Mom's Moose—or Was it Two?

Like veterans, hunters and fishers can regale you with their stories for hours. My mother just sent pictures. For three decades, she lived ten miles from the nearest paved road and thirty miles from the nearest store. The 60-mile backroads route we sometimes took to her house concluded with a 17-mile stretch through deep woods that could be a lump in your throat challenge if you ever met a vehicle coming your way. Of course, you seldom did.

Not far from my mother's house was a lake with bass, perch, hornpout, and pickerel. There was also a stream filled with trout. Mom would look out her kitchen window in the morning and see deer, bear, moose, and a host of smaller animals. Since there was plenty of meat and fish close to home, there was little reason for going to the meat department of the grocery store in the nearest town. Besides the woods and lake, the only places to go were neighbors' houses, a fish hatchery with no trespassing signs, and, out on the paved road, a highway department depot and a fire station. My mother got to three out of four. When it got icy, she went to the depot. She would back her car up to the storage building where they kept road salt and shovel what she needed into a box in her trunk. Apparently, the highway department never objected. At the fire station, she found camaraderie, entertainment, and, sometimes, extra spending money. Those benefits all came from "Friday Night Bingo."

There was no mistaking the role bingo played in my mother's life. She did regale us with bingo stories, including how one night's winnings provided the five-hundred-dollar down payment needed for her and my father's first house. Whenever we visited Mom, we were expected to go with her to the firehall so we could meet her bingo buddies. Once, we followed her to a service station at which she planned to leave her car. On the back bumper was a sticker that said, "Support BINGO—keep Grandma off the streets!"

My mother’s hunting style was both novel and leisurely. It required a stack of ladies’ magazines, a lawn chair, and a 30-30 rifle. It began with a strategic location and setup. The strategic location was usually a clearing near a water source where she had previously seen the cloven prints of deer or moose. The setup involved unfolding her lawn chair just out of sight in the woods at the edge of the clearing. The ladies magazines were to pass the time until an animal came into view. You can guess the rest.

One year, when my mother’s name was drawn in the regional lottery for a moose-hunting license, she shot an 800-pound moose the first day and sent us a Teddy Roosevelt-like photo of the moose, herself, and her rifle. A year later, her husband’s name was picked and another moose was shot—even though, beyond a few feet, her husband was as blind as tree trunk.

My mother died a few days back. She was nearly 89. She lived her last few years next door to my brother on the edge of a city through which two Interstate highways pass and where people frequently encounter herds at malls but never a solitary moose.

My Mockingbird Birthday

My wife and I, in our fourth decade of marriage, are romantics, which sometimes comes out in our celebrations of important birthdays and anniversaries. On our fortieth anniversary, for instance, we hired a bamboo houseboat and sailed for two days along the Indian coast of the Arabian Sea. But that story is for another time. This one is about my recent birthday and how my wife surprised me good.

First some background. When I was 17, I was smitten by Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and I was no less impressed by the movie. I won’t rehearse the story. Everyone who has been to school—at least in the U.S.—has been obligated to read it. What I will say is this: the film has remained my favorite for fifty years. The most important reason is the protagonist, Atticus Finch, a small-town, southern lawyer modeled after the writer's father and played by Gregory Peck. Over the decades, Atticus has been, for me, a role model: a man of principle, integrity and high values who is not hesitant to do what's right even if it is costly. The fact Atticus Finch remains my role model in all those ways is my confession I have attained none of it. But it is also my commitment to stay with the quest.

But back to my story. Sometime in the autumn of 2012, my wife learned that in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird, the movie would play in theaters all over the country, including our city, for one day only. And the day was November 15, which by chance—or shall I say providence?—was my birthday. (I knew nothing of this.)

On my birthday, therefore, my wife announced she had a surprise, but we would have to get in the car and drive for twenty minutes. Naturally, I immediately began rehearsing the possibilities. My first thought was of a surprise party at our church (I guessed that because we were driving that direction and that is how long it took to get there). When we went by the road to the church, my second thought was dinner out at my favorite seafood restaurant (that also was twenty minutes in that direction). But, no, we soon pulled into the parking lot of the mall theater complex and went inside. My thought then was that the establishment must take surprise-party-and-a-movie bookings. But, no, we entered one of the theaters, and I didn’t recognize a soul. Moreover, there was no food. There would be no party here.

