I'm In Trouble ... Two-Dollar Bill's Worth

The Prelude ...

It is no secret that those of us that are intimately involved in running a cash register at a little country store watch for what, in my family, is called "funny money."  Now I am not talking about counterfeit bills though occasionally we do receive notices from the Vermont State Police that fake scrip is making the rounds in the area.

What I am talking about is the occasional bit of silver coin, 50-cent pieces, wheat pennies, a two-

dollar bill or anything out of the ordinary. Just last week, I found a buffalo nickel -- standing out like a bison in deer country -- as I counted the cash drawer. Turns out it’s worth about six cents without a readable date. I saved it anyway. I always think about the stories those odd bits of coin would tell if only they could speak of the hands that had spent them over the years.

The Story ...

Today I went to a flea market where the modest size and mellow weather dictated chit-chat with the motley crew of vendors. If you have time to really explore a flea market you will find it part history lesson (American Flyer sleds, coal shuttles, grinders for everything from meat to raisins), part creative entrepreneurship (crocks and wooden wheelbarrows planted with geraniums and necklaces woven and beaded with ladder yarn) and part Comedy Central (where else could you find a prosthetic leg complete with tube sock and worn sneaker?).

Always drawn to the closed glass cases that house shiny bits of old jewelry and miniature treasures, I stopped in the shade to gaze at an array of coins ... Mercury dimes, Indian-head pennies and the like. Telling the scruffy and bearded tender of this stall of the family penchant for saving oddities out of the cash register, he launched into the curious story of his old friend, Constantine.

Constantine, it seems, ran a little country store with his longtime girlfriend, Gracy.  He kept a little waste basket under the cash register where he placed every two-dollar bill that came his way. He promised Gracy that when the basket was full he would take her to the altar and marry her.

Now, Gracy had been his trusted employee for a long time and she was a patient woman but her patience was growing thin and the basket's contents grew ever so slowly. Over the years she had helped Constantine solve a lot of problems and now she set about solving what she saw as the problem of her lengthening spinsterhood.  She called everyone she knew and enlisted their help to call everyone they knew to come to the store and pay for their purchases with two-dollar bills. If the bank tellers in the small Vermont town knew the reason for the sudden requests for two dollar bills, they kept the secret.

In a surprisingly short time the little waste basket was full, almost overflowing. Constantine knew he was in trouble. For so many years his word had been his bond and it did not even occur to him to renege on this most solemn promise. Besides, he did love her and knew she would not be a troublesome wife.

And so, the wedding was held, paid for by two-dollar bills. Because they were modest people, the ceremony was modest, with wildflowers picked from the meadow and iced tea and cupcakes for the guests.  After so many years of hard work, Constantine and Gracy wanted to spend their money on a trip ... a real honeymoon.

So off they set for Cape Cod. They didn’t live so very far away but this seemed like a charmed place of mystical and mythical proportions. Dressed in his best new Carhartt pants and a new plaid shirt, over a thousand dollars’ worth of two-dollar bills secured by red rubber bands tucked here and there among their modest luggage, Constantine stepped up to the registration desk at the Holiday Inn. 

No, he did not want to pay with a credit card ... he had cash. So he began to unroll the bills and place them in front of the startled registrar.

It may have been company policy. It may have been the very strangeness of the transaction. Whatever it was, the authorities were called, and before Constantine and Gracy had their first honeymoon Heineken, the Massachusetts State Police were at their door wanting to know where he had obtained such a stash of cash. They were quite convinced that no one would have come by this legally.

It took a bit of explaining and a half-dozen phone calls to corroborate their story, but suspicion was eventually cleared and the newlyweds enjoyed their honeymoon -- tipping lavishly with two dollar bills -- and laughing at the new credit card society that had been thrust on them. They spent every last one of those two-dollar bills before returning to the comfort of their small town and cozy little store

They figured that if this was the worst of their troubles then their union would be blessed. And it was ... a dime and a dollar at a time they prospered and chuckled at their old-fashioned notion that cash was king!

I wonder, in the days of fraud, stolen identity, and massive debt, if Constantine and Gracy were so far off the mark. After all, a piece of plastic will never be able to tell the stories of a coin or a crumpled banknote. A piece of plastic will never have the appeal of a two dollar bill with old Tom Jefferson, peering as mysteriously as the Mona Lisa from his engraved minting.

