Call of the Rain Crow

This summer the Colonel and his father -- the wise and strong-hearted Mister Vernon -- have fallen into a comfortable routine, spending more time with each other in the past year than in all of the previous fifty combined.  As he reflects on the last fourteen months that the passing of his mother made him his father's closest family, the Colonel realizes the enormity of the loss that those fifty years represent.  He is amazed at all that he has learned.

Several times a week, Mister Vernon drives the short distance from his home on the outskirts of Oxford, Mississippi to the Colonel's vast holdings at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere, and he and the Colonel sit over strong coffee and talk.

The Colonel has many gaps in his knowledge of his parents' history.  They were always very private people. But the reality is whenever he was with them, the Colonel was shamefully more interested in telling them what he was up to than in asking about their lives.

The Colonel is a bore.

He'd much rather educate than learn, more often than not.

His loss.

This year, however, he has learned to ask questions.  Dad's answers have wondrously filled massive gaps in the Colonel's understanding.

As has been their custom this summer, coffee time has been shared in the shade of a small pavilion in the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's gardens behind the Big House.  The ostensible reason is to watch the antics of the dozens of ruby-throated hummingbirds attracted to feeders into which a small fortune of sugar is poured daily.  The Colonel's ulterior motive is to get his father talking.

Mister Vernon is normally a quiet man.  He reminds the Colonel of the character played by John Wayne in the movie by that name.  So, it takes some gentle probing to stir the memories stored in his ninety-year-old mind.  He's still sharp, and once he starts, the details are amazing.  

The two old men have covered the waterfront.  The Colonel has learned about his dad's life from earliest memories living with his Methodist preacher grandfather in Tunica, Mississippi to exploits in Vietnam.  

The two old men share a love for wildlife, and spend much time discussing the changes in deer, quail, and duck populations over the years.  Mister Vernon's insights into reasons for declines would make game biologists slap their foreheads. 

The other day, a quail whistled nearby as they sipped their coffee.  

"That's the first bobwhite I've heard in several years," the Colonel observed.

Dad took the bait, "When I was a kid, you couldn't walk anywhere without jumping a covey."  Memories connected to flushes flowed behind.  Then, quiet sips of coffee.

A bird called from the pine and brush ringing Miss Brenda's gardens.  It was a low whooping, like water dripping in a well.  The Colonel has wondered for years what bird makes that sound.

"Dad," the Colonel asked. "What is that bird?"

"Rain crow," was the quick answer.

"C'mon, Dad! You just made that up!"

"It's a rain crow."  Dad didn't offer anything else.  Sometimes he does that to make the Colonel ask more stupid questions.

While his father sipped his coffee and studied hummers, the Colonel surreptitiously fished his smart phone from his pocket and thumbed in a search.  

"Rain crow" is colloquial for the yellow-billed cuckoo, Google told him.  The Colonel told his dad.

"Could have told you that.  Ever seen one?"

"Yessir.  Had one fly into a window several years ago."

"They're real shy," Dad offered.  "You won't see 'em in the woods.  But, you'll hear 'em when the weather is hot and humid.  Means it's likely to rain."  

Raining this morning.  The rain crow called it.  

There's been a lot rain in the Colonel's life lately.  The rain crow's call has been nearly omnipresent.

But, a good rain clears the air.  The bad stuff washes out.

Keep callin', rain crow.   

  

          

 

Lifetime Project

The Colonel's project list, containing to-do items large and small, has never been short. But, the list -- there is an actual one, handwritten in pencil, within arthritic fingertip reach of the key board on which this missive is tippy-tapped -- is approaching a length the sight of which is deeply depressing without ingestion of prodigious mugs of liquid morning motivation.

The list has two categories: Projects and Monthly Schedule (for accomplishment of lesser included tasks associated with the aforementioned projects). 

The one project that looms largest is actually the grandest the Colonel has attempted -- The Colonel's Cabin on Lake Brenda (CCLB).

A large proportion of the Colonel's projects (pergolas, the Colonel's Knotty Room office, solar kiln, two bridges, chicken coop, tractor shed, etc.) accomplished since establishment of his HQ here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere a decade and a half ago, have, in fact, prepared him for the CCLB endeavor.

The Colonel's Cabin on Lake Brenda is, for the Colonel, a monumental undertaking. Progress is measured in maddingly small steps, each of which take so much time that the cabin has been dubbed "The Lifetime Project."

It is the largest building project of the Colonel's life and will likely take the rest of the Colonel's life to complete.  The Colonel's plan is to live to the age of 120, so there's roughly a half a century of work left.

