’s knobby fingers and dropped between them. The jar broke open like a bag of marbles at their feet, scattering. The ball of bouncing light seemed stunned by its sudden freedom. It hovered—almost uncertain.The old woman’s hands flew to her mouth, pressing against the emptiness. She moaned. Then the light darted up, hit the underside of the bridge, and shot straight down into the river. The spark of moving light torpedoed beneath the surface, headed up river just below the top of the water, and then it was out of the water and gone, into the slick, wet jungle.“Oh no! And now they’ll come and bother me.” It was more a sob than actual words.“I’m sorry. I should have grabbed it. I didn’t have it in my hand. It fell. It just fell.” Glass still tinkled against the cement as it settled and shifted.The woman reached for another jar, handed it to Midge and said, “Drink!”Using two hands, Midge unscrewed the metal ring, held the canning lid with her thumb, shook the glass, and then drank the glittering swirl straight down. She couldn’t help thinking that it tasted yellow and orange and like the underside of sunlight, except on the edges where it tasted like green scales and violet eyes.“It’s so good,” she said, surprised. “I can taste the way the world sounds.”Laughing now, the woman handed Midge the next jar and the next until they were all empty and Midge’s head was full of everything that stories might be made of and then some.“And your name, I know it now.” It felt like tumbled moss in her head. “I should have guessed.”With a finger that felt like a rabbit’s ear, the old woman tipped Midge’s head back and looked into her face.“Don’t let the science boys tell you how the world should be or that earthlights are nothing but the swamp farting gas, because now you know.”Together they rebuilt the woman’s nest of empty jars and musty blankets.“Should I bring more pimento loaf when I come next time?” Midge asked. The woman patted Midge on the head, looked sad, and turned away.***The next Wednesday, professors from the University of Central Florida showed up to study the phenomenon of swamp gas. Then the local news channel got the idea to do a human-interest story for Halloween about ghost lights and the scientists who try to study such things. The news trucks showed up with cables, strobes, and curious reporters looking for a story, any story.They made no mention of a homeless woman living under the Snow Hill Road River Bridge, or of Buck and Big Dog who liked to dig up the long dead, or of a local girl who had the glitter of sounds and the color of stories tucked inside her head and thrumming through her bones.
     

Old Goat Sanctuary

Old Goat Sanctuary–A Classic ZippityZern Essay
A short train ride from “Africa Land” at Disney’s Animal Kingdom takes you to the children’s petting zoo. It’s one of our family’s favorite places on earth, because it is our family philosophy that you can never pet too many goats, and that place is crawling with goats. In fact, that’s our family motto, “E Pettacus Goaticus Maximus,” which roughly interpreted means you can never pet goats enough.Except that you can pet goats enough, also too much.  Actually, it’s possible to pet the goats so much that their hair starts to fall out, their teeth get loose, and they develop palsy. This is known as over petted goat syndrome, and it’s devastating—for the goats.To avoid over petted goat syndrome the Disney folks provide their goats with a kind of sacred animal sanctuary made of ropes and signs. In the petting zoo the goats have designated areas roped off for their protection and peace of mind. Helpful signs hang from the ropes that explain, “Please don’t pet us while we’re behind the ropes. We’re resting,” or “Keep back goat killers!” Something like that.It can be highly amusing to watch seventy or eighty children take out after the one brain damaged goat that wanders or is pushed out of the designated “resting” area—right out into open, unprotected terrain because an absolute orgy of goat petting can ensue. Like I said, the children’s petting zoo at Animal Kingdom is one of our favorite spots on earth. It’s like Mad Max’s “Thunder Dome” for goats.Except when over petted goat syndrome hits too close to home.My husband and I have been married for forty years, in defiance of stacks of people who said, “It will never last.” Not only has it lasted. It burns brighter today than back when my new husband wooed me on our honeymoon by saying, “I’ve waited twenty-one years, and I’m not waiting another minute.”Yikes. What can I tell you? We were young, dumb, and virgins.Now we’re old-ish and still pretty dumb, but I feel safe in saying that my husband finds me as much fun as those kids find those goats at that petting zoo—even after all these years. Which is great. No, really, it’s great—except when it’s just too much. So taking a clue from the Disney goats, I’ve had to create an island of protection, peace, and rest for myself amidst the sea of unrelenting “romance” that is my dear husband of forty years. Yes, friends, I’ve had to designate my walk-in closet as my own personal SANCTUARY.Our grown children are horrified, 1) because their parents still admit to indulging in “romance,” and 2) because they are related to us in any fashion, genetic or otherwise, as evidenced by the following conversation:Our oldest daughter asked, “What is Dad talking about that your closet is sanctuary, and he’s not allowed in there?” She managed to look baffled and confused at the same time.“Goats,” I said. “What?”“Goats. You know, goats,” I explained helpfully. Her confusion exploded across her face.I sighed and continued. “You know goats. Disney goats. The “Don’t pet us, we’re resting,” goats. Those signs for the goats at the petting zoo.”“You make Dad stay out of your closet because of the goats at the petting zoo.” I could tell that she had put it together, but she still didn’t get it.Frustrated, I asked, “Do you want my hair to fall out and my teeth to get loose?” I tapped my teeth for emphasis. She frowned.“Okay, listen!” I knew that I just had to come out with it. “It’s like this. If I’m not careful your father is going to pet me to death.”Her horror was audible.  She screamed.“What? You asked! I can’t help it if he’s crazy about me!”It’s true. It’s all so very true. My daughters are horrified. My sons are horrified, but for different reasons. The boys comments run more along the lines of, “Gee, Dad, that’s just wrong. I hope my wife never gets the sanctuary idea.”Boys and girls, girls and boys, and goats—old and otherwise.Linda (Do Not Disturb) Zern

