The Year is Complete!

Please feel free to look back through the 365 days of 2010 sunrises, but "a year of getting up to meet the day" is officially completed. There will be no more new posts.

PLEASE JOIN ME FOR MORE SUNRISE POSTS AT THE SUNRISE BLOGGER, WHERE YOU WILL FIND SUNRISE PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS FROM ME AND FROM CONTRIBUTORS AROUND THE GLOBE.


Thank you so much for visiting.
A one year blog project in which I share a process of transitions: emptying of the nest, reacquainting with my rusty intellect, plowing onward with my first full length book, entering the second half of my first century, and generally reflecting on life.

(see Dec. 29th, 2009 entry for further explanation)

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

I-22! couple a ducks!

sunrise:  5:20

It's funny how memory works. There's no telling, as you live your life, which moments might be eternally etched in your memory.  Sure some are obvious - traumatic injury or distress, first love, skydiving, celebrity sightings.  But others are unexpected and trivial.  There is no accounting for why they stay with you.


For me - memories of this sort tend to be stored in my mind as snapshot images rather than full running scenes.  One of my snapshots is regularly recalled to me by the number 22, or the mallards on our pond.


There is a pristine mountain lake in New York State's Adirondacks, where I used to spend my childhood summers.  I've written about it before, how I spent time with gangs of cousins and others in and out of the lake, in and out of the woods all day.  In the evenings there used to be activities at a communal recreation area at one end of the lake -- "the Club."  Sometimes they showed movies in a rickety old shed known as the Wolf Den, back in the day when they had to use reel-to-reel projectors.  We'd buy 10 cent cokes out of a round-cornered metal vending machine and sit in folding chairs to watch movies like "My Friend Flicka."  It felt old-fashioned even then.


The other favorite evening event was Bingo.  All the kids on the lake would walk or take boats to the Club, dollars in hand to buy a card or two, or four.  On one particular night two teenaged girls, Chris and Ann, were sitting up on the bark-fronted counter in the main clubhouse room, spinning the big cage of bingo balls and calling the numbers.  I must have been about 8 or 9, because they seemed very grown up to me.  Chris was brown haired, in the know, and very mature in my eyes.  Ann was an athlete, tall with very pale blonde hair in tight curls, long tanned legs dangling.  She seemed almost exotic to me.  Both girls were smiling, confident, full of joy and the ease of summer living.




All of these details I extrapolate from general memories and my snapshot recollection.  What I really remember vividly, for some reason, was I-22.  Every time the bingo ball with I-22 came up, they would call:

"I-22!  Couple a ducks!"


I didn't understand why they said this, but for some reason I loved it when they called it out, usually grinning at each other knowingly afterwards.  I figured it was a kind of playful imagination at work, or some mysterious code passing between them that I wished I knew too.


It was a revelation to me when I finally figured out that two twos are the same shape as two ducks (or swans, or geese) on the water...22.  Maybe it was the ongoing mystery with subsequent "ah-ha!" moment that made it stick.  But for whatever reason, 22 brings me back into that old log clubhouse room, playing bingo with a bunch of summer companions.  It is a sound bite, a recitation, a mantra that calls forth the past.  "Couple a ducks!" Sunburned arms, bug bites, bruises from tripping over roots and climbing trees, scuffed knees, water logged.  The whole essence of summer paradise floods back into my mind with that one flash of memory.



That could be part of the reason why I love having mallards on our pond in the spring.  This morning the male kept watch as his mate wiggled and dunked and splashed away, taking a little morning bath.  They are a fine couple of ducks.  Bingo!



8 comments:

  1. Beautifully written. I loved it, and felt like I was 9 and at Bingo night myself.

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  2. You failed to mention our ongoing support of the local animal hospital. Yes indeed - - one more foray yesterday, just for old times sake... They're going to name one of the OR's the "Kate-n-Clara Memorial Operating Suite" by the time we're done. Supported generously by the local porcupine union...

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  3. Sounds like you need to take a road-trip from Memphis, TN to Birmingham, Alabama...

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  4. Huh? Did I miss something?

    I responded to your post on yesterday's blog, you pessimistic bugger! Why don't you get your Canadian butt over here and help me with this mess - - I clearly need a naturalist on site!

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  5. Google I22...you call it pessimistic; I call it realistic! I'd love to help...help hold down the dogs (LOL). I truly think the only solution is to better train the dogs or keep them on their respective leashes. Perhaps you could revise your invisible fence perimeter.

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  6. Get real! I didn't seek out 13 acres with a pond and lots of open space and then circle it with a radio fence (by hand ourselves) so we could walk our dogs on a leash as if we lived on the Upper East Side.
    And revising the "fence" is a bit of a crap shoot given that porcupines lack a reverse radio collar.

    Hmmmm - - there's an idea...

    Regarding "better training the dogs"... how exactly does one do THAT??? Catch a porcupine - - tie it to a tree - - remove the quills from your hands and arms incurred while tying it to the tree - - bring the dogs over and say "No - bad dog!" ???? :)

    Our understanding from the vet is that some dogs are just dimwits when it comes to this quill business. Guster has been nailed once several years ago and never since. Kate and Clara are trying to set a world record for number of encounters withing a 2-week period!!

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. Back to your writing though, R (M??). This post was particularly evocative. The imagery and descriptions of memory...this is where one of your greater writing strengths lies, I believe.

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