On the Monthly Schedule portion of the Colonel's project list is an innocuous three word task: cabin roof cap.

The cabin's metal roof was installed three months ago.  It had to be removed and re-installed twice to get it right, but that's grist for another story.  Suffice to say that the exasperating experience and soaring temps as summer set in here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere kept the Colonel from clambering back up on the cabin's metal roof to install the all-important cap on the roofline.

An unseasonably cool and overcast morning last week (and a tempered memory of the pain experienced during the last foray atop the cabin) provided a opportunity to complete the roof.

An extension ladder provided access and the Colonel clambered up on the metal roof.  The Colonel shortly thereafter found himself back on the top rung of the ladder, subsequent to an expletive laced slip and slide on dew-wetted metal.

"Grab me a rag out of the back of the truck," the Colonel asked the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda politely and relatively gently.

"Quit yellin' at me," she answered. "And watch your language.  You haven't cussed like that since you dropped the tongue of the trailer on your finger."

"YOU dropped the tongue of the trailer on my finger."  The Colonel may have a faulty memory about the little things, but he remembers distinctly being afraid to take his glove off for fear of finding a severed finger in it.

The Colonel detected the "I ain't helping you any more if you're gonna treat me like a errant lance corporal" tone in Miss Brenda's voice, which coupled with a look that can cook a steak medium rare, signals: "CAUTION, Colonel, CAUTION!"  He moderated his tone and amended his request, "Please bring me a rag. I need to wipe the dew off the metal roof."

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda fetched the rag and the Colonel wiped a path up the metal to the ridge of the roof.  He perched there straddling the ridge clinching every muscle between his hairless hat rack and his little toes to prevent slipping into a split for which his thigh muscles were not sufficiently stretched to accommodate.

"Why are you making that stupid face?," the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda asked. 

"I'm -- grunt -- tryin' -- pant -- to keep -- wince -- from slipping!"

"Stop yellin' at me!"

"Sorry! Please get the first section of roof cap out of the back of the truck and pass it up to me."

"Okay.  Don't fall."

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda gives the Colonel some of the most unnecessary admonitions.  The Colonel was doing everything in his power to keep from falling.  He ignored the urge to say so and asked her to "please hurry."

"I'm moving as fast as I can," she retorted. 

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda is not as fleet of foot as the Colonel.  Frankly, she is far more ornamental than she is athletic.  But, from the Colonel's painfully clinched perspective, she was moving at a snail's pace.

Molasses moves faster.

A turtle crawled alongside and craned its neck to look back at her as he sped past.

Sloths look like hummingbirds by comparison.

Thirty-seven and an a half minutes later, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda reappeared at the foot of the ladder.  The Colonel was clinched so tightly that sweat was squirting from his brow in long arcs watering the grass round about the cabin.

"I can't find the roof cap."

"C'mon, sweetie! They're in the bed of the truck!"

"Don't yell at me, knucklehead!  You said they were in the back seat of the truck, not the bed of the truck!"

"Did not!  I said they were in the 'back of the truck'." 

"Well, the 'back' is not the same thing as the 'bed'.  You need to be more clear with your instructions."

The Colonel looked heavenward for strength and a squirt of sweat launched from a pore in a pain-scrunched wrinkle in his forehead, arcing gracefully in the early morning sunlight.

"Ooooo, look! A rainbow! How pretty! Hold still while I take a picture."  The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda began fumbling in her pocket for her cell phone.

"Sweetie," the Colonel asked plaintively, "while you have your phone out, would you please call 911.  I'm dying up here!"   

"Quit exaggerating, knucklehead.  You're a long way from even lapsing into unconsciousness." 

"Please bring me the roof cap."  The Colonel recognized that the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda was correct -- he was a good four or five minutes away from passing out.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda slowly disappeared from view, perfecting her pantomime of walking in waste deep wet concrete.  Seventeen and a quarter minutes later a clang of metal from the vicinity of Semper Fillit (the Colonel's rusty red pick-up) announced her completion of half of the requested roof cap retrieval process.

"Is this it?" The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda's voice barely reached the Colonel's tinnitus-ravaged ears.

"I don't know, Sweetie.  I can't see you!"

"Don't yell at me, knucklehead!  I'm not a construction worker -- I don't know what all this stuff is."

"Just bring it!"

"Okay.  But don't yell at me if it's not the right the part."

The Colonel wishes to report the following:

He is safely off the roof of the Colonel's Cabin on Lake Brenda.

The roof cap is installed.

The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda still loves the Colonel.

Estimated date of cabin completion:  Christmas... 

...of 2036.