Home Town County Fair, Anywhere, USA

Home Town County Fair, Anywhere, USA

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            I attended the Dawson County Fair with my daughter Dee Dee and her family. It was touch and go whether there would even be a Saturday night rodeo. Black clouds had rolled in, covering the sky, temperatures dropped, thunder roared and lightning struck as rain pounded the ground for hours. Too dramatic? Four different storm cells hit in succession and all the above is true. When we got to the fairgrounds the rides had been shut down. Rain aided the Mud-a-Palooza, mud volleyball competition, but talk was, the rodeo might be cancelled.

            By the time we got my granddaughters, Lexi and Antoinette, sugared up with cotton candy, the carnival rides, one by one, opened and our girls, jittery with excitement, raced from merry-go-round to bumper cars. By nightfall, as rodeo cowboys bucked out the horses and bulls, the full moon hung in the clear sky like a magical platter.

            We all love the fair, right? And we all have nostalgic memories about the way it used to be. We tend to forget the dust and mosquitoes. I’m glad my grandchildren can still experience the old-fashioned county fair. They will create their own memories, just as flawed as ours.

            Sadly, each year the county fair seems to shrink, probably in direct correlation to our diminishing rural population. Last year at one of our local north-central area county fairs, I wanted to sit down and cry when I walked through the building which housed the 4-H, FFA and Club exhibits. Not only were all the groups housed in one building, but the empty space overwhelmed the paltry exhibits. Garden produce was nearly non-existent. If this year you saw a mere two jars of pickles and three of jam, would you bother to walk through next year? Cattle and horses which formerly rated their own barns were housed together, along with pigs and goats.

            We can’t roll back the clock. I don’t want to. I just hate to see what has always been such an important cultural and historical part of country life completely disappear. More than that, fairs are fun. Fairs are where the community gathers. Neighbors from the far flung corners of our large counties, who maybe only see each other once a year, get a chance to chew the fat.

            This morning my friend and former high school neighbor, Cheryl, who now lives in Oregon, reported via email that she attended the Tillamook County Fair with her grandchildren. Tillamook’s fair is rated one of the top ten in the nation. Cheryl intrigued me with mention of the Pig N Ford Races. So I did what any modern woman would do—I Googled it and watched a YouTube race from last year. At the gun shot, contestants raced to the pig pens, grabbed a pig, ran to a “car”, cranked it up, jumped in the driver’s seat with pig in his arms and drove around the course at top speed. After exchanging one pig for another at the pit stop, each entrant jumped back in his Ford and raced to the finish, where he deposited his pig in another pen and wiped his shirt with brisk motions.

            I’m easily entertained. I admit it. The point is that wacky and unique things such as pig races and mud volleyball keep us coming back and supporting our fairs. While I was on the internet, I checked in at the Hill County Fair. Aw, shucks, I missed pig wrestling and Washboard Willy.

            Last night in Glendive, Karen Quest, cowgirl on stilts, threw a lasso around six-year old Lexi and roped her in for a chat. Lexi will never forget Karen. The girls jumped way high in the sky on the Monkey Motion, a bouncy device, free to the kids, run by one of the local service clubs. Antoinette lives for the petting zoo and her favorite chicken. Me, I would have gone for the llama.

            Some events never get old. Rodeo, tractor pulls, balloon artists, horse races and stage entertainment draw us. We don’t need big name and fancy. Tillamook has a “How to milk a cow” demonstration where children may participate. In Havre or Glendive, local dance groups and musicians, talents of all kinds, line up eager for a place in the spotlight.

            I’m too aware that so many local events are run by STP (same ten people). Our own fair will never rate one of top ten in the nation, but it can be tops in the lives of our children and our community. Hooray for the County Fair and for those who keep it alive.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

August 14, 2014

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Lexi Rides the Empire Builder—Toot! Toot!

            Lexi Rides the Empire Builder—Toot! Toot!

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            Hi, my name is Alexandria. Call me Lexi. Grandma took me on a train from Seattle to Wolf Point so I can spend time with my cousin, Antoinette. Call her Toni. I am six years old. Toni is eight.

            Grandma asked me to write about the trip. So I took notes. We left Seattle from the newly restored King Street Station. Grandma told me to write that. It is beautiful. I told Grandma this is my story and she should write her own story.

            In fact, I had to teach Grandma to give up all thoughts and illusions of control over this trip. It wasn't easy but she eventually took it gracefully. That is a polite way to say she didn't have a choice.

