Hark to Arrow!

The scent is lost, and all is quiet. Basset hounds snuffle to the left and right, but one strives out forward. She strikes the rabbit’s scent, lifts her little white head, and speaks. The huntsman, anxious for the rest of the pack to join this little lass, cries out “Hark to Arrow!” A little girl overhears this from a field away. She smiles to herself, for that is her basset, the one that sleeps in her house at night and looks lovingly into her eyes. For years to come, those three words, heard from afar, are the essence of pride.

Insole

They’re a bit tight in the calf, so my riding boots don’t slide right on. They haven’t been worn since last week, so I vaguely worry about spiders lurking at the toe. I pull and tug, stamp and pry.  This is getting serious; I take off my hunting coat. Eventually, I convince my arch to fit through the tightspot at the ankle. My foot touches the insole, only to discover it is not alone! I panic, whip my leg back and forth, get terribly claustrophobic. The boot flings off. A pretzel tumbles out, likely placed there by a revenge-seeking sister.

Empanadas

No sleepy morning commute on this short bus. Wrists stick out into the aisle way, thrusting dollar bills at Aldahir. He collects them greedily. Part two of the trade begins. Who ordered Chicken? Beef? Corn? The Zacharias family has a monopoly on empanadas in this town, certainly on this bus. People reach for their order, unwrap the tinfoil, and eat. Aldahir is forgotten until the ride home from middle school, when orders are placed for tomorrow. His power over his fellow bus riders is absolute. Any sour look, and he might end it all: no more empanadas.

Everyone smiles big.

Spices

Easily accessible kitchen cabinets are cluttered with spilled rice, expired cans, and soy nuts. But more secluded places, like the top left corner cabinet, are not. It houses spices and tea bags, neither of which are in high demand. But in the rare instances that either are needed, we mount the garbage can, open the doors, and pull out the wicker basket from inside. Little plastic bottles of spices are piled high, we hunt through them until we find the garlic powder. The little basket is slid back, the doors are shut, and we jump off the garbage can, victorious.

Would-Be Friends

Something about her strikes me: I would be friends with her.

The sweet waitress at Friendly’s who took an extra second to smile,

Or the giggly but oddly-dressed girl Cousin Sean brought to Christmas,

Or the girl who stopped her car at the crosswalk, smiled as she leaned forward into the steering wheel, and let me by.

Or the sad girl at the Mexican restaurant,

Or the one walking down North Washington Street,

Or the one I might find at the corn maze, waiting.

These I have singled out from the rest of the population,

They are my would-be friends.

Rose-Colored

At the top of the mountain, looking out from the back porch, the world is inexplicably tinted red. Why? Maybe it’s like the children’s book Hello, Red Fox where you stare at the green fox for thirty seconds, then glance at a white surface. A red fox hovers in your vision for a few seconds, then fades away, as your eyes “see” the complimentary color. In our case, we sit and stare at our green walls, then emerge outside to a world that appears to glow red. Or maybe, just possibly, happiness makes us see our world through rose-colored glasses.

Calcium

In a desperate, decade-long effort, Daddy force-fed us calcium. Trying to find more pleasant sources than milk, he’d buy Tropicana Calcium, Extra Pulp Orange Juice. I loved it, but Sarah complained of its acidity. So calcium vitamins were bought and handed out daily. But they soon lost appeal. Next, Daddy bought chocolate flavored cubes of calcium, much to our initial delight. But after a couple years, we became sickened by their awful fake-chocolate taste. More recently, Mother has been sending us home with a bottle of sugar-coated calcium vitamins. We eat them dutifully. None of us has broken a bone.

Bard Owls

All has been silent during the first twenty minutes of the Tewksbury Foot Bassets’ three couple. The hounds plod in and out of covers, the whipper-ins plod up and back. Monotony reigns supreme until one whipper-in shouts for her huntsman, a sense of urgency building in her voice: “John! John!” Hope fills everyone’s heart - she’s seen a rabbit, for sure! But no: “the Bard Owls are going Crazy!” The second whipper-in and the huntsman share a look of disbelief, a look of disappointment and amusement. The hounds plod on. The bard owls screech and holler - maybe they saw the rabbit...

Ring! Ring!

The phone rings, but we don’t answer. We never answer.

“You’ve reached the Gilbert residence, please leave a message after the beep”

BEEEEP!

As the voicemail records, we all sit frozen on the couches, as if any movement or sound would give our presence away. It’s Aunt Ali. And unless Mother is in the house, there’s no chance that phone is getting picked up - and she knows it.

“Pickup-pickup-pickup….I know you’re there...pickup-pickup-pickup”

We shake our heads, “no we’re not.”

She repeats this several times, sighs, and hangs up.

We recommence talking and moving...until the phone rings again.

