Dr Fred is the calmest man ever. He inspires meditation
or whatever it is that gets him to that place.
He is slow, methodical, so, so patient.
He advises, explains, shows, helps to make decisions. So, no crown work done today, but he elected
to do two, not four crowns, and there was talk of pin-drop of my gums and one
implant and drilling of the bone, (he says the bone structure looks pretty good, which is the only time in
recent years that those two words could possibly have been applied to me in the
dentist chair) and even the mention of drilling a titanium rod through my gum did
not un-do me.
Following that, I took a trip to the natural foods market
where one is surrounded by glorious smells, including natural candles, fresh
coffee, scones. I purchased a New York Times
to ground me, some yogurt and granola, bulk style, like the old days, a tiny
tin of perfume cr̬me Рgardenia vanilla.
I drove to a parking lot, sat in the sunny car with coffee and scone and
paper, then took my camera and walked, looking for photos. 
My foot felt good, the right hip protested sharply a few
times then seemed to begrudgingly settle into the walk. As I turned at the end of the winding road to walk back, a man
with longish, thick white hair called over from a porch where he sat “where’s your
dog?” I knew him, but it took a few minutes
for me to realize he didn’t know or remember
me, or maybe he did remember my dog who died ten years ago. He did say short, and Jessie certainly was that. Something was not right and though we chatted across the grass for a short while, he was not the same dashing flirt I knew him as ten or fifteen years ago. Something missing; our conversation had a slight electrical short or outage. We’d become two elders of our town, seeing each other rarely, one perhaps remembering more than the other. There is no catching up with what has transpired in those years. We used to cross paths every day in the retail world. He’d once introduced his mother to me when she was visiting. He’d always called me “Hey Beautiful”. None of this was part of his desultory conversation today. His movements are slower, as are we all. We said good-byes. He said “call me when you get rich” as he turned to walk into this house.
I walked on, a bit sad but grateful that I can still walk down such a lane and
have that chat. As I crossed over to the main road, a car pulled up, seemed to
be in a hurry. The electric window
whizzed halfway down, the man asked “Hey, can you tell us where the music concert was?” “It was in Bethel, about an hour and a half
southeast of here”, I replied, proud that I did not give in to a nasty habit
that some of us locals, tired of the endless question in the summertime, were
prone to do – make something up and send them driving around town. “No, the woman next to him said – the rock
concert.” “The one forty years ago” the
man almost snarled, as though my brain were
malfunctioning. I didn’t correct him to say
it was almost fifty years ago, but said “Yes, it took place in Bethel, and hour and a
half from here.” “Then why did they
called it the Woodstock festival” he asked, completely cynical about my response. “Well, it got that name because that’s how
the promotion started...” I didn’t get
to finish. He yelled “yeah thanks”, zipped
up the window and sped off, apparently in search of more reliable information. I should have made something up –it would
have been much more rewarding.
Driving up over the mountain, Van Morrison came
on the radio to sing “Going down to ole Woodstock”.
Woodstock calms me. Not on a
weekend. And especially not on a summer
weekend. But yes, on a Thursday morning
in the afterglow of most August visitors.
