Thursday eve, Friday morn

Late 1960's...peace...make love not war. I'm in Asheville NC working in a glass factory. I made friends with Buford, a co-worker,---he is from Madison County arguablly the moonshine capital of the world. Buford and I bond like brothers; he has a dog a blue tick hound with ticks in his coat like an unseen universe. Trouble is the dog howls so much he keeps the neighbors awake. Buford decides to trade the dog and we are off into the mountains. Trading was a custom that was well woven into the mountain culture. When you had something you didn't want or need, you traded it for something you needed or might need.

We found an interested party, a man with a mean looking coon dog. Buford and the man extolled their dogs and a trade was made. When the club chained a coon to a platform in a pond his dog was the one who always escaped drowning and tore up the coon the man boasted. Buford of course said nothing about his dog's barking and the man said nothing about his dog being also a chicken killer a fact Buford discovered when his new dog got into a neighbors fighting cocks.

Buford's father made the best whiskey I've ever tasted- it was a blend distilled from wheat as well as corn. He carried the obligatory pistol in his blue bib overalls and he wore a kahki shirt, a felt hat and he wore brogans. Such was the uniform of his time. The mountains. They brought me peace. I vividly remember standing on the edge of a hilltop listening to beagles arooing around a mountain, probably after a rabbit. It was a misty twilight and I remember thinking yes there was a god, or there was a god inside me. Though a loner,I was not alone.

Friday

Up early,head up 6th Avenue for the mountains of Central Park, the sky with willowly ribbons of white with just a hint of pink--all this on a blanket of robin's egg blue. As I approach the trees change from a grayish brown to a darker hue. The grass is a worn mat but has an aliveness from the just rising sun. Poplars or Elms have a shabby peel but the sunlight gives their east side a glow. The shadows are stripes. I am reminded of an ivy league tie I used to wear with muted browns and greens. The trees and I are fellow old men. I think briefly of Thoreau. a professor once made a comment about Thoreau never bought a boy (read son) a ball glove. Nor have I.