Landing

Well, I was going to go play pool tonight, but the weather reporters made it sound like the deluge was pending, so I came home to make sure windows were closed.  So far, it's sunny.

I had a long but productive day at work today.  I developed an assessment plan for our new curricula, and also developed a method for putting those curricula side by side so that we can make final decisions about what parts of all degrees should be the same and what parts have to vary by discipline.  Happy colleagues, happy boss, satisfying work day.  The 1950s TV families would now have me arriving home to greet my happy, aproned wife.

But it's 2011.  Even if Nora were here, it's unlikely she'd be wearing an apron.  Black linen and dirty nails from the garden, more likely.  But more importantly, we're far distant.

Today's song...

I need to feel your heartbeat, heartbeat
so close, feels like mine
all mine
I need to feel your heartbeat heartbeat
so close it feels like mine
all mine...
I remember the feeling
my hands in your hair
hands in your hair
I remember the feeling
of the rhythm we made
the rhythm we made
I need to land sometime
right next to you
feel your heartbeat heartbeat
right next to me.....

Heartbeat, King Crimson


On my drive home, I heard news that the US Postal Service is examining the possible fall closure of over 3,000 rural post offices, so once I got here, I immediately checked to see if Middletown Springs is on the list.  Phew... dodged that one.  But we purposefully buy our stamps and mail our packages from there, to add our small contribution to the town's USPS ledger.  The better their sales, the more likely they are to remain open.

There are some institutions that matter in a small place.  Not many Middletowners get home mail delivery, so throughout the day, the lobby is filled with people checking their p.o. boxes, and stopping in to chat for a few minutes with Alida or Liz.  Mail is important, bringing news from away, but chat is also important, bringing news from nearby.

Grant's Store is another one, but it serves a somewhat different group.  Even in Middletown Springs and the immediate surroundings, there are hundreds of people we don't know.  Grant's is where the local deer pool is judged, with the scale and hoist in the side yard.  Grant's is where you go to buy Bud Light, rent a movie on DVD, pick up that flour or butter you're missing from your recipe, pick up your bagged ice and your propane canister for the barbecue.  And it's where a different community goes to chat.

Sissy's is a third, a little less hangout-ish than the others since she sells takeaway.  But we usually see people we know while we're waiting for lunch or browsing the cookies and cupcakes on the side table. That group is more nearly our own, since we're sort of food snobs.  We remarked after a friend's son's funeral that the food that group brought for potluck and the food at our wedding potluck had almost no items in common.  Wilbur Zelinsky once wrote that you could tell when you were in a Union or a Confederate region by the size of lard containers at the grocery store.  In Middletown, it's the difference between Bud Light and Otter Creek Copper Ale, between casseroles with hamburger and casseroles with tofu, between cookies with M&Ms baked in and cookies with dried cranberries baked in.  It's the difference between the Subaru Legacy and the Ford Ranger.

There's good people and there's jerks in both groups, of course, but the groups seem to be more visible than the individuals.  We each keep to our own turf.  Even in a town of 800, there are divides.  Divides of age, of religion, of class.  Of casseroles.

The dump is the great leveler.  Officially, it's not a dump but rather a transfer station; material doesn't stay there, but is trucked away to a landfill someplace else.  Just as with the mail, there's no home garbage pick-up in Middletown Springs, either, so once we can't stand looking at all that crap in the garage for another minute, we all arrive on either Saturday morning or Monday morning.  Cardboard, deposit glass bottles, other glass, deposit aluminum cans, mixed household metal, mixed household plastic, paperboard (like cereal boxes), newspaper and brown bags, magazines, and mixed office paper.  After all that's sorted, everything else goes into the compactor.  We talk with those in our tribe, nod quietly to the others.

Pool halls are just like that.  You'd figure in a small place populated by adult men who all like the same endeavor, everyone would get along.  But not really.  You've got the white collar guys who love the challenge, and the blue collar guys who love the bluster.  You've got the self-styled hustlers with the sideways baseball caps, the plumbing contractor who's played since Kennedy was president, the multi-million-dollar salesman who plays one-pocket, and the psychotherapist at the billard table.  You've got the mile-a-minute chatterbox, and the guy who won't say four words in an hour.  If we had a potluck, we'd bring different kinds of food.

There's a common guy greeting that occurs across those divides, when you encounter someone who inhabits your home range but isn't part of your tribe.  It doesn't matter how loquacious either party might be among his own flock, the exchange across those lines consists of exactly two words.

"Hey."

"Hey."

It's a good thing there are women in the world, because guys would never have invented language.

It's 7:20 pm, and not anything but sunshine.  I'm closing the windows and going to play pool.