Episode 3: The Elephant In The Car

2018.FEB.22

It's bitterly cold and the sky is the color of salt. I can see the blue foothills, but the peaks blend invisibly into the white sky. I'd like to postpone today's journey, but I've run out of chicken, and the dogs got tuna fish for breakfast, instead. (There were no complaints.) 

Since the Gravy Train recall, we have been having chicken and rice with veggies. And yes; I do mean 'we'. Perhaps it's karmic destiny that has me cooking for my pets more than I do for myself. 

Our standard departure time is 9:00 sharp. I am compulsively punctual, but was a bit late getting started, today. I left my house at 8:57 without pausing to let the engine warm up.  It could idle a bit while I wait for Dad to get his gear together. 

He's dressed and almost ready to go. "I thought maybe you looked at the weather and decided to stay home, today." he says.

"I wish!" I relay my sad tale of dog food woe, as Pawn Stars blares from the corner. So glad we got the channel situation straightened out. (Dad's TV had been stuck on Fox for two days last week, and the effects were ... noticeable.)

A tan cassette is lying on the shelf next to the front door. I read the title aloud: "The Earpp's Last Frontier' Is this one ready to go back?" (I'll just drop it in the mailbox on our way out of town.)

• Dad is enrolled in "Talking Books" - audio books for the visually impaired, provided by NV Services For The Blind. These things are an absolute God-send! They keep his mind active when the rest of his get-up-and-go has got up and went. It's a really user friendly service, too ... when he has finished listening to one, he simply flips over the mailing label with his name and address on it, to reveal the address of NV Services For The Blind, slides that back into the slot, and drops the whole business into the mailbox. There is no postage to mess with. Whenever he returns one book, they send him another one using the same shipping label. 

"Uh -- Yeah. I think it is." he says as he's getting on his coat. "It's a pretty good one. It's about elephants."

"Uh, no. This is Earpp's Last Frontier .... "

"Oh. I guess it's still in the machine." He grapples with a blue cassette, trying to put it in the case upside down.

"Other way ........... the other way ........... turn it around." 

"Oh." It pops in and he flips the label on  "Elephant Country" "Whoever invented these shipping labels did a really good job!" 

"Yep. ... What about this Earpp one?  Does it go back too?"

"Yeah."

I pick it up and start for the door. 

"What's that one?"

"Earpp's Last Frontier."

"Oh. No ... I haven't read that one yet." 

The Jeep is pretty cozy by the time we get down to the mailbox and I hop out to drop the blue cassette down the chute. The label is reversed, so I flip it back over and send 'Elephant Country' on its way back to Reno.

It's a quiet ride most of the way down to Highway 93. Not a sign of ANYTHING moving in that frozen stretch of yellow and white.

Once on the highway, I'm drinking in the monochrome landscape of snow merging into the white void where the skyline should be. Looks like storms all the way around Steptoe Valley east and west, and due south the horizon disappears into the white sky. It's like something out of a Stephen King novella, where the black asphalt road is the only reliably solid mass through an ethereal cloudscape.

"Supposed to get some storms the next few days "

"That's good --- but I hope it waits until we get home." I don't like cold weather, and even less, do I enjoy driving in snow. I have already decided to skip the regular landfill stop, so I left half a bag of trash on my front porch for next time. 

About the time we're passing Schellbourne, the old man tilts his head, rubbing his scruffy whiskers. "I was going to shave, but I didn't."

"I was going to wash my hair, but I didn't. It's too cold."

"Your house is always cold."

"Some of it is." Every day like this one, I am grateful for the wood stove; mixed blessing that it is.

"That elephant book was pretty good. The guy --- he was in the military for a long time, and he was in Afghanistan and Egypt and .... a whole bunch of places. And then when he got out, he went to Burma to work in the teak wood forest. He was running the camp there."

"Hm"

"He was working there for a while. Maybe three or four years. And ... it seems like he hadn't been very successful meeting women. And he had this dog that wouldn't let anybody else get near it. And then this woman came to the camp, and that dog took to her.... "

"Oh. And then what happened? " (As if I couldn't guess.)

"Well, that woman was there at  the camp for quite a while, and I guess they got to know each other very well, and they got to be good friends ... and his dog really liked her ..."

"Uh huh"

"So then, it happened that they were both going to have to go to separate places, and she was going to be gone for three months somewhere, and he was going to have to go visit some other camps for about six months."

"Hm"

"They had never even talked about dating or anything like that, but when they were getting ready to say goodbye, she told him that when they met again the next time, they would need to talk about getting engaged."