How many stories like Constantine and Gracy’s would he tell if he could only speak?

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What? What!?

Prayer Flags

R.I.P

What? What!?

A tiny ripple creased the smooth skin on the brow of little Max. He had just completed 18 weeks of life and things were happening fast. He was no longer always with Mom or Dad. He did not quite know what to think or, for that matter, did he know how to think, for he had no word concepts. He could not form such a thought as: "Don't you dare pinch my cheeks with your nasty red claw nails," or "Ahhh, that feels so cozy I think I will just relax and take a nap."

And so the ripples flitted across his brow, quivered his chin, squinched up his eyes and erupted into howls in his very own language -- sometimes as hard for adults to decipher as it was for baby Max to interpret their looks, their fawning love and their rapt amazement at his tiny perfect toes or their own creased brows when his distress was relieved by a burp or a gassy poof from his diaper.

One thing Max knew, though -- no doubt about it -- with or without word concepts, was that a smile was a good thing, a friendly gesture that was meant to entertain and elicit a response.  And so he opened his tiny mouth and slowly curved his miniature lips into a responding smile. A smile begat a smile and a relationship was born.

Words would come in due time. Max in his newborn wisdom wished (though he did not yet know what a "wish" was) that this ... this smile ...  would last forever. That too would come in due time, with those who love and cherish Max moving heaven and earth to keep those smiles --  those relationships -- intact. Words are not always needed; feelings trump words and Max’s world, not yet complicated by the vagaries of spoken language, knew only feelings ... warm blankets, a secure, milky embrace, a new texture, new sounds and sights designed to amuse and teach but sometimes scary. Yet the smiles rained on him and delighted his accumulating days.

If only he could tell you how important a smile is. 

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Prayer Flags

R.I.P.

The Room with Ten Doors

Prayer Flags

The tattered and faded remnants of my prayer flags flutter in the early morning breeze. They look for

all the world like some of the detritus left over from winter along with yet-untended garden weeds.

But they are so much more than that. These colorful flags were given to me two-and-a-half years ago when my family was going through considerable medical confusion and heartache.  They were given to me by a kind and spiritual woman who wanted to comfort me ... this was her gift.

Being, as I am, grounded in traditional Christian ways, I was both touched and uncertain about this tangible evidence of a type of spiritually with which I was unfamiliar. So I asked, and I Googled and I hung the flags. They were a visual reminder of my prayers when I had no words.

It is a common misconception (according to Wikipedia) that the flags carry prayers to the gods.  However, the Tibetans believe that the prayers and mantras will be blown by the wind to spread good will and compassion to all the surrounding space. Tibetans renew their hopes for the world by mounting new flags, an act that symbolizes a welcoming of life's changes and an acknowledgment that all beings are part of a greater ongoing cycle.

This morning the birds are picking at the faded threads, carrying the soft fibers to their nests, preparing for the next generation.

There is much about prayer flags that I do not understand ... the colors and writings and pictures printed on these fragile squares.  But I do understand the need for good will and compassion and acceptance of the ongoing cycles of life.

I think I will go on Amazon and order a new set to hang on my garden fence where I can see them flutter in the morning mountain breezes.

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R.I.P

Making Tracks

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R.I.P

Junior Bentley holds the reins at Sandgate's Independence Day parade on July 4, 1983. Photo courtesy of John Hess. 

Today was not the first time I had attended a funeral in the little white church nestled in the folds of

the Green River valley.  I try to arrive a little early and take my favored place;  a seat in the last pew on the left.

The far view from the window shows a curve in the road, a gentle hill rising to the left and a sweep of meadow dipping to the bank of the Green River on the right. The nearer view is a jelly jar on the sill with a single orange blossom and a rime of small ladybug and cluster fly carcasses trapped in the spaces between the outside and inside panes. From my seat I can both see and hear the tick-tocking of the big, rectangular oak Regulator clock ... its gleaming gold pendulum marking off the minutes and hours and days.

