Ole Times

Ole Times,

new beginnins

I sat watchin the wind out of the north starchin the flag hangin off’n a pole on the house across the way. They had predicted snow, but so far we got nothin but the prelude; ominous lookin skies and the bitin wind. The clouds was tumblin like spilled popcorn and the movie hadn’t even begun. We was under a red flag warnin which meant the conditions were cooperatin with danger, and somethin big was bein cooked up by the two of them. The last red flag warnin brought the bald to Eagle Mountain, leavin only the twisted and charred remains of the trees that was left to remind us that nothin is goin to stop somethin than has a mind for it happenin.

I never used to be suspicious of predictions, nor did I pay them a whole lot of mind, but sometimes we learn the most when we try the least. Things kind of jump up an slap you, if for no other reason than to get our attention. This time it wasn’t worryin much about getting my attention, or the towns for that matter, it didn’t seem to care and was courtin everything it could lay its hot breathe on.

We is used to fire comin around every year, usually in the last part of summer before the rains come, if we is to get any. It ain’t a given no more. This year we was the recipient of last year’s spell when they was claimin it was the driest it’s been since 1931, that year only a quarter of what was available to burn, burned. We was they said, in the end of the second and beginnin of the third year of drought this time around. Now words have a way of either paintin the fence pretty, or makin it look like a colorblind man picked out the paint, and you got what you got cause it was probably on sale for not sellin.

The radio has been squawkin all day about the wind and the fires chance bein in one of those ways where people starts to askin which side their God is on. Me not bein religious by nature, kind of don’t look for a God to blame as much as those who is always plannin on makin things better, planned burnin comes to mind. Denyin things they don’t know that much about, and therefore they ain’t appreciatin the fact that there are consequences to everythin; pretendin there ain’t is goin to make a fool out of you sooner or later, in our case probably sooner.

I got to the point in my life where I know a lot about some things, my mind is workin overtime at the same time my body is puttin on the brakes, and my bones is yellin uncle. Don’t know where that term come from, but I like it. Supposed to mean givin up cause you could see the writin on the wall, even though you was a terrible reader, but you kind of made sense out of it just because you’d been around longer than you probably should’ve been. Sometimes you learn stuff just because you is there, and it is there, and neither of you can help yourself by showin off a little, about how much you don’t knows about a lot.

My family, most of those I knew well enough to call family, has moved on with their lives and left me to my own, which is the way it should be. You can’t be livin life for someone else, leaves you without a life, and when you get to where I’m at in time, all you is gonna have is regrets, and regrets ain’t worth a lot unless you is one of those folks who is only happy when you is unhappy; like getting morbid by watchin your house burn down while you is sittin on the couch, and you has forgot where the door is or why you needs one.

I woke up one day and found I was alone. I been alone for a while, but with all the comin and goin, people either bein born or dyin, I forgot where I was in the meat of things. I guess it was because of bein alone, that someone who couldn’t tie their shoes without a map decided I was in no condition to take care of myself, so I needed someone to take care of me so I wouldn’t hurt myself or disappear when no one was lookin. I got no credit from them for the previous 80 years of getting by, so they put me in here. It ain’t a bad place, but then it ain’t mine.

There are only about 15, maybe 20 of us here at a time, the clientele is kind of a fluctuatin mass of wrinkles and creakin bones. Most of still know how to talk and sometimes laugh at how pitiful we’ve become without even tryin. Most of those here is women, which they tell me is usual cause women lives longer than men. wouldn’t know bein a man, but I never thought about givin up just to suit the odds.

We get fed regular, not that any of us seems all that excited about oatmeal or soup; limited menu I assumed for the first month or so, then I got to where I didn’t think they knowed nothin about cookin. I offered to show them how to make a decent meal, but they said it had to be made by a professional; somethin to do with nutrition and someone who studied it. Well, I hadn’t studied up on it cause I’d been too busy cookin to worry about studyin. I always found that when you felt you didn’t know how to do somethin, you should just go ahead and do it anyway, what’s the worst that could happen? Whatever happens is better than doin nothin. That’s how we used to learn. Don’t learn nothin when you start thinkin that you can’t do this or that, cause you ain’t done it before. Mistakes is our greatest teacher.

Anyway, as it turns out after the mind dust settled, we is still eatin oatmeal that tastes like pig slop, and I’m a guessin at that one. And they is still lookin for a nutritionist type when they should be lookin for a cook; but then what do I know?

I like to sit on the porch cause no one goes out there but me. It’s always too hot or cold, too many mosquitos or flies, any excuse to stay locked away with yourself in a room lettin the fools on TV think for you. Peoples here gets excited about the news; I can’t figure out why. We all got a shelf life; I believe that is prescribed at birth. We don’t know what it is, and I don’t think anyone could know, cause we is all the result of happenstance; the meetin of attractions and the product of circumstance, and not necessarily in that order.

I like to be by myself at times where what is happenin in the world don’t seem to matter. I can hear the wind in the leaves, the rush of the steam out back if the traffic ain’t too bad, and the warmth of the sun on a day that is tellin you, despite what the groundhog is sayin, you got six more weeks of unpredictable, which if you is payin attention is what keeps you alive. When you is 80 you don’t care much for surprises, they usually mean somethin ain’t goin to turn out the way it was supposed to. It ain’t no one’s fault, just the way things is.