The theater darkened. Then came the previews, the warning about mobiles and texting and how distracting they can be in a dark theater, and, finally, the featured film, To Kill a Mockingbird. When I saw the titles and heard Elmer Bernstein’s score, I got goosebumps. I was utterly overwhelmed, but not, it turned out, as overwhelmed as I would be.

 The movie, as everyone knows, starts off with the voice of the narrator and the now famous opening, "Maycomb was an old town, a tired old town when I first knew it . . ." It continues:

Somehow it was hotter then . . . bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum . . .

At the mention of teacakes, my wife reached into the bottomless purse she carries and produced soft, homemade, ever-so-delicious southern teacakes. (But if they had not been delicious, I would not have noticed.) Then, a few minutes later—it is in the the fourth chapter of the book—when Calpurnia brings lemonade to the children, my wife again reached into her magical purse and produced a bottle of fresh lemonade. (How could I have known forty-two years ago I was marrying the jewel who could come up with this?)

"Is it still your favorite movie?" she asked afterwards.

"More than ever," I said. "But, about next year, what will you do for an encore?"

When Jesus Lambasted the Kids

When I was 23 and my future brother-in-law, Raymond was in  high school, a traveling passion play on the life of Jesus came to town. He bought a ticket, but on the day of the play, he had no way to get to the venue. "I’ll drive you," I said. "I’ll even buy a ticket and join you." But when we got to the school where the play was to be given, we learned it was sold out.

"Don’t worry," I said. "I have a partly-read book in the car. This will be my chance to finish it. When the play is done, meet me there." The proposal seemed agreeable, so he went inside the auditorium, and I headed back to the car.

"Just a minute!" someone shouted after me as I went out. "I’ve got a seat for you—in fact, the best seat in the house." I turned around, and before I could say a word, a woman grabbed my arm and led me down a hallway and into a room where the actors were getting ready for the performance.

"Andrew!" she said, poking me in the back. And just like that, I was being outfitted with a wig, toga, sandals, and makeup. Someone also handed me my lines and gave me instructions on when to say them. There were two of them. The first was: "there is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish." The second was: "crucify him," which seemed like a really strange thing for Andrew to be saying. But, you see, I wasn’t just Andrew in the play but, also, one of the crowd.

As I got ready for my acting debut that day—although, the truth be told, I was a Christmas elf in first grade—I asked the Apostle John how he liked traveling with the troupe. It’s tolerable," he said. One town’s greasy spoon is like another." As long as we spend as little time with Jesus as possible, we get along fine."

Soon the performance began and, before long, we were coming to the part of the play where the disciples shoo away children whose parents have brought them to Jesus. However, Jesus insists they be allowed, saying "for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs" (Mark 10:14). That scene was coming up, and Jesus, the disciples, and the children were behind the curtain, waiting for it.

Two of the children, though, were whispering, probably about what they were suppose to do. And, then, the most incongruous thing happened. Just before the curtain was raised, Jesus whirled around, pointed a long bony finger at the children, and said, "If you kids don’t shut up, I will cut your ears off!"

Afterwards, when we met at the car, I asked Raymond what he thought of the play.

"You didn’t miss much," he said. "The guy who played Jesus spoiled it for me."

"How?

" He was a prima donna."

"A prima donna is a woman," I said.

"Well, you know what I mean. The guy who played Jesus—what was his name?—he seemed more intent on showcasing himself than Jesus. Everything he did and said was for effect. Take those kids in that one scene. Did this Jesus really want those kids in the scene? They were only props. He never looked at them once—not once. They were invisible to him. Why? Because he was so fixated on impressing the audience."

I decided to change the subject. "Raymond, tell me about the rest of the play and the other actors. What did you think of them? What did you think of Mary? And Andrew . . . what about the guy that played him?"

"Andrew?" he said.

The Blizzard and the Angel

Today is a snowy day, the first of the winter season. Not much snow falls where I live now—on average 16 inches a year—a pittance compared with what I grew up with in New Hampshire. Back then, by this time of year, the plows had made snowbanks six feet high, and the drifts against our house had obscured the view from first-floor windows. To be seen as he moved from one street to another, my father tied a red bandanna to the aerial of his snow-chained Chevrolet. Chains were in fashion then, and legal too.

