33

Thursday, March 3, 2005
8:33 pm
We arrived at the cabin at 7:30 or so. The drive wasn’t bad…different part of rural Ohio for me. After a somber afternoon the ridge is all too quiet and dag gone!!!! We forgot the “fat wood”…whatever that is. So it’s back to Boy Scout/church camp counselor experience. There’s a “white man’s fire” roaring now. Calm…even the dog.

10:50 pm
Man…it’s too friggin’ cold for the hot tub. The fire seems more appropriate this evening. For March 3rd this is a dark and frigid night. 2005 has been severely serious in it’s karmic nature. Sickness…death…cancer…car accidents…hospitals…All these things happening to the people around me. 33 years since our first date. Wow. Coincidentally, we drove through Granville, Ohio yesterday. The site of that very beginning.

Friday, March 4, 2005
9:40 am
Up for a little bit now. The light always seems brand new from a different bed. Sunshine Superman. Sleep was sound…although thoughts of yesterday swirled in between. “So glad you came”. Described as “My favorite. You march to a different drum.” Dan’s mom…sweetheart in her grief. One sis noticed I wore long pants for the occasion. Another called me “rascally”. A good – bad influence? James Thurber drawing on the walls? Mark Twain swearing at God? Our 33 years of life tempered…magnified…by another’s passing. We stayed up until almost midnight. Talking. Stories of family we’ve heard from each other hundreds of times. Yet always coming from a different angle. A new awareness awakened by another family’s loss…their memories frozen in each brain. Everything’s changed…forever. With the discovery of how someone is remembered…cherished…lying ahead. Even Henri made an appearance. Amazing how a little dog can be so life affirming.

10:27 am Mushroom and cheese omelets and coffee.

11:44 am Still in our p.j.s. reading in the loft. Neither of us felt like driving into town for today’s paper. So it’s yesterday’s. The news probably isn’t much different anyway. The beast with 6 cylinders sits silent. Here comes the snow! We take a break to play “checkees”…as Grandpappy Amos would say. After wrangling over rules I inadvertently won the first game. We played a second to a stalemate. “We’re too smart for checkers” was Yvonne’s conclusion. I found her comment not arrogant…merely an affirmation of our equality. At least another 33 years before the next checkers foray,

1:30 pm Borscht and beer.

4:10 pm Sleet. Snow can be a pain in the ass…but sleet!!! Nothing remotely romantic about sleet. The sound is an addition. Outside of the furnace, dog paws on a hardwood floor…crackling fire…and the sound of our two voices…that’s been it. Darkness is creeping in already. It might as well be December 15th. I hope we have enough booze. (We do. It’s 33 and they’ve all been early in March.)

The hot tub patiently awaits our baptism.

5:07 pm What appeared to be a window of opportunity…a respite from the sleet…quickly…once our clothing optional bodies were submerged in the aforementioned tub of hotness…became a mere mail slot of opportunity. We received a full “Baptist Convention in “Reykjavik” outdoor baptism of sleet not once…not twice…but three times. Yvonne looked darling with her blond hair covered in Nordic dandruff look. This must be what watching a December Brown’s game at the stadium while sitting in a hot tub must feel like.

5:48 Reveling in marital bliss…something we didn’t do 33 years ago on our first date. (Editor’s note: Rick Brown did NOT write a book, nor does he have plans to EVER write a book concerning this topic.)

Saturday, March 5, 2005
10:49 am Slept a little later this morning. Oh, we’ve been up an hour or so. Last evening Yvonne made us a wonderful Greek Shrimp Pasta (see Food and Drink). I helped by uh…providing moral support and doing the dishes. (This cabin is truly primitive!) We drank our share of lovely red wine and awoke…on the couch…in front of a fading fire somewhere around midnight. Wild huh? The sleet apparently was replaced by snow and there is about 2 or 3 inches of fresh powder. We’re planning a trip into town this afternoon for supplies. Good thing the Beast with 6 cylinders is 4-wheel drive. I wouldn’t want to try to maneuver my way on what are called “roads” up here in say…a Miata. I’m hoping Dan’s father’s funeral wasn’t hampered much by yesterday’s January-like weather.

11:20 am Pancakes with blueberries and coffee.

12:34 pm Reading the New Yorker. Maybe when I retire I’ll be able to keep up with this. It struck me earlier…while I was in the shower…as charming as Mt. Vernon (where we began this journey) and Granville are, I can’t say the same about Logan. It’s not so much that it’s ugly. Logan just isn’t a place you need to shave before sojourning to. Perhaps they fixed it since I was last there.

2:41 pm Logan is the same. Actually, it’s more so now that they have a Wal-Mart Super Store sprawled right outside. Kroger’s probably stays in business because…unlike The Great Satan of Consumerism…they sell BEER!!! I find it intriguing to…on occasion…sit in a parked car in a huge parking lot and people watch. A guy about my age pulled up next to me and the pooch with a silver Silverado pickup truck packed to the gills with bails of hay. As he got out he looked at Henri and me and gave us that knowing nod. A kind of “Welcome to Logan” look with a “By the way…have ya noticed the shitload a’ straw in my silver Silverado?” glance.

3:05 pm Butternut squash soup and beer.

5:05 pm Happy Hour with Yvonne’s Gran Cran Splash!! (See Food and Drink)

6:33 pm Hot tub. Although the temperature almost reached 50 today it’s still very snowy on the summit here. No sleet tonight.

7:14 pm Reveling in marital bliss – the sequel. (Maybe I should write a book!!)

9:01 pm Yvonne’s wonderful mushroom risotto. Pan challenged as she was the expert chef rose to the occasion and delivered a dish worth waiting for!!

10.11 pm Wine…woman…& dog.

Sunday, March 6, 2005
9:52 am Fried eggs, toast and coffee.

10:44 am I take some private time and drive into Logan for a New York Times Sunday paper. It’s a nice little trek on a sunny morn on the twisting, turning country road. I turn on the radio…something I rarely do anymore. Smooth jazz. George Benson…Ottmar Liebert…Steely Dan (Steely Dan?)…Hugh Masekela is “Grazin’ in the Grass”. Baby, I can dig it. One big reason Yvonne and I are together celebrating number 33 is neither of us ever bought into the not so veiled chauvinism of “The two shall become one” crap. I notice a guy sitting in his car reading the paper…as I did yesterday in the Kroger lot…except he’s dog-less. And of course there was the wait behind someone obviously using her debit card for the very first time with a cashier accepting a debit card for the very first time. Debit card virgins. (I wish this were remotely close to the truth.) But the short drive back healed the wounds of the failure of technology’s promise. The dog welcome…something I haven’t experienced in days.

12:47 pm Good Gawd…the New York Times takes me an hour and a half to “almost read”. In comparison…the Columbus Dispatch…even on a good Sunday…takes me about 90 seconds.

1:37 pm Gourmet cheeses, crackers and cranberry juice.

6:33 pm The ride home was uneventful. Which in most contexts is quite a good thing. It was very nice to be able to hang out longer today. The people who own the cabin we rent have become our friends. And they let us linger a while longer than what’s written in the rules. Beginning the celebration of our first date with such an intensely real…definitive visit with what could be my own family, certainly made this year different. Because of the passing of Dan’s father…and the moments I spent with his mother…I became cognizant that someday this is going to happen to Yvonne and I. There will be no more “first date celebration” sooner or later. That was in the back of my mind…still is. And it’s a fitting perspective. Everything changes…everything is in flux. And being reminded of just how fragile life is…how quickly life can turn around…well…it made this year’s celebration…the 33rd…just a little more special. And I have the Eley family…Mrs. Eley in particular…to thank for that.

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