Straight Ahead

Got the new mailbox installed, I'd gotten everything ready at the house and the actual installation took about ten minutes. Went on into town, as I was off the ridge, bought sushi, got a few books, visited with TR at the museum. Stopped at B's on the way home and we talked books for an hour, while I drank one of Ronnie's beers, PBR in a can, and he agreed that if I thought anyone was fucking with my mail, or smashing my mailbox with a baseball bat, that I should just get a PO box in Friendship, which shares a parking lot with the Marina Dairy Bar (which make very good onion rings) and on my route, if I go to town. Mac had already seen this, get a PO box and avoid any escalation. Only get four bills a month, my Visa, my electric bill, and two phone bills, local and long-distance, and no one writes anymore. Made a nice flour out of cattail pollen and ground acorns that I fried into something between a tortilla and Nan, that I rolled around a mushroom filling. So messy I ended up eating them with a fork; very good, though, and quite filling. Remembered a limeade I used to drink at a sandwich shop when I was a college student. Fresh made by the glass. I had picked up a bag of Persian limes and a small bottle of Grenadine. I had watched this being made hundreds of times, because I frequented the place (I wrote term papers for other people, and needed an office) and the waitress was a beautiful Jamaican. She was older than me, and would often stay and lock up if I was finishing a paper, then we'd go drink a bottle of wine. She called me her Boy-Toy, even in front of other people. I was deep into Absurd Theater at the time and it all seemed perfectly normal. Juice from a large lime (I use three Persians) a scant teaspoon of sugar, a shot of Grenadine, water, and a tall glass of shaved ice. A great refreshing drink, add a shot of vodka and you'd get your grandmother drunk. Not that you'd want to. My grandmother (Dad's mom died when he was young) was a Holy Pentecostal and I had never heard people speak in tongues. Language was called into question. I immediately withdrew, shells are a good thing. I read and fished for the four years before High School. Birmingham, then Key West, then Jacksonville, Florida; a good student, but distant. High School, I could talk my way out of anything. Played enough sports to get along. I was a very good second baseman, but I couldn't hit. I just couldn't see the ball. I think I miss the ball quite often, living as I do, but I try to not let it interfere with the day. Several things: watching the teasel grow. I actually pull over, set out plastic cones. Or, later we invent a brand, maybe just a color combination, some yellow and green field. The overriding sense is. I heard Jerry Mulligan play, late one night, Geraldine Page was singing scat, and it was beautiful. A balm for what ails you. Mulligan stopped once in a while to spit, but otherwise, I think we're pretty stupid.