Gibberish

On my saddle, a nylon case holds a radio. A voice breaks the silence: “John? it’s Richard….Fox...there’s two couple of hounds running east...I’ll see if I can stop them”

No one responds, but the grammatically inclined silently add an “s” to the end of “couple.”

Later, Bart will scream unintelligible gibberish.

Scotty views a fox, but refuses to talk on the radio.

Daddy asks why no one reported a split that’s just crossed Long Lane.

Eileen mentioned it five minutes ago.

Daddy says if he didn’t hear her, she didn’t say it. No argues with his logic.

All Clean!

In a house with both a German Shepard and carpeting, a good vacuum is essential. But without a functioning machine, a stiff broom makes a mediocre substitute. On the staircase, where the entrenched fur is most visible, we sweep the dirt out of the carpet and into the air. As each stair accumulates the filth from all those above it, the process gets more difficult as you go down. Upon reaching floor level, the dining room is engulfed in a potent dust cloud. Paper towels and a can of Pledge effectively rubs the dirt into every horizontal surface. All clean!

Egg Count

Any prideful poulteress will brag on her flock’s daily egg count. But my raggedy little brown hens only brought me shame. Our poor, handsome rooster could not hold his head high as he surveyed his flock. But then, one day, I saw the ugliest of my hens sprinting from an abandoned dog house, cackling as if she’d just laid an egg. So I peeked inside, and there, amid the moldy straw, lay heaps of eggs, piled up in every corner. My pretty little hens were still laying! The flock’s dignity restored, we all walked and strutted about with great pride.

Visitors

The silence in the kitchen was disturbed by the sound the mudroom door closing. Investigating, Sarah edged towards the door and slowly opened it, just enough to stick her eye out. “Hellooo,” my parents’ old friends shouted their greeting, sounding suspiciously like Winnie the Pooh. Panic-stricken, she took her eye back out of the crack, and slammed the door. She scampered to the parents’ room, and reported the incident, drawing out every detail. Towards the end of the tale, they realized that the visitors were still at the door, likely confused and offended. Horrified, Mother rushed off to make amends.

Business Calls

Out hunting, talking is frowned upon. Yet the followers jabber on about every sort of thing, becoming deaf and blind to the excitement around them. They trudge all over the countryside, without noticing a thing. Running by, you’ll hear two middle aged women complimenting each other’s new boots or vest. Up the line from them, the mayors of neighboring towns talk strategy. But the worst offender stands alone in the woods, ordering false eyelashes. No, it’s not a woman looking to adorn her eyes, it’s the mortician, planning out an upcoming funeral. Undertakers should never take business calls in public.

Chocolate Thunder

After dining at Mugs, the family traveled over the crosswalks to our favorite little ice cream place, where our favorite ice cream server worked (the silent foreign women at Dairy Queen weren’t terribly strong competition). Here, Daddy always ordered Chocolate thunder in a sugar cone, but called them “pointy cones” instead. Eventually he and the man behind the counter devised a new way of ordering: “Stick me in the eye with a Chocolate Thunder.” Ever after, Daddy ordered with this phrase, even on nights our server had off. But the other scoopers just looked at us funny, and we’d translate.

Backseat Driver

Heading for the bus stop, Daddy and I, along with Frolic and Surplice, would drive the dirt roads. NPR’s All Things Considered served as our background music on sleepy drives, but when we were in more lively spirits, Daddy would put on Surplice’s voice, and shout warnings against all sorts of made-up dangers. Trash can! Daddy would swerve violently, sending me sliding across the backseat, giggling. Squirrel! Daddy would slam on the brakes, though it was already out of the road. With those hazards successfully avoided, I boarded the bus, leaving Daddy and the dogs to navigate their way home.

Dead Cat

Enduring bassets, chickens, and children in his house, Tigger was a tolerant cat. To amuse us girls, Daddy would catch the cat and drape him across his neck. After some teaching, Tigger would lie limp there, playing dead. In this game, Daddy was an African villager returning to his people with the day’s catch: a dead tiger. As we rejoiced at the kill, Tigger must have, for a moment, feared that we weren’t playing anymore, that he would become dinner. At those moments, he would dig his nails into Daddy’s shoulders, and leap away to safety. No dinner for us.

Lifelong Friend

In old age, a Tewksbury Foot Basset’s greatest hope is to be adopted into Moyra’s Peapack home. There, dinner is no competition and no night is bitter or lonely, yet he would spend the daytime happily back at the kennel. After car rides back and forth, he would hobble from her car, and she would look to him and beckon “come on, old man,” the way a woman might call to her husband of fifty years. And he would begin to trot behind her, his lifelong friend, who was there at his birth, and would be beside him at death.