It is a setting ripe for metaphors. But I resist. Instead, I watch the simple little white church fill. There are men and women of all ages and walks of life; natty sports coats mix with grease-stained Carhartts, the sound of walkers and oxygen tanks mix with the cries of a child. Black is the predominate color; that and the Amish-style beards (chin whiskers but no mustache) lend an other-worldly air. Not one person is using a phone or texting as the seats fill, men shuffling to make space for the women to sit.

This is a funeral almost devoid of tears for, as a group, these attendees are not given to crying and the deceased  had lived a long and good life. His recent distress was now over, a distress eased by care of those who loved him and by faith. It was, instead, a time to mourn a way of life fast disappearing from this valley. And to honor and remember a man whose very presence, existence, had exemplified the old values of the Vermont farmer with generations preceding him to the Vermont sod.

"Junior" as he was called -- even at 92 years of age -- was the quintessential Vermonter, living his entire life in the house in which he was born. He was spare of body and spare of words.  His deeds were what spoke and it is clear that he was quicker to give than to take. He was bound to the land, lock and key, and the bounty it gave forth, decades before it was fashionable to be so. There were few things he did not revere that came from the land (with the possible exception of zucchini and burdocks).

I was not part of Junior's inner circle.  But he was always there, his beloved animals standing like a welcoming committee at the portals of the town, his antique farm equipment coaxed into service both practical and ceremonial, and his nod or shake of the head lending credence to local political matters.

One of his inner circle told me, as we left the little white church, that Junior had once pointed to the cemetery on the hill and said that it was full of people who thought they were indispensable.

Well, maybe so. But this man and his gifts to the community come close ... like a belief in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny, we cherished the almost unbelievable, almost mythical, way this man lived and subtly or not so subtly shaped our lives. Did he know, when he was alive, this effect he had?

I doubt it. I do not doubt that he would find it beyond comical that I equate him with the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny. He would be much more comfortable joining in the fellowship of food than philosophizing.

The long table was groaning with salads, cold cuts, tilting towers of sliced bread, mac ‘n’ cheese and colorful Jell-Os.  There were no fewer than a dozen kinds of chocolate brownies and cakes. I think he would have loved the people gathered there, loved the food, and loved the community that he embraced and that had come to say "good-bye" wishing with all their hearts that the afterlife was abundant with fertile fields and critters to accompany him ... a place where words mattered little but deeds spoke volumes ...

R.I.P.

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Making Tracks

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Making Tracks

Author’s Note: The writing inspiration has been as muted as the snowless southern Vermont winter. It reminds me of the common entry in 1950s autograph books: 

"Can’ think

Born dumb

Inspiration won’t come

Rotten ink

Rotten pen

Yours forever

Amen”

I am heartened by the fact that a few loyal friends have asked if I have done any more writing.

I first wrote this little piece back in November but deemed it not good enough to post.

But I think I will because it is so true. And also because I re-visited a writing book that reminded me that writing begets writing. Not writing begets not writing.

Enough said.

The flame of October is past and the muted tones of November and early December are upon the hills … subtle sage frost-kissed greens and rusty oak vie with a dozen shades of grey on the forested Vermont landscape.

The conversation too has changed. The early morning coffee club at the old country store no longer talks solely about the roads and politics, but now about the winter predictors; wooly bear caterpillars, the Old Farmer’s Almanac and the height of the hornets’ nests. And it has turned to hunting -- turkey, bear and white tail deer.

“Eight-pointer feeding under the apple tree up Chunk’s Brook … hope he still hangs out there by the time I’m legal to shoot him.”

“Flock of turkeys … must be 30 of ‘em crossing Camden Valley by the pond every morning. Looks like a couple of big toms sharing that harem.”

“Surprised they’ve survived. Lots of fox tracks by that same pond”

“Gathering apples in my high orchard found a big deer yard. They gotta be well fed on all the drops.”

“Put up my tree stand and, man, did I see some big scrapings on the beech trees.”

“Bear scat near old Doc’s deserted cabin up West … been diggin’ up ground bees, too.”

Linn listened and wondered at the ability of the hunters to find the often elusive prey, to track them by their habits. How they watched for signs and soft footprints in the barely frost touched ground, distinguishing the coyote from the bobcat, the group from the individual as wild predators vied with the hunters. She marveled at the lore and the study that allowed a hunter to get to the heart of the life of these wild entities that they hunted, revered and consumed.

