The cafeteria is crowded with employees and "visiting" families - a euphemism for suffering, because most have that look of pain mixed with hope. The drone of hundreds of conversations is near-deafening. A young man with a hard hat walks up to the piano in the corner, sits down, and carefully places his hat on the floor. Those who notice exchange worried looks; he's wearing a tattered West Coast Choppers sweatshirt and a red bandana wrapped around his head. Gently, he raises his hands, closes his eyes in concentration, tilts his head slightly, then begins to play "As Time Goes By". There is no parody in his playing - he plays with love and emotion, never missing a note, carefully controlling the tempo, leading his keyed partner in a tender dance.
Like a bad penny.... We used to scuba dive as our hobby, a hobby which eventually led to the procurement/construction of a small dive trailer to haul four sets of gear and four cylinders. It was a simple but elegant design - a box on a single axle frame, with the beginnings of a mural painted on both sides, and dive flags at either end. The kids had helped paint it, with Stephen taking special pains with the sharks. When we moved to Nashville, we sold it. We didn't dive as often, and we had no place to store it. Nearly ten years have passed since that October in '99 when we came up here, and I hadn't thought much about the trailer. I thought I had seen it the last time we went to Greenfield, but I wasn't sure. Then Saturday my mother-in-law called to say the neighbor across the street had our trailer for sale. The neighbor was asking a certain price, and we offered a little less. She called back later to say it was ours for the picking up. Sunday we made the trip to fet...
Comments