1184 Home Again

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

[Later edit - I Googled "'Green pepper' mango", and found out it's a coal miner, northeastern Pennsylvania thing. I come by it honestly. See http://www.foodreference.com/html/fmango.html, scroll down to the green comment.]

I'm home.

The ceremony and reception were beautiful. There were probably close to 200 people. They had a full-fledged wedding, their children and grandchildren were the attendants. Flowers everywhere. Their colors were peach, cream, and brown.

The reception was at a fire hall, which was also sumptuously decorated, candles and flowers, chocolate, peach, and cream candies in bowls on the tables, and the absolutely most beautiful wedding cake I've ever seen. Photos when The Rabbi sends them.

They did all the work themselves, which I found amazing. Mrs. Rabbi (note - he's not a rabbi, he's a Methodist minister. "The Rabbi" was his nickname in college, because of one incident, but it stuck because he taught us a lot about how we should "be") even cooked all the food!

It was obvious that they are well loved. They've had some legal and financial problems over the past two years, one of those dramas that people can get caught up in through no fault of their own, the kind of thing where "friends" fall away rapidly. It's a tribute to them that they still have so many who love and support them.

I had one of those "small world" moments. There's a couple, E and B, whom I see often at Daughter and Hercules's, in central New Jersey. E is Hercules's best friend. They were roommates in college. I walked into the fire hall, and directly in front of me, at the end of the nearest table, the first people I saw, were E and B. I walked up to them, and we all three said, in unison, "What the hell are YOU doing here?!" Turns out B works with Mrs. Rabbi. Of course, E had to immediately call Daughter and tell her. Small world.

With so many people there, I'd had no time to talk to The Rabbis, other than in the receiving line, and his tour from table to table. When people started leaving, I asked the daughter if they could use another pair of hands cleaning up, and she said that would be nice, so I stayed and filled garbage cans. There had been little nylon bags filled with wildflower seeds at each place (Love Grows), and a lot of people didn't take them, so I ended up with 45 of them. I'll plant them in my woods and on the bank, and send a picture when they bloom.

Cleaning up took like two hours, and gave me a chance to spend some time with the couple.

Something very odd happened that's still bothering me. I'll probably approach it later.

The next morning I left the hotel at 10:30 am and headed for home. The sky was very cloudy, 53 degrees. The weather report said rain in the late afternoon and evening. I wanted to take a detour and visit Ricketts Glen if I could, but not in rain. I wouldn't be able to visit much more than the first falls, but that's where Jay's ashes are, so that's all I needed. I decided to make the decision when I got to Bloomsburg.

At Bloomsburg, it was still 53 degrees and cloudy, so I struck off northeast, headed for the falls. When I got to Benton, I stopped for lunch at the Cozy Corner. The Cozy Corner was an ice cream parlor 50 years ago. I used to get ice cream or a hot dog there when I was in fourth grade.

I had another small world experience in the Cozy Corner. The waitress was telling some tourists what was on the garden cheese steak, and she said, "... and mangos." The tourista was surprised, "Mangos? The fruit?" The waitress got flustered, and struggled to remember the other name, "Oh, yeah, peppers. Sweet green peppers. We call them mangos."

My mother always called them mangos. I didn't know any other name for them until I went to college, and I still think of them as mangos. I'd never before met anyone else who called them mangos, not that I was aware of, anyway.

I've driven through Benton a few times in the past two decades, but hadn't walked the streets in more than 40 years. I decided to walk the few blocks of the main street, and try to find the house we'd once lived in.

Over the years, and three of my father's transfers to the area, we had lived in five different houses in the village. I had on prior trips located four of the houses, but not the fifth, and that one was the best. It was the largest and nicest house we'd ever lived in, with a wrap-around porch, an impressive circular staircase, and a glass "conservatory" on the side. It was on a northeast corner on Main street. There was a long sidewalk, with umbrella trees (mulberries trimmed back to the trunk every fall) on either side.

As I walked, I studied every corner house. I know that in 50 years there would be changes, but none of the houses looked at all possible. It's not like it had been torn down and replaced, none of the houses was less than 80 years old. The sidewalks were all very short, too short for the umbrella trees, but then I realized the street must have been widened at some point. Only one house had a conservatory, but the rest of the house didn't feel at all right.

That's sad. That's the house where we had the roosters. Aunt Irene had given us chicks for Easter one year. A year later, my mother was walking around muttering "They're supposed to die! They aren't supposed to grow up!" They slept in a shack out back, and otherwise had the run of town. They used to follow us everywhere.

I passed "the doctor's house", the only brick building in town, and remembered Lady. Lady was the doctor's fat old white English Bulldog. She sat on the doorstep all day, and when someone stopped at the end of the walk, she'd waddle slowly down the walk, then, schnuffling and schnorting, she would close her eyes and present her head for scratching.

Lady was the old-style bulldog, with a huge chest that bowed her front legs out and almost useless tiny hindquarters. Today's bulldogs have real hind legs. All my life I've had a fondness for toads. I've paid kids to catch toads for me, so I can install them in my garden. Yesterday, for the first time, I realized that I like toads because they remind me of Lady.

I headed on up the road to Ricketts Glen. Now, I'd seen no snow anywhere. As I approached the Glen, I noticed snow in sheltered spots. When I got to the Glen, I had to climb over a 3-foot snowbank to read the "NOTICE!" The falls trail was "closed to all except experienced ice climbers", who had to register at the park office. Minimum equipment required included crampons and rope, and "ice axes are highly recommended."

Hmmm. I should have known. I've seen the trail sheathed in ice from the mist from the falls, forty years ago, before there was even a real trail. It's impressive, and scary. And very beautiful if you can get to it. The ice probably won't be gone until early May, if then.

I walked to the beginning of the falls trail anyway. The path was packed snow that had thawed and refrozen to the point of ice. Very slippery. The bridge over the creek was festooned with yellow "do not enter" tape, as were several points up the falls trail. So I stopped, looked up the creek, and shouted "I love you, sweetheart. I'll be back later", and left.

I got home about 6 pm.