She heard the stories of the hunt from the grizzled old hunters as they impressed the neophytes, brandishing their orange pasteboard hunter safety cards as they stood in line at the old country store to buy their licenses, their permission to join the fraternity of hunters. Linn was a writer and she itched to record the stories told and the subtle passing of the torch from generation to generation. Her fertile imagination concocted the conversations that must have passed as the skill of tracking, observing, getting to heart of the hunt ... understanding, was shared. Yet, she knew that such understanding was beyond her. This was not her territory, her tracks to decipher or her skill to embrace.

In addition to being a writer, Linn was a reader. How ironic that she should, just as the mystery and excitement of the hunt was upon the community, chance across this quote:

“Animals, as they pass through the landscape, leave their tracks behind. Stories are the tracks we leave” -- Salman Rushdie

Linn came from a long line of storytellers. She kept snippets of her favorite stories folded in her wallet. She revisited favorite books, following the trail to a joy of words, wisdom and mystery presented and, sometimes, resolved, and to information. She hunted for the escape into a slightly alternative world just as the hunter escaped his work-a-day world for the brief respite of the hallowed woods in November.

“Ah,” she thought. “I better ‘make tracks’ and get on with writing my stories. No one has the same stories, the same track or the same scent.”  “Keep writing,” she shouted to her writer friends and to herself. 

Linn did not want them -- Eric, Paige, Phil, Mallory, Adair, Rachel, Sue, John, Ed and all the rest -- to disappear. She wanted a long adventure as she followed their tracks into the personal forests of their stories; the plots, the ideas, the interests, the intelligence, the emotion.

Nor did she want to vanish without trace.

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Meant to Be

Stone Salad

WC ... It's Not What You Think

Meant to Be

I saw something on TV this morning that I could hardly believe. Seems that the new thing now is to have less rather than more "stuff" in our lives. The fad now is to be frugal. Holy shit! I've known the word "frugal" for so long I thought it was my middle name!

Let me do some explaining. My family wasn't exactly poor, but we had what we had by scrimping and saving and making do. Extras meant that we had new clothes for Christmas instead of thrift shop stuff or hand-me-downs. Extras meant a special outing to McDonald's for my birthday.

Then, to top it off, I married Joey and he made my frugal ways look like I was a gol-durn spendthrift.  He was recycling and up-cycling before he knew what those words meant; turning old tires into planters and swings, using old pallet wood for new porch steps and mixing leftover cans of paint 'til he had enough to freshen the walls of some room or another.

The odd thing was that Joey was not un-generous. When he had a dollar he'd share it with me fifty-fifty. He trusted, and I knew, that it was to be spent well.  He never asked -- and I rarely told him -- just how it left my pocket. I just said "thanks" and once in awhile I'd show him a trophy like the old floor lamp I bought at Salvation Army for two dollars that looked just like the one in the Orvis mail order catalog for over a hundred.

I guess I shoulda known that it would be this way. When we met, I was young and fulla vinegar and he was young and fulla piss. I had three jobs and still enough energy to get done work and go over to Snuffy's across the border in New York state and dance and flirt and have a few beers. He worked hard spring, summer and fall doing the yard work that he learned from his Pa. But Joey done his Pa one better and got himself some power things that made his work neater and faster. In the winter he'd plow some, but he mostly hung out at the Citgo station, the Wayside general store or the diner where I worked the late shift. Sometimes he'd piss me off coming in late and ordering a meal that required me to re-scrub the grill and do up the dishes when what I was itching for was to get the hell out and have some fun.

Back then, Joey lived in one of the half dozen "mobile homes" that my boss, Herbie, kept on his land across the road from the diner. There was a gol-durn revolving door of young marrieds and a mish-mash of short term renters coming or going through some stage of life. ... Herbie's trailers were a godsend.

I can't get through this story without I tell you a little about Herbie. He was a wheeler-dealer of the first order. His diner had a limited menu -- mostly breakfast stuff any hour that they were open.  He served a tolerable hamburger and a mean BLT.  And, when the spirit moved him, he'd concoct a pretty good hash or a tuna casserole topped with crushed potato chips.