The lightnin started around 7 O’clock in the pm. Little crack like streaks of light dartin by at first. The wind has died down a bit, and an eerie kind of silence has fallen on the whole place. I like to sit under the roof and watch the sky fightin with itself, and feel the air turn over as if its shift was changin. There’s music in those drops beatin on the tin of the roof, sounds like little fists tryin to beat the air out of a basketball.

A smell hits you after the first drops begin to pummel the ground, brings out the ancient aroma of life, death, hell, and heaven, all at once; makes you want to cry cause you missed so much of what brought you to the game, mostly cause you didn’t make the time to care.

The fire started about 10 in the pm, give or take a few clock ticks. I heard the explosion when the lightnin hit the tree; it stole my attention. I looked up where the sound come from, I could see the fire in the tree taken the needles. What was left after it was gone looked like bones when you is lookin at an ex-ray type picture. The needles disappeared, leavin only the naked skeleton standin. I just kept watchin the tree bein burned alive like someone was sacrificing it for us, and me feelin I wasn’t deservin of it, but there weren’t no one to tell.

The wind picked up some again, and the rain seems be quitin some. I watch as the fire decide it is havin fun, it jumps to another tree and then another, until the hill seems like a Christmas celebration I isn’t invited to. yelled for someone, but the wind was yellin louder than me. By the time someone come to see about me the fire was growin in size and was goin up the hill away from us. I could hear the sirens in the distance growin louder, someone else besides me must have been payin attention.

There ain’t much you can do in a situation like we is in, but hope. Not so much because you is goin to be alright and go on livin, but that you is at its mercy should the wind change, and you not bein able to fend for yourself. Dependin on others is the hardest part of gettin old, that, and puttin on your socks.

We was all bunched together in what they called the community room, where they told us we had to get ready to evacuate. We was to pick the few things we could carry that was most important to us and keep them ready in case we had to go, like right now.

I go back to my room and sit on the bed. My room has a window that faces the hill so I can see the fire eatin its way up toward the top where there ain’t nothin but rock. There are a couple of places up there where a fire some twenty years ago took the trees, and for some reason they never growed back. The grass it looks like from my binoculars got to be about 3 feet tall. I watched as the fire started lickin at the brown grass and devourin it like it was its favorite food; fast, like it hadn’t eatin in two decades. The wind picked up again, I can hear the branches of the bushes outside the window scratchin at the glass. The wind coaxed the fire over the hill and all I can see now is smoke and black stubble; the hill lookin like it had just been hair cut by a barber school dropout.

Fires have a way of makin their own wind; somethin to do with the oxygen gettin burned up, and more air comin in to rescue the situation, but only managin to make things worse. The storm seems to be passin, but it has forgotten in the excitement to rain enough to do much more than make the humidity jump.

I looked away from the glowing embers that dotted the hillside, to the contents of my room. What was I to save if I have to goes in a hurry? I looked around; my old roughed up wallet lay on the bureau; my driver’s license and medical card. They won’t let me drive no more, but I keeps it for identification. What would it matter if no one could recognize who I was? I’d still be me, but it would put a cog in the gears of their well-oiled system of protectin people from themselves, knowin where they was all the time, and what they was doin.

I have a pair of shoes I like, that’s why I never wears them. Thought they’d look good on my feet at the funeral. Have to have the undertaker guy sign an open casket agreement though so people can see my feet, or it won’t matter to anyone but the shoes I got on. Usually you only get to see half of someone anyway, and they leave you assumin what the other half might be lookin like. People tells me you don’t have to wear pants cause what difference does it make? Well it would make a difference to me. You ever seen someone in a suitcoat and just their underwear? And them bein dead on top of it? Not somethin you forget even if when you is tryin.

Got a picture of the family I once had, and the collar from my dog, which I kept even though he went to the hunting grounds before I come here. Some memories you hate to leave, and I’m sure some memories hate leavin us, but Scooter my dog was one of them. And that’s about it. My whole life fits in a shoppin bag that blowed up on the porch, all the way from Walmart. My entire life if boiled down, fits in someone else’s shoppin bag, that don’t even belongs to me.

I glanced up on the hill thinkin leavin wasn’t goin to be much of a deal for me, I could carry everthin that meant anythin in one hand, leavin the other to manipulate my cane. It should be a sad state of affairs when you think about it, but I kind of view it as havin come into the world with nothin, and if somethin should happen, leavin with nothin. I think I’d feel a whole lot worse if had a few million bucks in the bank and was havin to regret my life, and thinkin of what I had to give up to get it.

The fire is bein put out, they is sayin over the loud speaker. We is lucky, sometimes the wind shifts cause it just feels like it. Maybe next time, and there will be a next time, we might not be so lucky. People is so busy keepin up with themselves, they ain’t got time to see what’s important, cause of all things like the smoke in our lives makin it hard to see what’s important or needin attention.

I got to thinkin, wonderin how many shoppin bags most people would be needin to make sure they didn’t leave any of their important memories behind, if’n they had to be fendin for themselves? I’m kind a happy most of my important stuff is stuck in my head, where nothin can get at it; sometimes even me.