"Imagine that!"

• A string of about five vehicles meets us northbound. "Snowbirds heading home" he speculates.
  "They're a bit early."
  "The ones I knew -- from Alberta -- they would be going to get the fields ready to start planting." he informs me.

The narrative resumes:
"So when they got together again, they got engaged, and then they got married, and that was all of the courtship they had, and they were married for ... I guess forever.

"They had three kids. The first boy got some kind of jungle disease and died when he was about three months old."

"Oh."

"They didn't mention the girl very much. And the youngest son became a veterinary and he went to Australia and was a veterinary for race horses, and that would be a pretty cushy job."

Yes, I imagine it would. No point mentioning the cruelty of horse racing, I suppose.

• A wide load transport roars past, heading north.
  "Conveyor belts." I report.
  "Mine starting up somewhere."
  "Could be."

"Those English really had it made there!" I might have been losing focus by this point, as Dad began describing the duties of the camp tender, the amenities afforded to the camp supervisor, which included a nice stool and a table, freshly-starched tablecloths, and fresh baked bread every day ....

"The British were treated like royalty in their empire." I observe, trying not to drift off into reverie.

"Yeah they were. This was before the Japs invaded Burma."

We're almost to McGill. I turn on the radio (my antenna is broken, so I get no reception until we get to the second passing lane southbound, by the Monte Neva turnoff). 

• KDSS 92.7 has become a mixed bag; you never know what you're gonna get. Right now, they're playing some new country twang ... That genre all sounds the same to me. I turn down the volume to where I can only hear the bass. If something better comes on, I'll hear it. Dad's audial range is limited. He isn't able to discern the bantering voices of the two female announcers, as they're discussing "Today's high will be 27, and will feel like 13. Right now, it's 59 in our studio ... "

In Ely, as we pass Nevada Bank &Trust, Dad comments, "I thought you were going to the bank?"

I'm thinking about impending snowfall, and trying to shave time off the schedule. "Nah, I'll just call them on Monday. I just check my balance on there, anyway."

He's been suffering with a strange rash for several days, which he feels certain is the result of an insect bite. I've looked at it several times, and he keeps telling me about visible effects that I, with my good readers on, cannot see. The rash itself now looks a lot like chicken pox, but is confined to one leg.

"Let's ask the pharmacist .. "

After standing at Ridley's pharmacy counter for about five minutes, during which the lady behind the glass  continues a phone conversation without acknowledging our presence ... a couple of women come behind us with prescription in hand. The phone conversation continues to be the only matter of interest to the druggist, so we walk away, into the medications section.

Benadryl cream, witch hazel ... what about Absorbine Jr? So-and-so used to use that all the time.

"Oh, yeah. In Texas we used that for chigger bites." (Ah! The good ol' days, surveying.)

I troll up and down the aisle, searching. I think the official use for AJr is treatment for athlete's foot. The lady stocking shelves (I know her from grade school, and see her in here every week, but she has yet to show the slightest flicker of recognition .... ) asks if she can help me find something.

"Absorbine Junior?"

"Oh, we haven't carried that for years. I don't know if they even still make it."

I convey the disappointing news and we are off at a brisk shuffle, in the direction of the produce department. We ALWAYS begin the shopping with the produce, at the south end of the building. At the front of the store between the aisle of flu medications, toothpaste and shampoo, and the produce section at the far south end, lies the public restroom.

• As he parks his cart in the "seasonal" section, I make my mad dash to collect my supplies for the week: chicken quarters and a small turkey, half gallon milk (hormone free), butter, baking cocoa, tortillas, saltines and a few other odds and ends. I have taken to ordering coffee and my dry pet foods online, which saves me a couple of stops in town.

I'm done and back by the time he reaches the apple bin.

"How much are the grapes?
"Where are those oranges from? The ones I got that were from Chile were hard to peel.
"I'll get the rest in McGill."

Next comes the dairy section for two gallons of whole milk, and then the deli case. He'll pause there, squinting at the plastic packages as I read off the content labels: "Smoked turkey breast, roast beef, ham, peppered beef". He usually likes the beef, but sometimes nothing grabs his fancy and we move on down to the day-old baked goods rack. Dad is Type 2 diabetic, and knows he shouldn't even be smelling that kind of stuff. He doesn't usually find anything appealing there, anyway.

Our foray down the cereal aisle is like Bill Murray's Groundhog Day: A recurring episode with minimal variation: First, pause and squint at the huge bins of bulk children's cereal. (Most of the stuff in these bins make even a sugar-aholic like me cringe. It's a high-fructose corn syrup nightmare.) But Dad has found one that he likes: Sugar-encrusted shredded wheat squares. 