E is for Egregious

“Travel,” they say. “See the world,” they say. See the world, eat the food, speak the words and become a dazzling example of a well-traveled polyglot.No. Polyglot doesn’t mean someone with a lot of glots.It means you can talk-talk in many tongues and dazzle your friends at parties.Travel, I say, is overrated. I’ve traveled. I’ve been yelled at by airport security in many foreign lands and foreign tongues. And frankly, I hate it.Arriving is nice. I enjoy arriving. Looking at other people’s trees. That’s nice. Although my own trees are quite fine too. But traveling . . .Traveling is the third circle of hell, especially if you must pass through the purgatory of the Atlanta airport.On our most recent visit to the third circle of hell . . . oops . . . er . . . I mean the world’s busiest airport our connection was tight. Let me explain, a “connection” is an impossibly short amount of time to both urinate in a toilet and run to the opposite end of the terminals—thus our connection was tight. So tight, in fact, that we had to slam our way through the throngs of other poor souls milling about in search of a toilet without twelve people waiting in line. We raced for the train/tram/cattle car. It was packed.My husband fearing that we would miss our connection shoved me onto the already jammed cattle care . . . er . . . um . . . I mean cool, modern, convenient public mode of transportation. He yelled, “Get on.” And then kicked me forward with his foot.The doors closed—not rebounding—because they don’t. The voice on the announcement was happy to explain that the doors would not rebound. The doors did not rebound. They closed. My husband did not make it. I slapped the palms of my hands against the windows, staring at his shocked face, as I moaned, “No. No. No.”I turned to face the jammed cattle car . . . er . . . um . . . I mean complimentary public transport. The crowd of squashed travelers glared back at me with narrowed eyes and frowny lips. I moaned again.He had the tickets. He knew the gate. He got on the next train. It was empty. He texted me the gate number. We stumbled onto our connecting flight. My life shortened by 3.7 years.I believe strongly that I was treated egregiously and that traveling is wildly overrated.When our youngest daughter was little, she had crazy curly hair that she would constantly zip into the tent zipper when we went camping. I’ll never forget finding her zipped into the tent, one more time, as she said, “I want to go home where we belong.”Ditto. That’s how I feel when I travel. “I want to go home where I belong.”Linda (Homebody) Zern

D is for Delirious

Forty years ago, I met my husband at Oviedo High School. Yes. We were high school sweethearts. Odds for our continued success were not good. We were young. We were goofy. We were hardly qualified to drive an automobile let alone make a life together.We did . . .. . . make a life together.We’re stubborn that way.This Christmas, my high school sweetheart decided he would gift me several new dresses. He’s done that in the past, bought me clothes that I loved, and that I wore until they rotted off my body. There was one little number, a little navy-blue sailor dress that I rocked for years . . . This Christmas was a blast from the past—in more ways than one.I opened my gifts and pulled out three lovely fitted dresses.Size? High school prom.“Sweetheart,” I began, “they’re quite nice.” I held up one emerald green shift to my grandmotherly body. It covered one shoulder and a chunk of love handle. “But . . . I can’t wear it.”“What? Why?”“Because there’s not enough of it.”He pulled the dress out of my hands and frowned at the fabric he held. “But these are the kind of dresses you always like to wear.” I rejected telling him that I haven’t worn a dress like this in twenty years. I counted the darts, contemplated the narrow, nipped-in waistline, and noted the lack of stretch in the overall design. I checked the tag in the neck: size, teenager.“Babe, Zoe might be able to wear them.” Zoe is our fifteen-year-old granddaughter.He looked genuinely puzzled. “Really?”“Really. Really.”Sighing, I ran my hand over my unwearable Christmas gifts.Zoe wore one of them to church just the other Sunday. She looked like a rockstar stock broker. The emerald green dress fit like a well sewn glove.My grown children told her how great she looked, how grown-up, how slick and professional.My son looked at me and said, “Hey, isn’t that one of the dresses Dad bought for you for . . .”“Yes.” I nodded.“Zoe,” he continued, “What size do you wear?”“Zero,” she said.My son turned back to me and said, “Wow!”He called it. Wow. I’m married to a man that either is so deliriously still in love with me that he only sees the girl with the twenty-three-inch waist and the cute “Sweet Honesty” t-shirt, or he hasn’t actually looked at me in twenty years.I’m going with delirious.Linda (Sweetly Honest) Zern