Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'

There is a little coffee shop in Easton, just along the main street, where people from that place meet. Everyone knows each other, it seems. I was there with my Washington Post, eating a combination cherry and cheese Danish, and drinking one of their concoctions—a terrifically sweet mixture that was called Mocha Maraschino Minneapolis-Moline Truffled and Whipped Heaven. I don’t remember exactly what it was called, but some of those words may have been used. So I read the news of the day, while two friends exchanged details of their lives over at the next table. Someone would come in, and the one woman would hail the person—every single one of them an old and dear friend.
“Oh! Harry—you look simply wonderful! You were in China! I must know everything!”
“Beth! Over here, Beth! And who is that adorable little bundle of joy you’re carrying around? Look how she’s grown!”
“Yoo-hoo! Jason, over here! This is my friend Elizabeth; she’s taking a sabbatical from her yoga teaching to hike to Oregon and back. She leaves tomorrow!”
And on and on. I grew ever more morose with my Danish and coffee drink—whatever it was called. I resented the familiarity around me, felt alienated—even more so than usual. The people there all looked genuine, wrapped in earth tones, large woolen things around their necks, comfortable girths around their waists. They were fed on grains, sunshine, bonhomie and purpose. I wanted to enter that place, not have people look up, then quickly away as they saw that I was not one of them, that I had the outsider’s attire of an intruder: Coat and tie, black shoes, combed hair.
“This is not me!” I wanted to yell, standing up suddenly in the middle of the old shop, that was once a hardware store.
“I will eat your Danish! I will drink your coffee drink—whatever it is! But you want more, don’t you? You want me to go to friggin’ China, to travel around the world, then come back here with a little baby in my arms!” Then, thrashing around a bit, maybe upsetting a chair, I would utter some incomprehensible and irrelevant things, with spit flying from my angry lips.
“I will NOT BE JUDGED!” Finally, this—then I would take my paper and leave, walk up the street to do my job in the law firm a few doors down. Entering that place, pale white, the emotion drained from my face, someone would ask if all was well, if I felt ok.
“I just saw a rabbit nearly get run over,” I would respond. “I need a minute to regain my composure.”

Back to the coffee shop: There was art on the walls, and—as usual—when I see bad art I become enraged. This doesn’t always happen; sometimes I rather enjoy the bad art, feel that it has some merit because it is so awful. That was not the case this time. The offensive piece featured polar bears. Yes, polar bears. They were standing around at odd angles, just killing time. Quite a few of them, actually. The price of this painting was somewhere in the neighborhood of two thousand dollars, meaning that the artist did not want to sell it. The level of execution contained in the work was fairly representative for a student of Mrs. Hoorvelstein’s fifth-grade class. One of the under-performing students, at that. I studied the thing, fascinated, wanted to know who had the temerity to put that painting up. The other works were standard depictions of flowers: Fields of flowers, vases with flowers, that kind of thing. Can’t go wrong with flowers, that’s what I always say. They’re very pretty.

So I contained myself, left that place without making a scene, but they all knew that something was up, that I was on the verge of exploding, running amok where once hammers and nails and lead-based paints were sold, where the stuff to fix old pipes was stacked against a dark and dusty wall, the fittings and hardware in still-life bins that were a hundred times more beautiful than the random polar bears. They all knew that they’d gotten off easy—this time. I walked up the street, muttering crazy things to myself.

Five hours later I was heading home, leaving the quaint town of Easton, with its comfortable and well-traveled denizens and their sugary coffee drinks. The Danish was quite good, however.

At home I spoke to my elderly French friends, the couple that I visit with offerings of long French sticks that we call baguettes. They wanted more bread, as usual, wanted to be sure that I was going to stop by this weekend with a few sticks. Yes, yes—I plan to bring some bread this weekend, I assured them.
“You know what happened last weekend, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied. “Please tell me.”
“The bread you left—you remember the bread?”
Yes, I remembered; I had to leave it at the door, had knocked several times, but got no response. Finally left the long bag of French sticks tucked inside the front door—between the outer door and the entrance, which was locked.
“The squirrels! The squirrels got it! They ate through the bag, took a whole baguette and dragged it away!”
I was incredulous. I knew that the squirrels often were prone to making off with the bread on those occasions where I had to leave it out front. But I imagined that they mostly nibbled at it, bit off small chunks, were content to eat it like that. Apparently they’d gotten big ideas, these squirrels.
“They dragged off a WHOLE baguette?”
“Oui! Une baguette entiere!” She explained how they’d made a hole in the bottom of the bag, extracted the long bread and dragged it away to eat it at their leisure.
“Ok. Well, sorry—you know, I knocked several times. No one answered, even though I knocked hard, so I left the bread like that. Were you able to use some of it?”
She assured me that the only bread that was affected was the baguette that the squirrels had taken, and another piece that was a little bit eaten. I gave her a few French sticks from today’s market, as well as some leftover pastries and croissants, things that I know the couple misses from their days in france and also from running the farm market stand. She was appreciative, thanked me, and I went home on this bright February day to enjoy some rest and the warmth of the house.