The biggest snow was in 1978. At least, that is what I am told. I missed that one. The largest one I have vivid memories of was far from New England, at Winnipeg, Manitoba. I had flown there to lead a weekend workshop. The workshop began on a November Friday in 1986. It would go until late Saturday afternoon. But there was some doubt. By the start of the meeting, it was already snowing heavily. That did not dissuade people from coming. (Where I live now, if forecasters signal the slightest suspicion of coming snow, every business, school and church closes immediately.) However, by the time we emerged an hour and a half later, the snowplows and salt trucks were out in force, and a strong wind had joined up with the ever more heavily falling snow. The person assigned to drive me to my hotel near the airport reported the storm would last through Sunday. "We'll be canceling the rest of the workshop," he said. "You can count on it." He was right. By Sunday every road was closed.

When, before dawn on Monday morning, I went to the hotel lobby, I discovered it had become a refugee camp for stranded employees. They were asleep in every couch and corner. At the desk I asked the clerk, "Will you please call a taxi for the airport? I have a big meeting in Boston today, and my plane leaves at seven. The clerk said, "The airport is still closed."

"That's OK," I said, "The terminal will be open, and there are still three hours until my flight. By then they will have a runway open. Besides, I have my suitcase packed and with me."

So, the clerk called the taxi company, but they would not dispatch a cab. "Sorry sir," he said. "The roads are still impassable. I suggest you check with me around nine."

There was nothing to do. I started for the elevator. However, at that moment, a man appeared at the hotel entrance, and in a voice clear and loud enough to fill the room said, "I am here for the one who needs a ride to the airport."

 

"That's me!" I said without thinking.

"Have you got your bag?"

"Right here."

"Let’s go!"

I wonder what the clerk thought as I went out the door into the dark accompanying a man with a ragged coat and several days growth of beard—a complete stranger to me and, no doubt, to him too. But, then, Winnipeg is a friendly place. He probably thought nothing of it. The man led me to an old pickup truck. And although, it looked as weather-worn as a graveyard fence and ready for the scrapyard, its smoke and shudder said it was running and ready.

"How did you know I needed a ride?"

"I didn’t. But I love taking my my four-wheel drive for a spin in the snow, and when I came by the hotel, I had a feeling."

"I’m glad you came by. Thanks for listening to the feeling!"

"You bet," he said.

I glanced across the seat at my impromptu "chauffeur." That is what he was that morning in his snow-proof limo. Why, he even had a chauffeur's obligatory cap and coat. But there the analogy ends. Up close, he was scruffier than he had seemed in the low-lit lobby. The cap was vintage John Deere. The coat was rumpled Shar Pei. And the boots he wore were gnarly as a stump. So, not chauffeur, but Samaritan would do!

We did not have far to go, so I got my questions in quickly. They must have gone something like this:

"What’s your name?"

"Michael."

"Do you have a family?"

"Just my father."

"Are you always this spontaneous?"

"Winging it is fun."

Except for my thanks and his refusal of payment, that was the end of our conversation. We were already at the terminal. Upon climbing out of the truck, I found the counters open, the runway cleared, and my plane on time. I made my meeting.

Afterward, I told my wife about my Samaritan and his limo.

"He was probably an angel," she said.

"Judging from his hands and fingernails, he seemed more like a mechanic," I replied.

"No," she said. He was definitely an angel."

　

Will You Remember Me?

It was the 15th of August—Independence Day—and my wife and I were special guests at a school parade. All it took for that honor was the propitious convergence of visiting a local friend and being foreigners—the latter still a rarity in that part of the country. However, we were not the only platform guests on that sixtieth anniversary of Indian Independence. There was a politician too—"an exceedingly minor one," ventured our friend, "or he’d be elsewhere."

The dais on which we sat was unshaded, but it was early morning and not yet hot. Moreover, a lovely breeze was present, which the school principal said signaled the approach of rain, "but not before tea time." The young scholars, all in uniform, were lined up by households and gender on the maidan. The boys wore brown pants and white shirts with colored collars—the colors representing their household. The girls wore colored skirts and white tops. Some of the children came from local towns and villages. Others, whose parents "were no more," as the principal put it, or were unable or unwilling to care for them, called the campus community home.

