WannaskaWriter

 I haven't taken many walks on the land this year, although my wife would argue with that statement. It probably seems to her that I'm forever leaving for a walk, going west across the corral, heading out across the tree rows out there, putting up with pesky flies and mosquitoes, doing who knows what.  If I walk out with my camera and a beer in my pocket, then it's just one of these sentimental strolls through the places I've put so much of my energies into over the past 48-some years. Sometimes, I just stand in one spot for several minutes, listening to the sounds around me, just looking at the landscape, the clouds and their play above the contours of the varying heights of trees, or how stages of light affect the scene.  Tree rows in July are still distinct although grown up in grass. I will mow the rows out in late August or  September according to my CRP requirements. I might pull weeds from around a struggling small tree, pull spring debris away so...

Yeah, today is my birthday. I’ve never been this old before, well, that I know of anyway for I’m ignorant of such things. Yes, yes, yes, you read it here; I don’t know it all, and it’s never bothered me.   Well there’s so much importance made about ‘knowing it all’. On the other hand, i.e., oppositely, people who act like they ‘know it all’ are very often despised. So what’s a person to do? I don’t like to be ignorant of things, in most cases; but equally don’t care to know it all because it involves so much of your life; I’m just not ambitious that way. Never have been. I like what I like and that’s it. Interests come to me from experiences with other people, through books, and through stories on the radio.   I have an ear and eye for details and subconsciously remember excerpts of conversation in which either I or others are participating. It seems a natural ability. Maybe I was a prey animal in a previous life and listening, remembering--and skepticism--of what I hear was...

                                                                   An Evening Rain     An unexpected rainstorm after tepid daytime temperatures and windless conditions. Forecast indicated the system was to go north of us, but radar looked like we were in its southern reaches. Thunder a long way off heralded its approach, the sky filling with dark ominous clouds. A welcome coolness came across the skin as temperatures dropped and leaves at the top of trees began to flutter.     I carried in our plastic picnic table, partially folding it to fit just off the aisle in our entry. Our seven year old grandson wanted to wait out the rain ...

  Selling the family home these days is commonplace for many families as so many people change jobs and relocate across the country more often than in the past, but some old homes remain in the family for generations and such is the case of the family home at 276 Nantasket Ave in Hull, MA. And as for 276, I understand 'striking while the iron is hot' and selling it in its currently maintained state, before a major problem develops that the family can ill afford to fix down the road. I've visited the house several times and have fond memories of it as well, especially my hours within it, in 2015, before my sea legs disappeared from our sail trip with Jerry across the Gulf of Maine, and its grand stair steps would rise up to meet my feet and its shower walls were anchor points as it was luffing up in my mind--and I was laughing because it was such a weird experience. The old house is such a spiritual place in anyone of the family's sense. All the kids an...

A wife questioning her husband, for some reason suspecting me. “Who is all going to be there and what kind of ‘Editorial Meeting’ is this going to be?” she asked of her husband, while she looked me in the eyes, scrutinizing my every facial expression and hand gesture for any one of the FBI’s Twelve Signs of Truth Omission: 1.) Darting eyes 2.) Rapid blinking 3.) How long my eyes are closed. 4.) Looking up to the right 5.) Eye shift from left to right. 6.) Looking down to the right. 7.) Eye movement when smiling 8.) Face touching. 9.) Pursed lip actions 10.) Excessive sweating. 11.) Blushing 12.) Head shaking  (All of which are why I’ve learned to always wear sunglasses and an ear bud to such interrogations to counteract suspicion.)  She stepped away from the kitchen counter that she had been leaning against to close the gap between them, and lowered her head to catch hubby’s gaze toward the floor. Funny how your childhood comes back to a person d...

I sat on the picnic table one evening, unassailed by flies or mosquitoes, listening to mourning doves ‘coo-cooing’ beyond my line of sight; the distant water-thrashing territorial disputes between opposing pairs of Canadian geese along Mikinaak Creek; the melodic trills of redwing blackbirds from the tops of the trees; and robins, here and there, singing happily from the woods. To me, it’s pure heaven. The breeze arises in the treetops, then descends. Between gusts, I can hear water rushing through an upstream beaver dam. I hear one bluejay talking to another. I watch a handful of goldfinches hunt for sunflower seeds  below the birdfeeder that my wife insists on using even though natural food abounds now, just so she can see them in all their variety. “Do you know purple finches poop is purple?” Bullfrogs sing-song from the water; tree frogs peep from the trees. The branches of the dozen or so bur oaks that once bordered the Martin and Irene Davidson home, reverberate behind me i...