            We were at the King Street Station early so the first thing I did was make friends with Ella. She is also six. We colored and played games and chased each other in circles around the grown-up people. We agreed to a play date on the train. Ella was not in the same car as me and Grandma but her Dad brought her to our compartment. Ella and I played Crazy Eights and Go Fish.

            Did you know there are lots of flowers on the train? Grandma said the flowers are really Phillips screw heads. They look like flowers to me. Se we will call them flowers. I like that the train is held together by flowers.

            (Note from Grandma: Give a child a bit of information and she instantly is an expert.)

            (Note from Lexi: Like an adult is different?)

            There is a huge white mountain we went to on the trip. Grandma said it is Mt. Baker. She said we were really not going to the top of the mountain. I could see that we were going to the mountain. I named it the Mountain in the Clouds.

            Ms. Veronica is our car attendant. She helps us with lots of stuff. She told us where to find the dining car, in front of our sleeper car. She made our beds at night. She brought us water. Ms. Veronica has four children and knows all the Berenstein Bear Stories.

            For a snack before dinner, me and my Grandma ate salted-in-the-shell peanuts. We ate a lot of peanuts. We were really careful to put the shells into the little garbage can next to the teeny little closet. Ms. Veronica would appreciate if train travelers did not bring peanuts in the shell for snacks.

            When the train goes around a curve on the tracks, we can look out the window and see the front of the train. The front is the engine. Grandma said she had not noticed that before. Why didn't she just look?

            Water on the train comes in little short bottles. Water tastes better in little bottles. We drank a lot of bottles of water.

            Tunnels are fun. There are lights in tunnels. Grandma said she hadn't noticed the lights before. Why didn't she just look? Grandma said most of the lights in her tunnels were lights from oncoming freight trains. I don’t know what she meant.

            The dining car is really fun. I got to talk to lots of adults. Grandma sat quietly and held her breath. I don’t know why she held her breath. The people liked to talk to me. The laughed a lot and asked me lots of questions. I told them everything.

            I especially liked to smack the button that made the doors between cars open.

            When night came I climbed up into the top bunk and went to sleep. In the night the train went over what Grandma called a rough patch. It scared me. I thought I might fall out. So I climbed down to the lower bunk and snuggled with Grandma.  We slept really good.

            (Note from Grandma: Sleep-Ha!)

            When the train stopped in Havre, Grandma took me into the station to meet the woman who sold her our tickets last April. She was really nice too. She and Ms. Veronica are friends. They gave me a bag of train goodies, books and coloring books.

            (Note from Grandma: When we were within ten minutes of Wolf Point, Lexi, who had never before been in Montana, said to me, “This is terrible. This is just terrible. Some people don’t take good care of their fences. Wire is broken and missing in places. It’s just terrible. This is nothing like how it used to be.” Who knows what she meant!)

            I LOVE the train. I want Grandma to take me on a train trip every year to play with my favorite cousin.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 31, 2014

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Weathering Wear For the Worst

Weathering Wear For the Worst

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            I’m freezing. I've been shivering since landing at Sky Harbor in Phoenix last Wednesday. Phoenix is hotter than Mazatlan. This being summertime, I didn't expect frigid air in Phoenix. I had forgotten the airport is a converted refrigeration unit. Figuring I would not need them until I reached my destination in the middle of the night in Seattle, I had packed my sweater and jeans jacket in my checked luggage, somewhere in the bowels of an aircraft.

            Within half an hour I was blue lipped and turning into a popsicle. At the golf shop across from the gate where I waited for my next flight, I bought a designer windbreaker. Red. I figured red would be warmer than blue. Psychological. It was money I did not want to send but it possibly saved my life during the five hour layover.

            When I walked through the doors after landing at Seatac, I reveled in the cinnamon spice odor of damp earth and kinick-kinick. (I knew if I closed my eyes, I could hear the plants grow.) I love Seattle. I lived in the area for twenty-five years. I have history here. But at two in the morning, it was cold. I was freezing.

            Two hours later, I crawled into bed in my six-year-old granddaughter Lexi’s room. Our beds were situated side-by-side. Lexi woke up. “Oh, Grandma, I missed you.” By the time Lexi and I talked ourselves to sleep, an hour later, I finally felt warm, snugged under my down comforter.

            My daughter Shea had assured me that they had been sweltering under unseasonably hot skies. “I don’t understand. It was hot yesterday,” she said. The day I arrived, the cold spell set in. I only brought one pair of light-weight long pants with me. It’s supposed to be summer, right? All my warm clothing is stored in my vehicle, also stored, in Montana, awaiting my winter trips. Which this might turn into.