The community was tightly knit. It was accommodated within a 200-acre compound that included the school, central dining hall, residences and hostels, and administrative offices. There was also an infirmary, a small hospital open to the public, a farm, and a church. At almost the exact center of it all lived its oldest resident—an aged banyan tree that in its lifetime had put down so many trunks it was its own small forest. In and around its multiple trunks were stone benches. The stone came from the same granite quarry that supplied the slab wall of the compound.

The Independence Day celebration began with a prayer and a welcome to guests and other visitors. Then came words of greeting from the politician, who got the year of Independence wrong, and the principal’s oration in which she righted but did not mention his mistake. After that came the flag-raising ceremony and the singing of "Jana Gana Mana," the national anthem. In the finale, the students paraded around the maidan to patriotic marches crackling from loudspeakers on the dais. The marches sounded like they came from scratchy 78 rpm records, which seemed perfect to me, for the ceremony they accompanied, while celebrating a new era, was, nevertheless, deeply rooted in old traditions. The principal’s speech had covered the past, present, and future: the heroism of India’s freedom fighters; the advance of its "largest democracy in the world"; and the promise of a bright tomorrow in the still new millennium. Yet, the ceremony overall—with its protocols of politeness, political correctness, and crepitating march music that sounded for all the world like it came from an old world gramophone’s morning glory horn—was vintage 1940.

After the ceremony, my wife and I had a breakfast of medu vadas and sambar with our friend. Four girls followed us to the dining hall. No longer in their early-morning uniforms, they wore bright, holiday dresses—pink, purple, green, and yellow—with flower patterns and lace. When we emerged, they were still there.

"Good morning, Uncle! Good morning Auntie!" they said as we passed by—and we said good morning back to them.

"I think they wanted to say more," I commented.

"Yes, and they would never let you go if you allowed it. They would have you answering questions until winter," said our friend.

"You have winter?"

"Not like yours."

As we left the vicinity of the dining hall, I photographed a sign on one of its gables: "Children and flowers are very much alike. Both bring fragrance in our lives." Such signs were everywhere you looked on the grounds. Few walls or prominent rocks lacked an epigram, poem, prayer, reminder, or Bible verse. "We make the most of every opportunity to instill values," said our host. The manners of each child we met made me believe the scheme was working.

Later that morning, my wife and I, out for a walk on our own, saw two of the girls who had greeted us. They saw us too and immediately came running, saying again in one voice, "Good morning Uncle! Good morning Auntie!"

Then, one of them—the shortest but, perhaps the bravest—said, "My name is Anita." And, looking intently at me, she asked, "Uncle, what's my name?"

"Why, Anita!" I said.

Her eyes brightened and her smile widened. Turning to my wife, she asked, "Auntie, what’s my name?"

"Anita."

Then, she engaged us in serial questioning. We remembered our host's prediction of questions until winter. After a few minutes we said we had to go now. However, we had not walked far until Anita caught up to us and tugged my sleeve.

"Tell me: Uncle, what’s my name?"

"Anita."

"Auntie, what’s my name?"

"Anita."

"Yes, that’s right: Anita! Then, planting herself squarely in front of us, she asked, "Uncle... Auntie... Will you remember me?"

When we told our friend, he replied that the children often ask visitors to remember them. "And isn't that something we all want?" he said. "Isn't there even a song called, 'Will you Remember Me?'"

"That was also the request of the criminal who died next to Jesus," I added. 

"Yes," said our friend, and he quoted from a psalm: "'Who are we, O Lord, that you notice us, and remember us?' Makes you think, doesn't it?" (cf. Psalm 144:3)

An Experiment Gone Wrong

When I turned 19, I joined the Navy for practical more than patriotic reasons. America was at war in Vietnam, and I was now subject to the draft. If I enlisted, I would have a choice, and my choice was the Navy. My brother had been in the Navy and brought back wonderful color slides of the Mediterranean countries his ship visited. I hoped to follow in his wake. And if I enlisted in the reserves, I might finish in two years with money enough for college. The Mediterranean didn’t work out: my ship carried on oceanographic research along the Arctic Circle. College did. In fact, I finished a year of course work through the United States Armed Forces Institute’s correspondence program. It was not all smooth sailing though, and that is what this story is about.

