Things found......

I found my chainsaw yesterday.  I had lent it to Aaron, from the New Moon, cause he had this really crappy cedar bush that was growing into his porch and it was getting very unsightly and wouldn't behave.  Had to go..  From there I lent it to my Ex, cause she had this ancient lilac bush, more like a tree if you have to call it something, but anyways it had split down the middle last winter and it needed to go.  I remember bringing it home sometime after that, but I couldn't remember where i put it. 
Well, I found it.

It was underneath a pile of laundry at the foot of the bed.  The pile of 'dirty laundry; not the clean pile.  If it had been the clean pile, see, I would have found it sooner.  I look for clothes in the clean pile, not the dirty pile.  Makes sense to me.  I found it with my toe. Got a little cut on my right big toe. I had the chain sharpened last fall, so it was very sharp.  Bled a little, not too bad, put some peroxide on it and a band-aid, but it was a good indication that I needed to do laundry, seeing as I do remember bringing it home about four weeks ago.  It is a nifty little electric chain saw.... goes 'whirrrr-whirrrr-whirrrr' rather than 'Rumpppppphhher-Rummppphher-Rummppphher'- so no one would ever mistake it for a chain saw that you use to cut down really big rees like the lumber jacks use.  I am not a lumber jack.  More like a brush jimm, if you have to name the trade and all.

But it was time to tidy up.  Now, my first rule of tidying up is pick a spot and clean that spot as well as you can.... and seeing as the spot by the foot of the bed was, well, kind of a challenge, I started in the kitchen.  It wasn't as messy.  The dishes were easy.  Only three days worth, or so.  I am kinda picky about having clean dishes.  The counter was a different story.  I found three moldy hamburger buns.  For a minute I thought of tying to scrap off the mold and still eat them, but after trying a little, I realized the mold went too deep.  Outa here!  Did find the spare house keys which was a good thing, see, cause I thought I lost them down at Oblio's and I was really afraid someone down there would find them and sneak in here and clean up and then I would never find anything and I like finding my own stuff, thank you very much! Found a roll of toilet paper I had been looking for, the potato peeler, two potatos... a little too soft to peel anymore.  Outa here! .....and twnty three cents!  Three nickels and the rest in pennies.  Not enough for a beer, but hey, progress was  being made?!!!  Even washed the floor!  Found a newspaper around the side of the refrigerator.... head line was Obama getting elected.  wonder how that turned out?  Anywayz........
I went to work on this spot by the front door.  Found my pipe cutter, which I had not been looking for, my finish sander, which I had, a pair of old shoes with the soles coming off... they made a thunk-whump noise when you walked in them, which is why they were there, outa here!  There was also a New Yorker magazine, unread, from 2010, a hex wrench, some CLEAN underwear, obviously in the wrong pile, those went into the drawer, and sixty-two cents, two quarters, a dime and two pennies.  So, all in all, I was up to 85 cents, still not enough for a beer, but gees, this picking up and cleaning up thing was starting to get profitable.

Also found a new baseball hat, Kessler's Whiskey, smooth as silk, which I had been looking for cause I was going to give it to my friend Joe, seeing as it is golf season and he has this small bald spot that he needs to protect from excessive sun and occasional bird droppings.  "Good Deal," I thought to myself.  There was also an unopened jar of strawberry jam and two cans of cream of mushroom soup.  Not sure how they got there.  They should have been hidden on the counter where they belonged.  There was a rutabaga, too...it looked good.  Now that the counter was cleaned, I had a good spot for it.
Well, having a clean spot by the door, a clean sink, a clean kitchen sink.....I was on a roll!  I was finding all sorts of things......next...the bathroom.
Now I do keep a semi-tidy bathroom.  The mess there is just things that BELONG there, but just need to be organized.  I did locate seven toilt paper roll thingees...that carboard cylinder that is left when the toilet paper is gone.  Just never moved them to the paper recycling  bin.  Done.  Outa Here.  The library I keep there needed some pruning....didn't need the chain saw, but almost.  I did throw away a 2002 Rolling Stone, a 2009 Beer Mag, and a Milwaukee Journal sport page from last October.  That was all I got rid of.....see, you never know when you might have to ,ah, sit there for awhile and it is best to leave something to read.  I did find  eight cents, though, a nickle and three pennies.  AUp to 93 cents.  They were behind the toilet.  Sprayed 'em with some Lysol and there were as good as new.

.....and the more I dug through stuff....the more I found.  Christines cell phone number that I had lost..called her..she wasn't there.  Found Ed's cell phone number.... just put it on my cell.... I see him most monday's so I didn't call him.  Located a bunch of postcards that I had put stamps on...but never wrote or mailed.  Time for some more Random Acts of Postage !  Photos of Max in first grade.  Two screw drivers.  Tony Santo Paolo's obituary.  Missing CD's.... A Canadian One Dollar Loonie.  Directions for the microwave oven I threw away last year.  A box of photo negatives that I saved from my Mother's house.

