SOME ANIMALS

I remember days when I would visit my dad at 99th & Blue Ridge. It’s where we moved when I was 5, a few months after my little brother Wes was born. The old farm house went away a decade later and our new, red roof, white stucco, ranch sat cater-corner on the corner with black locust and maple trees all around the house. He was 85, living alone for the past 5 years since Mom had passed. I would drive down from Michigan, sleep in my old bed in the east bedroom. We didn’t talk a lot but then when I lived there we didn’t talk at all. It was cool having him for a friend as well as a dad. When I turned the corner on 99th it was common to find him patrolling the yard, picking up twigs and small branches that had fallen from the trees; they dull mower blades and you don’t want that. 

Frank D. had an old fashioned, walk behind, Gravely mower with handlebars and a 42” mower deck hanging out in front. He built a seat with wheels, transforming the walk-behind garden tractor into a riding mower. Outside, in the heat of the day, he wore a pith helmet reminiscent of Englishmen in India, back in colonial days. The mail man called him ‘Jungle Man’. That’s what I looked forward to, coming home in 1996 and ’97. 

Up Blue Ridge a half mile or so was the ‘Mandarin’ restaurant; a  Chinese place we liked. Once we were there with my boys Pete and Jon, the 4 of us in a booth near the door. Across the isle in the front window was a young couple with two little kids. One in a high chair, the other was big enough to sit in the booth. We had finished our meal, taking our time enjoying crab Rangoon and fortune cookies while the couple across the isle were still waiting for their order. The 3-year old was acting out, not wanting to sit in the seat, not happy at all. His parents tried to keep him occupied but he wasn’t having any of that. He rolled around on the seat, tried to crawl up onto his dad’s shoulders, making a lot of noise. When they tried to calm him down he just turned up the volume and started throwing things. We were his captive audience. It reached a point where I thought the management would intervene but just when you thought it couldn’t get any more bizarre, it did. 

The old man’s sense of humor was dry but he had one. He was known for his acerbic one-liners. The man across the way had a death grip on the boy’s hand as the younger squirmed, growling, trying to escape. In a clear, controlled voice my old dad, without looking up said, “You know, some animals eat their young.” All three of us boys did a short double-take and broke out laughing as if it were rehearsed. There we were, getting up from the table, laughing; really, really laughing. It surprised the little boy; his tirade went dead in the water and he sat staring at us. Dad didn’t crack a smile or even look up. We were still laughing when we got to the house on Blue Ridge. We are still laughing. I have a big cottonwood tree in my back yard. They are notorious for dropping twigs and small branches. After every windy, rainy day the yard is full of sticks to be picked up. The blades on my John Deere are sharp and I want to keep them that way. With sticks bunched under one arm, every time I bend over to pick up another I remember ‘Jungle Man’, I remember ‘Mandarin’ and I’ll never forget that some animals do in fact eat their young.