            The second day here, while I sat swaddled in a blanket and shivering, Shea suggested we go to our favorite store, Goodwill. I found a pair of lovely warm pants for ten dollars. Score!

            Sunday I went to a play in Poulsbo. I am co-founder of the theatre, a special place for me, packed with memories. I wanted to look extra nice for meeting old friends. I put on the only skirt I brought, along with a summery blouse. By this time I was suffering chilblains.

            Shea is a genius. An hour before Al was due to pick me up, she suggested we we go to Target for a pair of tights. My lips must have turned blue again. I bought a pair of leggings and a long sleeved tee shirt, in black, to absorb sun rays should they ever appear. I can wear them beneath all my summer clothes. For the first time in days, I felt moderately comfortable.

            All my friends here are blessing the local weather while I am blasting the same. With daytime highs nudging seventy, my friends, thick blooded and acclimated to cool and damp, find the temperature to be a bit of heaven. I checked with my daughter in Montana and she assured me that in a few days I will experience balmy ninety’s.

            Monday my friend Vidya picked me up. It had rained all night and was even colder. We went to Goodwill, Value Village and St. Vincent’s. I bought two more pair of pants and three flannel shirts. I’ll leave them here when I fly back to Mexico.

            Tuesday I spent the day with Kathleen and Joyce. No change in the cold and damp but I felt toasty in my new duds. Wednesday Shea and Lexi and I went to Seattle. All bundled up, I felt like a back-country hick but I was relatively comfortable. Today I play with Lexi. She doesn't care what I look like.

            Lucky me! This weekend, we head for the coast to romp in sand and surf. I’m taking my winter wear. The coast will be cloudy, windy, cold and blustery. Everyone will look good in shorts and swimwear while I shiver on a log dressed in two pants and three shirts and a blanket, looking homeless.

            Next Monday Lexi and I board Amtrak at the King Street Station for an adventure trip to Montana. I’m not a superstitious person, really, I’m not. Really. But you might want to lay in a supply of wood for the stove and make sure the snow shovel is handy. I’m coming to town.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 24, 2014

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I Found My Niche As A Writer and My Girl Found A Horse

I Found My Niche As A Writer and My Girl Found A Horse

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            Seriously. A month ago I wrote a want ad for my daughter Dee Dee. One could call it a “want-ad story”. But then every ad is a story. We never go digging for the details beyond the apparent. The “apparent” never tells the story.

            My daughter wanted a horse, a gentle, well-trained, draft type horse, a strong horse. Dee wanted to ride again, to be able to take her daughter Toni horseback into the hills. 

            The “ad” was in the paper on a Thursday and that Sunday Dee negotiated a deal for Tillie, a half-Percheron. Obviously, my true talent lies in writing want ads.

Tillie hails from California. Her owner is moving, a life change that doesn’t include horses. My daughter is a family counselor, specializing in trauma, though she took a two-year hiatus to re-group, revitalize and teach school. (I know. That doesn’t sound like a rest to me either.) Tillie is a trained therapy horse. How perfect.  

            This week Dee drove to Wells, Nevada with her Dad’s horse trailer to meet Tillie and bring her to her new home. The rest of the story is as told to me by Dee Dee.

            She drove one route going and a different route coming. No matter. In true Montana tradition, being that season, every mile was under construction. Remember, she is pulling a three-horse trailer behind a long wheel-base pick up. With her daughter Toni riding shotgun. In one-hundred-three degree heat. Along torn-up, side-winder roads with three foot drop-offs. And the air-conditioning went out before she got a hundred miles down the road. As a pleasure trip it lacked panache.

            Did you know that styles of hay bales are relegated to regions? (Did you know hay has styles?) In Montana, bales are the huge round type. If you are on the lookout for a bale or two for the manger in the horse trailer, you would notice this sort of thing. In Utah, the bales are the huge rectangular variety. Idaho has real bales of hay, the kind that if you are of a certain age, you helped your father “buck”. Nevada has no hay. Nevada has no cattle.

            The girls arrived in Wells tired and sweaty, having drunk forty-dozen gallons of water. They met Tillie, a southern California “star” with a gorgeous deep golden coat and it was love at first sight. Tillie was a bit taken aback when she was unloaded from her padded, air-conditioned, music piped-in, hot and cold running water conveyance to the plain-jane, no-frills, Montana ranch trailer. She rolled her eyes, reluctantly stepped inside with a horsy sigh, “Oh, I suppose if I have to.”