Herbie made precious little money at his diner. Hell, he felt lucky if he broke even. But the folks that came in were always good fodder for his bartering and trading. He'd loan out his pick-up truck in exchange for bales of hay to insulate the trailers from the biting January wind  He'd trade hunting rights on his land for venison, lunches for lawn mowing.

What Herbie couldn't barter, he'd buy up -- dime on the dollar -- most anything anyone had in excess or needed to be rid of. That's how he got the beds, dressers, pots, pans and dishes to furnish his trailers. Herbie found his ways to be not only an economy, but a challenge and a hobby. He never tired on the game and mostly felt he came out on the long end of the stick. I guess he must've, since it was rumored that he died a wealthy man.

Now Joey was living in one of Herbie's mobile homes. He never told me -- and I guess I never asked -- if he left home on his own or got kicked out. It didn't matter, really, he was on his own and away from a house that was so clotted with brothers and sisters that he couldn't even shit in peace. Only thing he missed much was his ma's cooking and he didn't have a clue how to do for himself on that score. When he got tired of cold cereal, Pop-Tarts or a can of Campbell's chicken noodle, he'd show up at the diner.

As for me, I'd been on my own for over a year. My ma had died and the family didn't get along so well after that. I was living with my Aunt Betty who never had kids. She never had a clue either. so as long as I was kind to her and kept my room neat, she'd pretty much let me do what I wanted. And I wanted to do lots of things. That's why I worked three jobs. You can't do stuff without some money no matter how frugal you were. Maybe Herbie could with his easy manner and an eye for the deal, but it weren't so easy for the rest of us.

I didn't consider myself a specially lucky person, but I was blessed. I was blessed with a ton of energy and I knew I was smarter than most.  I knew, too, that I was easy on the eyes with my curly hair and curves in the right places. I figured if I worked hard I could get most of what I wanted. I wanted some travel and adventures and then I wanted to settle down to a good decent life ... but I wasn't in a hurry for it.

That's about what I was thinking when along come Joey.  He was tall and good looking and best of all he knew how to laugh. He didn't have it so easy but that never stopped him from telling a joke or laughing about some of the crazy stuff folks did. We saw eye-to-eye about the strangeness of people and even if he pissed me off sometimes with his timing, it got so I looked forward to the nights when he came in the diner.

It was coming on Christmas and neither one of us was looking forward to it. It's 'sposed to be a happy time but we were both feeling a little cranky about getting into family things and didn't quite know how to get round it. Two of my jobs crapped out on me; the old lady I'd been watching fell on her  butt and was in the hospital and money ran out on the grant where I'd had a spell at the court house learning to clerk.  I sure as hell wasn't gonna have a very merry Christmas on my diner money. That's what we were grousing about when Joey looked at me over the remains of his tuna casserole. "Let's go to Florida for Christmas," he said.

I was stunned and thought of everything I could to object. But Joey shot holes in every damn one of them., even to to the fact that I'd miss a real Vermont Christmas tree. Joey went right out to the woods and cut down a pretty little pine tree, threw it in the back of his Ford 350 and dared me to find another excuse. He knew me pretty well and could tell he'd already wore me down. So I packed a few things, left Aunt Betty a note, a pair of pink fuzzy slippers and a box of her favorite Cella chocolate covered cherries for Christmas. I told Herbie I'd see him in a week and off we went.

God, I felt half scared but free as a bird. I was gonna see something besides snow and hills!  I was gonna see honest-to-god  palm trees and have sand between my toes!  Yippee!

Off we went, and I gotta tell you, we had a ball.  We drove and drove, stopping only to get a bite to eat or to gas up the truck. We watched the sun set in West Virginia and watched it come up when we hit the Florida line. We stopped at a roadside diner that kinda reminded me of Herbie's where the locals gave us a few tips on where we could find a good beach and where we could have a good time without spending a bunch of money.

We found the beach about mid-day, planted our Vermont Christmas tree in the sand, rolled out some big ole towels and had ourselves a Christmas to remember soaking up the sun, rubbing sunscreen on each other and wading into the clean salty water.

We were both sorry when it was time to head back but we didn't figure that the beach life was for us long term. By the time we left we were sun burnt and burnt out on not having any work to do. We needed to get back where we belonged.