Firewood

While Scotty and company are chopping logs three feet across into firewood, Libby collects twigs from the yard. Setting fire to these, she builds up her fire and sits beside it in Carhartt coveralls. As it burns out, she ventures into the woods behind the puppy yards, and emerges with an armful of branches and vines. She soaks in the woodsmoke as it drifts off the logs, but the next morning she’ll regret it. Her red and swollen face lets her know she’d burned poison ivy vine. It’s not as bad as when she slept in poison ivy, at least.

On West Avenue

On West Avenue, we pull into Aunt Karen’s driveway behind her Honda Element. Charlie and Joey greet us with wagging tales. Sean initiates a game of hit-the-child before we move on to run-to-the-chair. Star Wars monopoly is another option, but Sean always puts four hotels on Boardwalk. Luccia from next door arrives, demands to be fed. Aunt Karen offers us hot chocolate, but Libby politely refuses for all of us (Daddy’s made us prejudiced against water-based Hot Chocolate). In the evening, Aunt Karen serves spaghetti with parmesan cheese on paper plates. Mommy drives us back home, one mile across town.

Black Market

Under the tack room blackboard, a little bowl of candy was forever being emptied and refilled. We became dependent on those tootsie rolls, twizzlers, blow pops, and chocolates. Sometimes, when the bowl sat empty, outbreaks of desperation seized the barn. A black market sprung up as Libby routinely sold her soul for Sarah’s secret candy stash. But when Libby had no more to offer, she had to hunt for her sweets, under hunt caps, in the pockets of dormant kennel coats, everywhere. But when she found the hoard, the accompanying written note, warning against thievery, sent shivers down her spine.

Spunk

Common society knows the odorous little mammals who characteristically sport a white stripe down their black coats as “spunks”. But Grandma had other ideas, decidedly pronouncing them to be “skunks,” with a k. So terribly stubborn, she would never allow me to talk of spunks without “correcting” me. But I stayed true to my language, never giving her the pleasure of hearing that k instead of the p. It’s such a heated debate between us, that I hesitate to write about it, even after a decade’s silence, for fear of disturbing her peace. But right is right, and wrong, wrong.

Peanut Butter

A second dumpster appeared on the property, one bigger than the usual one which sat in the parking lot. Its arrival inspired a basement clean-out. For help, Mother employed Cousin Sean. As we surveyed the mess, Mother suggested we group items into categories and label them with signs. Horse Stuff for the back left corner. Beach Stuff on the right side. We traveled through the basement, until a lone item stood in the path, a gallon jug of peanut butter. Sean passed his hand in front of the obstacle, pretending to read the sign for this particular category: “Peanut Butter.”

Tres Leches

I had a neck-knife dangling in front of my chest, Alec was unshaven in his leather outback hat. After camping on the edge of Stephen’s Pond for the last week, we craved real food, something sweet. At a little coffee shop, we ordered sandwiches and a slice of Tres Leches cake, to go. The woman behind the counter, the owner, the chef was disappointed. She brought out two forks and a square of cake. On the house, she told us as she boxed up another piece. We ate as she watched. She invited us and our future children back anytime.

Red Ranger

In my aftercare classroom, there were the girls who played with dolls, the card players, the boys who loved legos, and the misfits who played violent games of hide-and-seek. Fernando was in the lego group, but today he didn’t fight over the lego-man accessories. Because today, he had a story to tell, about how his mom and her sister had gotten in a fist fight. He seemed surprised that I cared, that I would listen. The next day, he showed his appreciation by giving me a drawing. The back read “You are Red Ranger.” I took it as a compliment.

Crash-land

Opposite the Peapack Gladstone Pond, a gathering of mothers and children encircle a baseball diamond. After innings, snacks are distributed to the little ball players who trot about identically clad in red sweat wristbands. Down the hill, I am content to play alone. But interfering mothers place me and another toddler on opposite ends of the seesaw. I decide that this stranger doesn’t interest me, so I dismount, leaving her to crash-land in the wood chips below. Embarrassed, my mother has me apologize, and I obey, grudgingly and without sincerity. Afterall, I didn’t want to play in the first place.

Super Secret Spies

There were two of them, Slick and Sneak. Under the flag of the Super Secret Spies, they were united, dedicated to their cause. Though they had no mission, no purpose, they spent great amounts of time maintaining their image, using their aliases. I watched them from afar, longing to be included. But they were an exclusive club, not open to outsiders or little sisters. After some deliberation, I was allowed to undergo the necessary tests and training to achieve spy-status. No longer would I respond to “Katie,” for I was now “Slime.”  And I have the certificate to prove it.

Short Bus

The cool kids of Bernards High School took the train; I took the bus - the short bus with the long line of trainee drivers. First came George, who routinely pulled out in front of ‘Toys R Us’ trucks and listened to “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics on a loop. Next, the good-humored lady who was immune to the boys’ constant screeches and bellows and referred to us as “youse guys”. After that, the hispanic woman, who ate cut fruit from tupperware in the glove compartment while listening to trashy morning radio shows. We endured them all, and they endured us.