            Later that same evening, at a motel with automatic sprinklers for the patch of lawn beside which the trailer was parked, in the middle of the night, the water turned on, hit the trailer and Tillie freaked out. In her pajamas, my daughter raced out through the shower of water and spent forty-five minutes, soaking wet, calming her horse. “By that time,” she said, “I can’t sleep. Might as well drive.”

            Nevada jack rabbits are social creatures. They gather in the night at the club house, a casino on pavement where they play games of chance. They are the Hell’s Angels-Evil Knievels of the animal kingdom. “Hey, guys, here comes one. Watch this.” The dare-devil races across the road in front of the wheels of Dee’s truck to the sound of rabbit cheers. The survivor postures alongside the road, chest puffed out at his own derring-do. This entertainment takes place between three and five in the morning in Nevada. Nevada has a lot of jack rabbits.

            Once the girls made it home, Tillie was frantic to get out of the trailer. It was the grass. She could smell the grass. The green grass of Montana. Somebody should write a book with that catchy title. Tillie had not seen green grass since drought struck southern Cal.

            While Tillie munched a few mouthfuls of genuine Montana, no additives, green grass, Jill, Toni’s brown Quarter Horse, waited to be introduced. Finally, Jill whickered over the fence, “Hi, I’m Jill. I’m from Montana. I’m rough and tough and hard to bluff.”

            “Whatever. I’m Tillie. I’m from southern California and I’m beautiful. See my mane and tail.”

            “They didn’t tell me you are “blonde”. I hope you have a brain.”

            “Is this dirt in the corral for us to roll in?”

            “Certainly. Be my guest.”

            Tillie lay down and rolled around on her back for ten minutes. She got up and shook herself for five. Then Jill took a turn. Together they walked off to the far pasture, comparing notes about their childhoods and upbringings. New best friends.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 17, 2014

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Dear Chamber, Do I Have A Great Idea For You!

Dear Chamber, Do I Have A Great Idea For You!

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            My friend David died last year. Ah, I miss him. But now and then I channel David. His wife, Vidya, insists David channeled P.T. Barnum. David was an idea man. He was always coming up with a good idea to do this or do that. When we worked in theatre, I used to tell him, “Write up your idea and tell us how you intend to carry it out.” That suggestion killed a lot of ideas. But when a super-great one showed up, we instituted it right away.

            David used to say, “I just throws ‘em out there. Some lands on good ground. Some lands on stone.” You’re going to love this idea. I’m sure it came by way of “PT” David.

            The other day I took a bus to El Mercado, the hub of Mazatlan. It was built in the 1890’s. The design is classic French Colonial, as are many ff the surrounding buildings. At that time ruling dignitaries had an affinity for all things French, especially the wonderful open ironwork which one sees today everywhere in Mexico.   

            The Mercado is my favorite one-stop shopping place. There is no shrink wrap here. Fish is caught in the night and sold in the morning. Meats are brought in fresh every day and cut to order. The market houses fresh produce, groceries, breads, candies, gift items, clothing, spices, cheeses, leathers, household items and sprawls out onto the street. There are no empty stalls. It is surrounded by small shops on all sides as well as street carts. Upstairs there are a couple dozen eating places where one may sit down to a meal for two to three dollars. Buses drop us off on one side of the market and pick us up on the other side.

            Suddenly I saw the potential. I’m a sucker for potential. Havre could build something similar, albeit on a slightly smaller scale. The notion struck me like a brick to the head. So, dear Chamber of Commerce, I freely give you my brilliant idea. Thank me later.

Imagine a community hub which reflects the values and cultural influences of our area.  A few minor details have to be worked out, like how to incorporate aspects of Indians, fur traders, gold seekers, railroaders, homesteaders, Hutterites, farmers, cowboys, drifters, grifters and college students. The building could be sort of a combination round house and teepee. Or a trading post, with outer walls like a fort, for indoor and outdoor vendors. Or a hockey rink. You get the idea.   

There are people in the Chamber a lot smarter than me who can work all our diverse individual aspects into a unified whole without losing the individual “flavors”.  Think of the new businesses which would spring up, the people who would be employed, opportunities to bloom and grow.