The mid-winter market was one of the coldest so far; the only thing that made it tolerable was the sun, which blazed mightily from around ten o’clock until closing time. My hands became numb early on, devoid of any feeling, except for those times when they just plain hurt. My young helper arrived feeling obviously under the weather. I told him that he should have called, that I would have tried to find someone else. I really object to ANYONE being out in the harsh conditions of the market when they are sick; spending a half-day in the freezing cold isn’t exactly what’s recommended to get on the mend. I made a call to Big J.O., awoke him from his morning slumber, and asked him about coming out. He said he could, and I sent my young helper home when Big Joe arrived. We got by ok, the two of us, and it was a pretty good outing.

I’ve done nothing on the house for the past few days, have not really gone over there since I removed the big timber that supports much of the structure. Its twin is still in place, so I will buy the necessary lumber before removing the other piece, then start replacing the big pieces of wood. They measure about sixteen feet in length—too big for me to handle safely by myself, so I’ll ask J.O. to come out and help, maybe spend a day next week dealing with this. I think I’ll probably buy three pieces of the sixteen-foot supports to replace the two that I’m removing. No particular reason, other than I want to do a thorough job of it—and the wood is cheap. To get these pieces of wood out of the way, I had to cut several wires down in the basement, so much of the house is now dark. I tied off the wires with wire nuts and electrical tape, and will most likely replace them with new wiring when I put it all back together. Right now, the only light that I can think of that actually works upstairs is in the bathroom—or what was once the bathroom.
I’ve resolved to make the little station wagon a rolling discotheque. Recently at the Colosso-Mart, I bought a CD of a 1980s band called Journey. They’re well-known, having produced many hits on the radio over the course of their career. Suddenly I’ve veered wildly from my idol, Edith Piaf, to these fairly mainstream rockers. I hadn’t given them much thought way back when, until one day a friend and I drove to Philadelphia to hear his favorite group, The Rolling Stones. It was a mega-concert, opened by George Thoroughgood, then Journey, then the Stones themselves. The main thing that left an impression on me was the music of Journey, which I’d surely heard on the radio. But now they were on the stage, ripping off one hit after another, and nailing the songs with precision and an awesome energy. The other thing that I remember is that each opening act performed what would be considered almost concert-length performances—approaching nearly two hours each. I don’t remember how much we paid for the tickets, but we got our money’s worth that night. The Stones were good, too, although I have tired of Mick Jagger’s vocals—a combination of pouting and whining. It seems to work for him, though.

So I was at the Colosso-Mart, pulling off the crime of the century: I’d bypassed the unhappy lines of people at the front of the store, where customers were complaining about the slow pace, but could do nothing about it. The shopping carts backed up into the aisles, and nothing seemed to be moving. The cashiers, chewing their gum, sullenly slid the items across the scanners: baby clothes, hampers, big toys powered by big batteries, women’s clothes, men’s large pants, and so on. I remembered something about these Colosso-Stores, that they had different departments, where other cashiers worked. I took my eight-dollar Journey CD, some business-related purchases, and walked to the back of the store. There was ONE person in line, I was quickly rung up by an unusually cheerful young cashier, and was on my way. Up front, it appeared that nothing had moved. The woman in front of me at the back of the store had offered this advice:
“If this one has a line, go to sporting goods.” I could have kissed her full on the lips.

I am trying to reconcile my renewed interest in Journey with the eloquence and vigor of Edith Piaf’s songs. Ok, for one thing, she didn’t actually write her music, had songwriters around who recognized her talent, composed songs for her—knowing that a hit by the little giant would surely reflect well on them. Journey, as far as I know, came up with its own songs. The lyrics aren’t always that great—or even make sense—but the tunes are catchy and well executed. I suppose the best I can do at this point is try to zero in on songs that I think Edith Piaf might have liked, if she’d lived to hear Journey. Preferably, she would have been able to see them in concert, for the full effect of their music. Listening to the radio just isn’t the same. Here are the selections that I think Piaf might have enjoyed:

“Lovin’, Touchin’ Squeezin’”
“Don’t Stop Believin’”
“Who’s Crying Now”
“Open Arms”
“Faithfully”

This next one may be a bit of a stretch, but I think she would have enjoyed “Any Way You Want It” as well. It’s quite a lively tune. Of course, she may have listened to the tunes, gotten some enjoyment out of them, but in her very French and contrary way, professed to hating all of them.
“Thees is not muse—eek,” she would say. “It is somethink you Americans listen to, because you don’t haff to think too hard about eet.”
Then she would likely go home and put on a Journey CD, listen to “Lovin, Touchin’ Squeezin” over and over.