RDP Saturday: FLOW

When I think about all of the stories, all of the quips and conversations going on in the world around me, I see myself in a forest with tall dark trees that blot out the sky.

There aren’t any trails racing along the ground, there are no bugs scuttling over rocks, the are no birds perched on leafless branches watching the world belong them with golden unblinking eyes.

The only thing moving in the woods is a river  raging in silence and standing on a single slick black rock  in the midst of racing river is me.

That’s how I think of information- it flows at you  and around you like wild white water before it disappears into creeks and streams and is slowly baked or starved to death under chunks of concrete or trapped by fallen trees where it turns thick with rot.

If you’re lucky though, you’ll catch those little bits of information that pass along in that river before they drop off the face of the world forever- I was lucky  to catch some of those snapshots neatly stored in a read leather  scrapbook  and I have Mr Montague Hoode to thank for that.

I used to visit my Great Grandmother Minnie in what we used to call ” Rest Homes, ” Now days we call them ” Memory Care Facilities ” but if you ask me both terms sound pretty awful.

My Great Grandmother had no idea I was there which was pretty much in keeping  with how she treated me before she was warehoused by my Dad and his sisters and even though I was under no obligation to do so, I visited her twice a month and once a week in October.

We would sit together, near a window overlooking a garden with wide smooth cement paths that ran up and down the garden in long smooth rows lined with wooden benches and driking  fountains.

She would look out the window and I would read a book or magazine until Mr, Hoode made his way into the dayroom, all alone and unassisted to where we were sitting.

” And how are we today?” he was ask as formal as a character from a Charles Dickens novel.

I would reach out and take  Grandmother Minnie’s wrist from where I was sitting. I checked for a pulse. Still looking out the window I would say, ” Alive and kicking.”

Mr. Hoode would look around and when he was satisfied that nobody was looking our way he would laugh and not caring if anyone saw me I would laugh along with him.

Before Mr. Hoode took up residence  at The Rest Home  he lived in a small town in  Wisconsin and that he worked for the local newspaper, He told me he started carrying the papers and then he delivered the papers to the green barrels where the newspaper boys used to pick them up for their routes and then eventually he went to work in the office as a staff writer where my Great Grandmother Minnie was an editor.

He wrote little stories about dog shows and church functions and sometimes he did stories about local people who moved away.

He enjoyed writing those stories because they always made the front page and most important he said ‘ they were above the fold ”

” Were they famous ?” I asked once.

Mr. Hoode thought for a second. ” Nope, ”

” Were they bank robbers or you know- unsavory types.”

“Not really.”

” Then what did they do to get those writeups?”

Mr. Hoode took a deep breath and closed his eyes. ” They  always managed to die in the most spectacular fashion. Oh Francesca, they didn’t just drop dead. They were gunned down by bank crooks like Al Capone or  Bonnie and Clyde. They were attacked by circus animals or their planes fell out of the sky or their ships sank in shark infested waters.”

On the days when the people in his hometown  died quiet and traditional deaths it  also fell to Mr. Hoode to write their obituaries.

” Those were the slow days.” Mr. Hoode got up, stretched his legs and sat back down. ” Not challenging at all. I mean, I could have written them in my sleep and most of the time I did.”

Sometimes when he was finished stretching his long spidery legs, he would tap the side of his nose and say, ” Let me get my scrapbook. I have a write up that will tickle your fancy. ”

On this particular day, my fancy was tickled to death.

Mr Hoode bounced out of the room and then he  popped back in and while he was still standing he opened his leather scrap book with a flourish and then he handed it to me.

” For real? He had a heart attack and died while burying his business partner behind their offices? ”

I tried to not laugh but I did.

” Burns and Cahill were an exception to the quiet spectacular deaths. They sort of went out with a bang ” Mr Hoode said as if he was a little mystified by these deaths but he shrugged it off.

Whoa to me and Mr Hood because  the day I read the story about Burns and Cahill was the day one of the Care Givers was sitting with Mrs. Linden and she heard and saw Mr. Hood and I going over that story.

Mrs. Linden’s caregiver ( Ms Toliver ) got up and when she was sure she had our attention and nobody else’s attention she leaned over the backs of our chairs and hissed- and I mean she hissed just like a snake, ” I’m getting sick to death of listening to the two of you and your twisted morbid death stories every Sunday. So you understand me? I am SICK TO DEATH OF IT.”

I reached to backpack and unzipped it. I fished around for a pen and handed it to Mr. Hoode. ” Go on. It’s to good to good a story to pass up. Maybe they’ll run it. ”

Mr. Hoode dropped me a wink, took my pen and and sat down. He flipped his book to the last page  and with a smile eating away at his face from ear to ear he began to write.