Some Random Thoughts

The light from a street light on the pavement as I walk across the parking lot takes me back 30 years to a cold winter night walking the streets of a tiny Montana town on my way to my grandmother's house after grade school basketball practice. Its a different time and a different place long removed from the time I remember, but something about the scene reminds me of another walk on another night, a cold winter night. I almost expect my breath to come in great puffs of steam but it doesn't. But something is the same and it reminds me of that other time. The light shining on the pavement is the same as it shone on that icy frozen street 30 years and thousands of miles ago. The shadows cast by the gravel are the same. Piles of wet leaves mimic dirty snow. The dark corners and shadows of the buildings and cars are the same. Its not the same, its rainy not snowy, wet not frosty, warm not cold, noisy not quiet, harsh not comfortable, cruel not friendly, but the light's the same, the feelings the same, for an instant the moments the same. This rainy Seattle parking lot wipes away the years, and I'm back to the quiet of a small town street on a cold winter night. Quiet streets I knew so well.

The trees and their crooked shadows. The fences and their structured shadows. The houses.

Mrs. Bonel, her house was across from the school, she was the Avon lady, she came to our house sometimes, she and her husband were friends of my grandmother but I never went in their house. Mr Cale's house was next, he was a bus driver, but he never drove my bus. Sometimes he fixed the furnace at school. Then the doctor's house, his daughter was in my grade. Is she eating dinner as I walk by, or maybe doing her homework? The Lindstrom's, the Barnett's, the Sindel's. The Brumbaugh's, I don't know them but their son is in my aunt's grade in high school, he was nice to me. The Yancy's, I don't know them but their daughter is a friend of my aunt's, and I like her, she's pretty.

One way takes me by the Drant's house. They're old people, friends of my other grandmother, they go to church with her. Their son is a friend of my father's they fought in the war together, but he lives in another town a long ways away. Mr. Drant is a friendly, smiling little man, he wears suspenders and he might be a carpenter. Mrs. Drant is a friendly, smiling woman, she's nice but she's very large and she scares me. Then past the Clonkey's house, they're good friends of my parents, their son's are younger than me but older than my brother. The snow piled up along the street and the concrete wall in front of their house makes the sidewalk seem almost like a tunnel, I imagine my self in an Antarctic research station. I've been in their house many many times, but it would be weird and scary to knock on their door now without my parents. Next door is Mr Evanston's, he runs the clothing store, and measures my feet for new school shoes.

Then I turn the corner and pass a couple dark scary houses, but the Baptist Church hulks nearby somehow protecting me from the scary houses and somehow reasuring me, even though its dark and cold. Across from the Church is Mr. Glenn's house, he's rich, he has a wife but I don't know who she is, he own's the grocery store that we never go to. On past Mr. Kelly's house, he did something with the county farm office, he was an official, sometimes he looked at our grain fields, but I don't know why. A car might drive by, but probably not, maybe when I get to main street its close now.

Another route I might take takes me past Mrs. Steinman's, she teaches typing in the high school and her son is in basketball with me, but he's good and I'm not. Sometimes he walks with me from practice. I go straight on from Mrs. Steinman's towards main street, I cut across an empty lot to main street, and walk past the Catholic Church and the newspaper office; or I turn the corner down a dark street, past the Raddinson's house, their daughters are in my aunts' grade, they know my parents; he fixes the electricity when lightning blows out our lights. Then past a big dark house, I don't know who lives there, it should be scary but for some reason its not, maybe the lights of main street protect me, they're not too far away by now.

Then I angle through the park on the well worn path, its well packed snow now, but other times of the year it may be mud, or dirt, or dust. I burst from the darkness of the park into the light of main street, and round the corner and walk past the grocery store where we buy our groceries. The lights are bright now, and a car might even drive by. People are in the grocery store. There are voices. I cross the street. My other grandmother lives up the hill, but I almost never stay with her. I continue down the street, past the drug store, the clothing store, the post office, they're all closed by now. Then I turn the corner between the post office and the old bank. The corner that I know so well, I've turned this corner a million times on foot, in a car, or in a truck, but never on my bicycle. Its a comfortable corner, like a comfortable pair of shoes, it feels good, or like a rut that you've ridden your bike through a hundred times and know that you can hit it just right every time. Its reassuring, its a pattern that is worn into my mind, and into my soul. I cut up the dark street that I know so well, there are no cars and no street lights and I angle across the street in the dark. The morgue looms ahead threatening me, I know what might be in there, but I turn off before it can hurt me, and cut down the alley towards the safety of the back door of my grandmothers house. The alley is part of the pattern, the angle of the turn, the slope of the street down towards my grandmothers house, and then the opposite turn to my grandmothers house. I go past an old wood shed that I've never been in. I go on past the shortcut through the bushes to the back door of the show house and finally I'm at the gravel driveway in back of my grandma's house. I smell wood and sawdust, and chainsaw gas, and wood smoke, comforting reasurring smells, I love these smells. I heave a sigh of relief, I relax and hurry up the concrete steps and open the back door and slip into the house.

A horn blares, or a car squeals around a corner, or skreeches to a stop,or maybe someone shouts,and I'm back in a rainy wet Seattle parking lot, walking to my car.

The streets and houses are still there, but most of these people are gone now. Both my grandmothers are gone, strangers live in their houses.