• Hey! Don't judge me; I'm here to assist, not police.
  I find the FIVE POUND BAG and hoist it into the bottom rack of his cart.

The list always includes one or more of the following (gathered in this order): Quaker cherry and almond crunch - apparently a popular item, as the shelf section is often empty. Honey Nut Cheerios, Kellogg's Raisin Bran, Special K Red Berries. (Did I mention he's Type 2 ... ?)

And finally, depending upon the mood of the day, we'll trek through the frozen foods section, to pick out a few convenience dinners: fried chicken or Salisbury steak. He'll usually  comment about the high prices, and then justify the expense (for himself)

• My father was a child of the Great Depression. He is uber conscious of economy, even though his financial situation is secure enough that he need not be concerned about the price of anything in this store. Nevertheless it still MATTERS, and he has no patience for "extravagance"; especially not his own.

"Are you finished?"

"Yep. Are you?"

"I think so." 

We wend our way to the check-out stands, where the lines are about three carts deep. I opt to fall in behind Dad, even though another line might be shorter. 

• The shorter line is manned by a cashier well known to us, since she has worked at this same location since it was a Safeway store, long - and about four chain owners - ago. I avoid her whenever possible, after several encounters which have convinced me that she must own considerable stock in this store, because she is more vigilant than a rat on a wheel of Gouda. 

The cashier is an 'older' gentleman; maybe my age or a little younger. He's a friendly one, who works at a very leisurely pace. Back in the day, I'd have suspected his motives for working so slowly to be flirtatious, but these days it MUST BE something else. He gets paid by the hour. Dad has already loaded his groceries into the car by the time I catch up (and let me tell you, he is not exactly a sprinter).

The old man was more observant than I. As we're rolling down Aultman Street, he notes; "Different set of people in there today. Mostly old guys. No women with kids." 

"Huh." I hadn't noticed that, specifically. What I had noticed was that there were quite a few old people in the store, and it pained me to realize they were probably about the same age as me.

Gas up at the Texaco. "Twenty nine. $2.60 a gallon."

"How much?!!"

"Twenty-nine"

"Whew!"

"Yeah. And that was only one trip 'around the horn." 

• He knows I am referring to the circular route  that runs through Cherry Creek Canyon, over Cherry Creek Summit, then either cutting through by the Pony Express route past  Limousine Butte Mine, or a little farther north to the western side of Black Mountain on Butte Valley road, and then east to the other Butte Valley Road, and north again through Nine-Mile and Egan Canyon.

"Do you want to go to Bath [Lumber]?"
"Not really. Do you?"
"No."

Northbound on McGill Highway, I try the radio again. They're playing some better rock'n'roll from my era. I'd love to crank it up and jam out, but that would be rude. I turn it down to the point I can still make out the beat.

"I saw this video on Facebook this morning: There was this crow in a parking lot, and he had a hot dog bun. Then a little  mouse came out and wanted a piece of it. The crow hopped up and down and scared the mouse away. And THEN ... he tore off a piece of the bun, and he carried it over to the curb where the mouse had gone, and set it down, and covered it with leaves for the mouse. The mouse came out and got it!"

• Crow feeds mouse

"Huh! That's like in my book. There was this mother elephant, and she got swept up in a flood, and somehow she went blind. And they thought they were going to have to kill her, but they decided that she could still work, so they kept her. And she had a little calf that was about five years old then, and every evening when they brought her in from work, that calf would go out with her to graze, and he took care of her like that for years.

I smiled at the thought of a mother and son being allowed to live together for a long time ... tried not to focus on the idea of a blind animal being forced to labor, year after year.

"Then something happened, and the son elephant died."

"Aw."

"The mother elephant could eat and everything, but then she just died a few months after the son did."

"She just didn't want to live anymore." I will never be convinced that animals have no souls, or that they lack empathy or the capacity to love.

After "quick" stop at Bradley's for his Fruity Sangria wine, meat, ice cream bars, and a rare treat: handmade pizza from the deli case, we're on our way. This is looking to be one of the shortest town trips we've managed, so far, and I am pleased to be getting home soon enough that I might expect to find some coals still glowing in the wood stove. And hopefully, that the pup people have not destroyed the kitchen.

The sky is brooding, and the ring of clouds has extended farther down into the foothills. "Looks like we're getting snow up there."

I don't know how many more times Dad and I will be taking this journey together. I guess we'll just keep getting on down the road for as long as he will let me drive.

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