No need to start from scratch. The Havre Farmers Market is established and strong—build on that foundation. Every man and woman in area has a talent or skill that can be utilized. What an opportunity. I foresee a steady stream of trucks with cows, pigs, chickens and buffalo heading to the Market in the pre-dawn twilight. I envision early morning shoppers with hand-crafted baskets on their arms, pinching the melons, selecting the freshest onions and the plumpest chicken for dinner.

            Greenhouse “farms” could ensure year-round fresh produce and flowers. But that is just a detail. Instead of menudo and tacos made from cows heads, the everything under one roof market in Havre might feature lefse and lutefisk and Indian tacos. Picture a place to sell everything from home crocheted doilies to painted rock doodle bugs. So what if some of it is made in China. Don’t forget the hand-crafted card for Uncle Theodore’s birthday. See the possibilities?

            We create our culture as we go through life. It is living and fluid, changing from generation to generation and from community to community. Culture borrows from the neighbors and forgets to give it back; maybe paints it a different color or carves a different shape. After all, the Plains Tribes didn’t set out platters of fry bread when they set up camp for the night, yet fry bread has become a cultural tradition.

So, I’m thinking we might borrow the ironwork idea and make it our own. Like Mexico borrowed it from France. Aren’t there iron palm trees in front of a Havre casino, or is that in Box Elder? No matter. What if iron palm trees became a trademark, sort of an oasis in the desert theme. Just a thought. I tosses ‘em out—some lands on fertile ground, some on stone. 

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 10, 2014

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Once Upon A Mattress

                                                   Once Upon A Mattress

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            I always knew I was a princess. Not any old run-of-the-mill princess, mind you, but a fairy tale princess. Not just any fairy tale princess, mind you, but a princess like the one from “The Princess and the Pea”. None of your Snow Whites or Rapunzels for me. Cinderella came close, but I could never do the glass slipper.

            How did I know my royal roots? When I was a child I could not sleep unless and until I had made the bed conditions exactly “right”. The sheets had to be smoothed just so and the top sheet could not be tucked in imprisoning my feet. The quilts had to cover every inch of me, including my ears. Once I had perfected my sleep tunnel, I slept like, well, like a child. Instinctively I knew that if some evil person such as my sister hid a pea beneath my mattress, I would not sleep a wink, but would toss and turn and wake grumpy.

            This, despite the fact that I slept on a roll-away bed for most of my childhood. If you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to have had that experience, I don’t have to describe it. The mattress is thin, lumpy, and sags in the middle. Fortunately, I also had a down mattress on top of that. Another requisite for princess-hood. Down mattresses and comforters and pillows are de rigueur to a true princess.

            When water beds were all the rage, I was in personal heaven. Except for those times when I needed to rearrange the furniture. Difficult, but not insurmountable. One day twenty-some years ago I went to Nordstroms and bought the most expensive mattress in the store and that was a truly wonderful purchase. I enjoyed it all the years until I moved and left all my furniture to others.

            In my rented furnished apartment in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico, the bed, which sports a headboard so ugly I avert my eyes rather than look at it, but who sleeps on the headboard, has a typical Mexican mattress. I have attempted sleep on many hotel mattresses in Mexico and most of them are kissing cousins to the one in my casa. I don’t really know what is inside for stuffing. I am not sure I want to know. I suspect the innards are chipped from a slab of bedrock and covered with mattress cloth. All these months I have been miserable, sleep deprived and grumpy.

            I’m not at all ready to accumulate furniture, but finally decided that I must at least buy a cheap but soft mattress, if I could find a soft mattress, and plunk it atop the one already on the bed. Maybe two mattresses would do the trick. Then when I went elsewhere, I intended to leave the mattress for the next renter. Notice, I ignored the admonition from the fairy tale. Two wrongs never make a right.

So I arranged to go shopping with Rudy, my interpreter and Carlos, my driver and interpreter. Yes, sometimes it takes the three of us to make me understood.

            The store we entered surprised and delighted me. “I know that brand. And this one. And the mattress over there is much like the mattress I had back home.” In moments I changed my strategy. My mind buzzed with information: Why get another cheap mattress that might be stuffed with pebbles or corn shucks or old newspaper? A third of one’s life is spent on a mattress. Why not get a “great” mattress, one that you know, inside and out? Go for the quality, Girl. Wherever you go next, if you have a wonderful mattress, take it with you. And the clincher—remember who you are, Princess.

            My interpreters each chose a mattress and plopped down for a snooze. I tested every mattress in the store. At one point, I had to bump Carlos off his mattress so I could make sure that was not the one I wanted. Finally I narrowed my choice to three, tested twice more and bought the most expensive mattress in the store.

