ALL THOSE OLD FAMILIAR PLACES

 

 There’s a chill in the air but Willy don’t care as we meander up ’n down, ‘round ’n about the by-ways of The Village…T’day, he had that squeaky toy going non-stop until I finally got it together enough to go for the daily S&P tour…I’m telling you though, that’s there’s a nip in the air…not like back in the States, y’understand but for northern California in the valley, it’s chilly, chilly, chilly…I almost wished I’d had some gloves with me…I do carry a pair of driving gloves in the pocket of my leather jacket (y’know, the kind with holes in the fingers ’n the cutout back…paid $3 bucks for them ever so long ago)…it’s hardly ever cold enough in the daytime for the leather jacket, mostly I wander around in an old fleece vest I picked up at a Marshall’s discount rack many years ago….come to think on it, that many years ago thing seems to apply to a lot of what I wear…

I was telling someone t’other day that when I graduated from the 8th Grade (So Ports), my Mom bought me a tan camels hair blazer…they asked me how I remembered such a thing…I don’t know…thought I’d ask my brother, John, ‘cause I’m pretty sure she passed that blazer down to him…

Me ’n Charly Hale were the two shortest boys in the class (5’2”) so we got to be the bookends every time they lined us up for something…I don’t know if was the military influence or what, but seemed like they (the authorities) were always lining us up for something…when the bell rang, you had to line up…when you went to lunch, you had to line up…when the County Nurse came to give us the mandatory shots, you had to line up for them also…when I actually got in the military, I already knew how to line up…

Anyway, when I finally got the leash on Willy t’day, he hit the door a-running only to come to a dead stop as soon as he got out of the driveway…had to stop ’n smell the roses…or whatever it is that dogs smell…then he took off at a run again across the street to stop over there…that’s how it went all the way down the street…a mad dash from one sweet spot to another…’n dogs have one heckuva memory, Willy don’t seem to forget nary a spot where he once peed or pooped or found a bit of food or whatever…

Anyhow that’s the way it went…all those old familiar places…down the hill, around the park, stop at Jon’s Salon for treats, then the back side of the park where we got to stop for awhile ’n watch the children playing…they were all bundled up…

We used to bundle up back in Beattyville when I was a boy…cept I can’t recall what it was exactly that the girls wore…the boys all wore those woolen Macinaws, you know the kind with the big lumberjack checks…and wool caps of course for the most part, pulled down over our ears…of course, right after the war, we (all the boys) got the sheepskin-lined leather aviator caps with the flaps to cover the ears…and you needed them back there in Kentucky in the wintertime…