The drive back seemed longer than long. We weren't quite sure what was waiting us when we got back, being a small town and all. But we didn't really care. By now we were thinking that maybe we were an item, a couple, cuz we sure did know how to have some fun together. We just weren't sure how much that counted.

When we got back to Vermont it was the middle of the night, wouldn't ya know. Neither of us wanted to bust in on Aunt Betty and scare her to death so I went right home with Joey to his little trailer. We crept into the little huddle of trailers under the cover of dark, Joey pulling the curtains over the windows before he snapped on the overhead light.

Now, I'd had quite a few surprises in the last few days but none compared to the surprise when my eyes saw what was before me in his rooms. There, bold as brass, was the coffee table my dad had made out of a slab of pine for my mom on their 10th anniversary.  The sofa was the same stripey gray one that I'd sat on to watch TV when I was just a little girl. Next to it was the lamp with the red geraniums painted on it and the white shade on top of it that I had known all my life.

I was so stunned I couldn't say a word and Joey didn't know what was the matter with me. I think he thought I was scared to spend the night. Truth be told, I was scared of what it meant to see all this stuff just like I remembered it. It was like coming home and finding a piece of me that I thought had been lost a long time ago.

Joey came and put his arms gently around me. He'd figured it out before I did. Herbie'd gone after my ma died and bought out her household when the family coulda cared less and had no place for her belongings.

If I was on the fence about my dealings with Joey, I saw this as a kind of sign that we were meant to be together. And now here it is 25 years later. I can't say we ever had another adventure quite like plunking our Christmas tree in the Florida sand but we've had our times. And Herbie's lessons kind of live with us too. We wheel and deal and make do and we have a more-than-decent life.

And, for once, we're on the cutting edge of the "in" frugal thing -- without changing who we are or even trying to!

Previous Posts:
Stone Salad
The Room with 10 Doors
Thanksgiving for Dummies

Stone Salad

(Note: This story is true. I tried -- oh how I tried -- to fictionalize it but, really, the truth is stranger than fiction. There may be a bit of revisionist history and faulty memory but, that said, it is essentially a true story.)

The house was a Victorian lady with a tall imposing tower-- well beyond her prime. Her once lush chocolate brown had faded to a dun color with an undercurrent of yellow showing through. Her scalloped shingle decorations were missing pieces like an old mouth devoid of a few key teeth. The ornate screen doors retained their gingerbread scrolls but the screen itself was torn and frayed letting into the cramped entry all manner of flies, bees and hornets that died and littered the corners of the floor with their fragile carcasses.

She was an odd house for this little southern Vermont community where most of the dwellings favored a colonial style or farmhouse motif with screened-in back rooms and rocking chairs on porches, and potted geraniums emphasizing their whiteness.

Odd as she was, she perfectly suited her inhabitants. The master of this manor looked for all the world like Danny DeVito-- short and dark with a monk’s tonsure of hair fringing his shiny bald pate. He shuffled when he walked but at a pace that belied the concept of shuffling as he hurried to answer the multi-toned and lengthy gonging of the door chime. The chime was accompanied by the howling of three tiny dogs that sounded, as their howls echoed down the halls, as if they were the very Hounds of Baskerville, deep and belying their smallness. On sunny days, it was a laughable introduction to the household. On dreary days, it sent shivers up your spine.

His wife, or companion, was a ramrod-straight, quiet wraith of a redhead of few words. But who could blame her? The voice of the lord of the manor rolled from the depths of his diaphragm and filled the foyer with a mix of welcome and spookiness as the full-size half-nude bronzes populating the hall looked on. How this strange milieu was created in Vermont is anyone’s guess. It was rumored that this voice had been a great force in the halcyon days of radio serials and its owner had been a bit player in movies in the 1940's and '50's. I totally believed it though I had no proof. When I visited the dwelling there had been no Google to assuage my curiosity. The theatrics of the house and its inhabitants screamed of Old Hollywood -- another time and another place.

The atmosphere was one of what I called “moldy money“ – money so old, and earned so long ago, that its traces lingered like the scent of something unidentifiable … elusive. And what seemed like a fortune long ago no longer was -- yet the sense of it remained. 