            That evening two able young men delivered my mattress. They muscled it through the doorway and into my bedroom where they placed it carefully atop the existing foundation mattress. They stood back. I stood next to the bed. We three burst out laughing.

            A ladder would be required for me to climb onto my bed. So the two young men hefted my mattress off the bed, man-handled the old mattress out onto the back patio and repositioned my new mattress. And it is perfect. No matter how soft the top mattress, how could a true princess sleep if beneath the good stuff, lay a lumpy old mattress, stuffed with dry pea pods.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

July 3, 2014 

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Random Thoughts; Some Senseless, Some Beautiful

Random Thoughts; Some Senseless, Some Beautiful

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            Today is my last day at the Luna Palace. This week I have intensely soaked up impressions along with sun, sand and surf.

            Bird Island has gone from brown to green with our few modest sprinkles. People assure me the rainy season is around the corner. Birds at my feet inspire contemplation. When I breakfast by the pool, the mourning doves diligently search for crumbs, pounding their beaks onto the tiles. Do their beaks wear out? Do you suppose when they snuggle into their nests at night, we might hear, “Not tonight honey. I have a headache. Hard day on the patio.” When I breakfast under a palapa, I watch pelicans dive headfirst into the surf. What keeps them from getting their heads stuck in the sand? Somebody has to think about these things!

            Sadly, I watch young and not-young walk along the beach with ear buds pumping music, drowning out sounds of surf, while their eyes are glommed onto an electronic screen, fingers on keyboards. Do they know where they are? Thumbs seem to be the principal means of communication. Innovations swing to the beat of a pendulum, from one extreme to another, banging both walls. I trust that the pendulum will swing to a center of balance before we lose our senses of sight and sound and human warmth.

            In the weeks I have been here, all the guests are couples, families or groups. I am the only single person, solita.  I am alone but not lonely. I talk and laugh with employees and beach vendors selling blankets, baskets, hammocks, silver jewelry, and coconuts. Everyone, housekeeping, waiters, and groundskeepers, knows my name. I’ve no idea how it happened but I have become Cassandra Juanita. Yesterday one of the housekeeping staff, who speaks not a word of English, but we greet one another daily, took me aside, gently parted the leaves in a tree to show me a nest with  mother dove and two tiny babies. You can’t get that level of communication with a tweet.

            This morning I watched tragedy averted. Two women with their quite elderly mother had settled under the palapa next to mine. We exchanged greetings. They took their mother out into the ocean and supported her while she floated. I felt shamed because I am scared to go into the water past my knees. If I fell, I don’t know how I would get up. I’m not a swimmer.

Mom came back to the palapa to rest while the two sisters swam and played. They are good swimmers. Distance is deceptive at low tide. They swam too close to the rocks by the jetty and were caught in a rip tide. One of the women panicked. Her sister swam to her side to help. The tide carried them further from shore. Both floundered and screamed for help.

Two young lifeguards plunged into the water, closely followed by two beach vendors. People on the shore audibly prayed. The energy felt intense. The swimmers seemed to stroke in slow motion. But the men arrived in time, brought the women to safety and into the grateful arms of their mother; a reunion celebrated with glad tears.  

            One of the beach vendors is teaching me to play conquin, a card game. We draw an audience to watch if I will win or lose. I tell them, “He cheats.” They say, “Look at his face.” He grins. Some mornings, when I am lucky, I win one out of three hands. Then I grin.

            Every day I walk in the surf, careful to not go past my knees. But I get caught by the occasional aggressive wave. I stand still until it passes. I would like to throw caution to the winds and dive in, but I don’t.  

Now and then I have moments of fear. I like to follow my fears to what I imagine as “worst possible scenario”. The latest one culminated in being disabled, on the dole, warehoused in a substandard nursing home, medicated to keep me quiet, cold, alone and friendless. Then I got the giggles. One cannot laugh and stay afraid.

Speaking of worst possible scenarios, I am constantly cleaning my glasses. I’m sure it is the salt air, not my encroaching cataracts. I am terrified of surgery. I can’t even stand to have Dr. Obie, a saint of patience with me, put the puff of air into my eyes. There is no way I can sit still for surgery. So I devised a solution. The doctor can have the mammogram machine wheeled into surgery, clamp my head between the metal plates, duct tape my eyelids open and laser away. Clever, I thought. Someone has to think of these things!

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 26, 2014 

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