One of my first courses was basic geometry, which seemed not much different from the geometry course I had taken in high school.

"What are you studying?"

It was Norman, one of the ship’s electronic technicians. That was my job too, only he maintained radio equipment and I maintained the radar. Norman knew I was studying, not just reading, because the USAFI texts all had the same blue cover and white letters.

"Geometry," I said.

"Lots of memorization," Norman said. "But I know how to buzz through it with almost no effort at all."

"I’m listening."

"Well, you learn all the rules while you are sleeping.”

"Sure!"

"No, seriously! I read an article about this movie star who tape records his lines and learns them by playing them back when he is sleeping. You could do that with your recorder."

The notion sounded reasonable enough. I had recently bought a small reel-to-reel recorder, and since it right there in my locker, Norman’s proposal made as much sense to me as him.

"I'll think about it," I said.

"What is the worst that can happen?" said Norman.

"It might not work."

"Then again, said Norman, "it might!"

I remember only a few particulars about the recorder. The magnetic tape was about a fourth-inch wide, and the reels were, at most, three inches in diameter. If I tried what Norman proposed, I could play my tape without bothering any of the sailors who slept in my quarters, because the recorder had earphones that plugged into a jack and kept the sound from coming through the speaker. There remained only one problem. The recorder did not have an automatic shutoff. How would I wake up at the end of the reel?

"I know!" said Norman. "Record your axioms, and during the next GQ [General Quarters], record the ship’s general alarm system at the end. That will wake you up for sure."

I was by then too attracted to the experiment to give much critical reflection to Norman’s GQ alarm idea. Yes, I thought, of course that would work. It might startle me, but the effect would be momentary. I would reach under my bed (I was at the bottom of three tiers of cots), take hold of the recorder, and turn it off. Simple!

So, I proceeded. I recorded what I wanted to memorize. And that afternoon, when, over the ship’s loudspeakers, the familiar call came to man our battle stations—although our ship had no guns larger than rifles—I recorded my wake-up call. It went something like this:Bong, bong, bong, bong—and then a voice: "Now, this is a drill . . . this is a drill. All hands man your battle stations!" Afterward, I played it back to Norman in the electronics workshop, and he enthusiastically endorsed it. "This thing is going to work!" he gushed. "Aren't you glad I thought of it?"

Norman urged me to conduct the experiment that very night. So, at "lights out," I plugged the earphones into the jack, fed the end of the tape into the empty reel, turned the recorder on, and slid it under the bed. I was soon fast asleep, put gently in that state no doubt by my sonorous rendition of the Pythagorean theorem.

In retrospect, I would say the experiment was working perfectly—that is, logistically speaking. But would I remember the axioms and theorems I had recorded? Would the movie actor’s bold claim be borne out? My answer came with a bang. Or should I say bong? I had turned up the volume of the GQ alarm when I recorded it, so it would not fail to have its intended effect. Moreover, to further its effectiveness, I had recorded all three repetitions of it.

BONG, BONG, BONG, BONG—"NOW, THIS IS A DRILL . . . THIS IS A DRILL. ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS!" My midnight reveille could not have worked better. I instantly sat up in bed, knowing exactly what was happening. I groped for the recorder under the bed and immediately grabbed hold of it. In my rush, though, I yanked the earphone cord from its socket and the alarm came through the speaker.

I will spare you a report of the humiliation that came my way when a couple of dozen men leaping like startled gazelles from their reverie discovered the alarm was coming from my little recorder. Suffice it to say had they not been more amused than annoyed, I can imagine substantially more disagreeable repercussions than the ones that occurred.

Worse than the humiliation, though, was Norman’s feigned response, for he pretended to be as surprised and startled by the alarm as everyone else. Worse yet, in the weeks to come, he brought up the hilarity of the scene ad nauseam without ever once asking if the experiment itself had worked.

Tonight, while I was remembering this story, I went on the Internet and looked up sleep memorization. Google came up with 655,000 results. Maybe Norman didn’t wonder, but plenty of others still do.