January 21, 2024
Walking in Vermont on a Sunday morning in a typical winter, with exactly the same winter temperature as I experienced here in South Carolina this morning, around 28º, would be completely different. The Champlain Valley would throw a steady wind at you making the temperature feel like the low twenties or the upper teens. The slush would fill the depressions made by scores of different boots and shoes in the snow, freeze overnight, then make it feel like you are walking on the jagged frozen surface of Antarctica with a layer of water melt on top of it to challenge you further. It would likely be overcast and gray, which has its own beauty, but the blue skies of South Carolina and the bright sun shining on everything somehow make a cold morning here different, not as cold, and certainly not as depressing. And of course there is no snow.
But it is cold enough to make my nose run. One of the ways I knew I was getting older was when I determined to carry a handkerchief, just like my grandfather, Edwin J. O 'Leary. I used to stuff a few tissues into my pant or jacket pockets. Which really is a mess. Old guys fold their handkerchief first in half, then into quarters, then eighths and finally sixteenths. It’s really eighths, but when you fold down the used half you get to start over, hence sixteenths. Carefully unfolding it when it’s time to blow, making sure it’s still folded in half, never completely unfolded. Done correctly, you can get a couple of long walks from one handkerchief. Just unfold it and fold the nasty side to the inside fold again and off you go.
When I walk into the sun, I let the brim down on my Stetson to shade my eyes. It's not a cowboy hat, but rather a western style fedora, gray with a black band, made from beaver felt. Great hat. This morning, after I shaded my eyes, I looked up and just under the brim of my hat I saw a jogger in the distance coming towards us. Teddi was off leash. I feel duty bound to leash her in time so as not to cause anyone running or walking towards us any unnecessary angst.
Some people do not like dogs, leash laws are omnipresent, and why disturb somebody's 'Wu Wei', their state of personal harmony. Unfortunately, I had plenty of mucus, snot, moving from my nostrils, on both sides into my mustache. Pretty soon the rivulets of gunk would pass the mustache dam and converge onto my lip before advancing into my mouth. Oh, faux pas.
The trick in this situation, because it's happened before, is to get that handkerchief out of the pant pocket unfold it, have a good blow, wipe any excess off the mustache, refold the cloth, slip it back into my pocket and leash the dog before the oncoming runner begins to worry about my large off leash dog. And of course, never to see any gelatinous goo on my mustache or God forbid, my lips. Further, to do all this without breaking my stride, even the last part, leashing the dog. The path is about fifteen feet wide, smooth black asphalt separated by hyphenated yellow lines, perfectly applied and spaced down the middle to separate the flow of traffic. I am determined to pull this off. To make it appear effortless, so the runner does not even notice, does not even lose focus on whatever podcast or music he is listening to. No mental skipping because of my inconsideration.
I pull off my gloves, tuck them under my left armpit, take my Dupuytren's deformed right hand, my Celtic hand, and slip my index finger, my thumb and my fuck-you finger down into the corner of my right pant pocket and grab the corner of the handkerchief. Now, remember my left arm is folded into my left side with my left elbow surgically attached to the flank of my ribcage. If I move my left arm away from my body my gloves drop on the ground. I can still move my left forearm towards my face like a pendulum on the upswing to grab and support the action of covering my nose with the handkerchief. When I do this there is a moment where my view of the path immediately in front of me is obscured.
Before I cover my nose, I look at the path in front of me and I see dozens of Sweet Gum seedpods with the sun backlighting them. Each little spiked ball throws a distinct shadow forward like part of a constellation of tiny planets in an infinite asphalt universe arranged before the sun. Fuck it. Leave it to chance. I cover and blow. I flip the handkerchief over at midline with the clean side showing out. Then I fold, fold again, one last fold of the Turkish cotton cloth, thin like my grandmother's doilies without-the fine lace border, and square not round. Without my left elbow ever leaving my side, I stuff it back into my right pant pocket. I take the leash from around my neck, still in stride, and bend over and clip Teddi’s collar without losing a step.
The fellow is about twenty yards away from me and closing. He doesn't even look at me. I could have been covered in snot and he still would not have looked at me. Such are the machinations of an old man.
