Now that all the snow except the really big piles of it have gone, I am reminded of the tracks near our house that I noticed when the ground was covered.
The tracks were of a rabbit — I know rabbit tracks well from having often seen them in the Maine forest I used to visit frequently as a boy.
The tracks I saw were very distinct but then they just stopped as if the rabbit had jumped high in the air and hadn’t come down. There were no other tracks near the ones I was briefly following.
My guess is that the rabbit was easily seen against the new snowfall and that a great horned owl, or perhaps an eagle, had snatched up the attractive supper.
We haven’t had that many rabbits in our vicinity lately and I’m sorry there is now one less.
****
I talked to our neighbors, Joe and Ruth Malago, on the phone the other day when it was so cold here and, as was well publicized, was chilly in Florida as well.
Ruth mentioned that when they were in church that past Sunday they noticed how cold it was. For a while they thought that the air conditioning had been turned on by mistake.
But the pastor told his congregation the reason for it being so cold in the church was that they simply had no heating system in the building. When the church was built some 50 years earlier it was thought that there was no good reason to install a heating system in so warm a climate.
They were in the Fort Myers area when we talked, though, and it had already warmed up considerably. Our situation here won’t really improve for a couple of months.
*****
Mary and I have regularly had the seasonal flu shots in recent years but this year the shortage of the vaccine found us into the new year and still without a shot. I had checked a few times and when I did was told the doctor’s office was waiting for a supply.
But we did manage to go to the office this past week and were told we might as well get both the seasonal and the H1N1 shots.
“At the same time?” I asked.
“Sure,” or something equivalent, was the reply.
So we got both shots and hope they ward off the flu, any kind of flu.
I remember when I was going through the U.S. Army induction process at Fort Dix, N.J., many years ago and the brand new soldiers were lined up and passed through two lines of GI medical people armed with needles. As each inductee passed by we had needles stuck into our arms, one on either side. Whatever diseases the shots were supposed to ward off never did happen, I guess, but we were left with sore arms and a long memory of the experience.
*****
Some businesses send out “Thank You” notes at the end of the year in appreciation for the past year’s business. We got such a printed note recently. It read very well except for one word among the 150 or so in the message. The unusual sentence read: “We hope we will get the pleasure of severing all of you again in the new year to come.”
The sentence is quoted exactly as received. Instead of “serving” the writers had said they were looking forward to cutting us up.
*****
We are now in the 25th year of a book club that started here in Dover and it has been a very pleasant experience to meet every month or so and talk over a wide variety of books with good friends. The number of books read in that time is about 200.
Mary and I almost put an end to the pleasant sessions this past Sunday.
In our group we rotate from home to home, with the couple hosting the next meeting choosing and supplying the books to be read.
It was our turn this past Sunday and I got a call on Friday from Bill Sargent, who when living in Dover was largely responsible for getting the club underway. He had noted the hour we were to meet on Sunday but not the date.
“What is it?” he asked.
His question froze me for a second. I had forgotten it! Besides, with everything going on, I hadn’t even read the book! I mumbled something about checking with Mary and we found the date noted in our book. It was Sunday, two days away.
We might well not have been home on Sunday afternoon except for Bill’s call, which would have meant that nine or 10 people would have arrived at our house and found no one there. And Bill and Betty Sargent now live in Rehoboth Beach.
It worked out well, though. We had read the book by the time they arrived and enjoyed the discussion and the usual congeniality.
*****
We live in a time when communication has reached an advanced stage.
We were in a local restaurant last week where a man had come in and sat down alone at a table, expecting two other people to soon join him. They hadn’t come, or at least he though so, but since he could not see all the other tables in the place he used his cell phone to check.
Sure enough, his friends were at another table out of sight. Problem solved. He got up and joined them.
*****
This old lady was arrested for shoplifting. When she went before the judge he asked her, “What did you steal?”
She replied, “A can of peaches.”
The judge asked her why she had stolen them and she answered, “Because I was hungry.”
The judge then asked how many peaches were in the can. “Six” she said.
The judge said, “Then I believe I’ll give you six days in jail.”
But before the judge actually pronounced sentence the woman’s henpecked-looking husband spoke up and asked if he could say something.
And the husband said, “She also stole a can of peas!”