Today the twin forces of faded wealth and fierce independent living co-mingled in this strange household. The large upstairs bedrooms were rented out as a kind of quasi-nursing home turned respite-care safe house for an assortment of people that society forgot. When the meager income from the moldy money would not pay the taxes, the rooms became available.

And that was why I was here.

The large front bedroom was sparse and spotless. A queen-size bed. A dresser. A bedside stand with a Big Ben clock ticking away the hours. Sheer, white curtains fluttering in the breeze. A large wooden armchair.

Marissa grinned her toothless grin as I entered the door. Her speech was halting and labored in the twisted convolutions of her wounded brain. Her hands and knees were stiff as boards and it was my duty as a visiting occupational therapist to help her exercise and feed herself. Yet we both knew that little real progress would be made, and that the funds would dry up when her progress became only maintenance. We both dreaded that day, and really worked hard at improvement-- like rolling a boulder up a mountain. God gave Marissa a wonderful gift in the form of the loveliest of singing voices … pure and sweet and unimpeded by the cerebral palsy that contorted her speaking voice. It felt like the closest thing to a miracle I had observed in my therapist’s life. Once I discovered this, singing was a part of our visits: “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem” regardless of season.

Another part of my visits was the constant invitation from the lord of the manor to join him for lunch. It did not seem a professional thing to do nor did I want to deplete their meager store of groceries. I declined time after time. But, as I suspected that our visits were drawing to a close, I wanted to stay, to soak up this odd environment, to enjoy this eccentric and lonely altruism. 

“Come,” he commanded, crooking his finger and heading down a dim hallway lined with Old Master style paintings, dark and imposing. “I’ll make you a salad … you’ve never had one like this before.”

And indeed I had not. The kitchen, surprisingly small and light for the rest of the house, looked sparse and bare. One large red onion was sprouting in a jelly jar on the sill. Thwack …

The green tip sprouts were amputated from the bulb of the onion, gone and chopped before I knew it. The tiny, ancient refrigerator flew open and, like a juggler plying his craft, a jar of this and a lump of that, a hunk of something and a bit of something else unidentifiable, polka-dotted the counter. 

One last green olive in a bottle was fished out and chopped, its red pimento heart becoming six tiny pieces, a spoonful of salty brine extracted before going back in the fridge. A dry lump of cheese no bigger than a marble was grated down to a fine sharp powder. One of the juggler’s pieces was a scrap of hard salami diced into the tiniest of miniature pieces.

Now my host coaxed a few hearty chunks from the root of a celery stalk, wrapped in moist paper and saved for who-knows-how-long but still useful. One tiny carrot became little golden pennies to add to the mix.

Smack … the flat of a knife blade squashed a clove of garlic and a heel of bread became croutons toasted with a few drops of olive oil from an almost-empty bottle.

All I could think of was the story that has gone around the world of the beggar denied food but allowed a pot and a spoon and water to boil, tricking others into contributing a bit of this and a bit of that to the stone he was boiling for his "stone soup." With all the contributions the result was the finest of soups … how clever was this beggar in slaking his hunger!

Magically the old, cut-glass bowl began to fill, and the garlic perfumed the air and invaded my senses. A single leaf of lettuce, a scrap of green pepper, one tiny tomato, a radish no bigger than my pinkie gave up their color and flavor as his knife flew. Yes, my host tricked all the bits and pieces of leftover and usually thrown out food into a salad the likes of which … as my host had said … I had never tasted before. It was rich and complex and delicious and needed not a speck of dressing as the flavors blended into a sumptuous gustatory delicacy served in small but oh-so-satisfying portions.

Within a month, my patient visits were terminated as Marissa was judged to be on a maintenance-only path and no longer eligible for therapy visits. I missed her joy at seeing me come in the door and I missed her clear, bell-like voice and the dual miracle of that voice and the magic salad.

Now, I make this salad often in my own home when I have bits and pieces that do not seem substantial enough to stand on their own.

And my children have it in their lexicon of family language:  “Rock Salad,” for my host indeed went by the name of “Rock.” And, in my mind, there’s only the slightest difference between the man behind the Rock Salad and the one behind stone soup: both were old tricksters of the highest order, making something wonderful out of a wholly improbable start.

This lesson will not be forgotten as the taste of that salad lingers still on my tongue the way the memories of Rock linger in my mind.

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