So, if you count the Loonie, I was up to a Dollar and 93 cents.  That is if someone will accept the Loonie, it being Canadian and all, but I figured I could try it and if it worked, why gosh.... it was close to a beer, all this new found money.

Anyways.... all this cleaning and finding was wearing me out.  So I made a stack of stuff that I wanted to sort through yet and put it in the now clean spot by the front door and went to the library to get a movie.  thought I would make a cup of tea adn watch a movie, seeing as the kitchen was clean, might even make a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  thankfully, I hadn't found an old one, yet, which is good, cause it would have been kinda old, see.

And that is what I did... ..got and old movie on DVD that I remembered that I had liked.  Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, 'The Electric Horseman".  Made a cup of tea and watched it.  Didn't make that sandwich, though, cause I was out of bananas and a plain old peanut butter sandwich just didn't seem right.

Now... it's a nice movie. An d if memory holds true....it did pretty good at the box office and stuff.
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well, I ain't gonna review a thirty-five year old movie, and it is still an allright movie, but there is this part where Redford and Fonda are walking across the desert and, ohohoh.... in 1979 I would have certainly walked across the desert with Jane Fonda, but anyways, it was one of those moments where they are walking across the desert and Redford, as this cowboy dude, starts waxing eloquent about life and stuff and he looks back at Fonda and says, " if you go, n’ if you go slow, n take your time, and look real close…. You can find....."  ...well, he goes on to wax eloquent about stuff  and when Redford says something you find yourself listening.   course, I say stuff all the time and no one ever listens to me, found that out a long time ago.  Also found out that no one will pay me for saying things, certainly not  what they pay Redford either.

But..... I thought about that line, and stopped cleaning and finding.   Thought for a moment  what I would really like to find; not a thing, but a place...I wanted a place, where everything is fresh, a time, when I had a peaceful heart and I knew that tomorrow would never hold a candle to the 'here' the 'now'.  So I closed my eyes, and went real slow, and looked close   .... and I found it.

It's up in the Norther Door....taking 42 North out of Ellison Bay until you come to the sign that says Newport.  You get off the two lane highway there. When you get to Tom Collins' candy shop in the old Newport school house you go down the gravel that is Europe Bay road until you get to Lake Michigan.  Then just walk along the shore.  Sometimes you can see boats, big freighters, out in the lake, miles off.  Never can tell if they are coming or going, not that it matters much; somebody in the ship knows and it is a pretty good bet that they will get there, wherever there is.

After a mile or so along the beach, you cut up into the woods and find the trail.  I think the first time I walked it was 74, or 75.  Hasn't changed.  I remember the first time I took cheryl there, when she was still my girlfriend, before she was my wife and then Ex-wife.  I took my nephews and niece on that hike.  I remember Emily, my niece, when she was ten or eleven, could do a bang up imitation of a seagull.  She is a lawyer now.  Bet she can still do a bang up imitation of a seagull, probably gets paid more to do it now.  Back then all she got was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  That was at the flat cove area, where we ate.  Could find crawfish if you turned over enough rocks.  I remember taking my son Max along that hike, too,when he wss six  We got stuck iin a torrential rain, something like an inch of rain in a forty-five minute time span.  Had to carry him on my shoulders all the way back to the car.  He cried.

Then the trail would cut to the east until the water was no long Lake Michigan, but Green Bay.  Not that it looked all that different, but when you could see the shore of Washington Island you knew it was the Bay and not the Lake.  Remember when I had all the kids in tow, and we stopped right along that stretch and watched a pine snake eat a pretty good sized  toad.  The Snake seemed a bit upset, but the kids were fascinated.  Eliot thought he could eat a whole hamburger the same way, without chewing.  He might have done it, too, if his mother had let him.

That is how I remember that hike.  In feelings.  Whether it was the kids packing up sandwiches at the cabin before the hike, or what we would find ....porcupines, deer, bits of antlers, snake skin , sometime fossils.  It was all good stuff.
The niftiest was when we hit Europe Lake.  Now, I don't know where all this 'Europe stuff came from... never did find out...guessing they just plum ran out of Indian names or something.  Ain't no never mind.  The Lake was tooo small for motor boats....and there were only a couple of cottages up that way, so it was always quiet.  It was a great place ot take off you shoes and wade.  If you stood real still, I would tell the kids, the fish will come and nibble on your feet.  And they would.  You had to hold real still, but invariably they would come. And there we would stand, quiet as all get out waiting.  The contest would be who could attract ehe most minnows per foot.  Seems like I aways won.  I guess minnows like hairy toes. 

That was usually the end.  Hike back to the car, stop at Uncle Tom's for fudge.  Back to the cottage.

I guess what I always like about that hike is that there never was anything real to find.....it seemed to find us.

That's not such a bad thing.

if you go, see, slow... and you look real close.