Journey

On a bike, a long down, going so fast vision is bleary, my helmet blocks vision ahead. I see another start up the hill, worry we might collide in my partial blindness. 

I note how I'm able to bounce uphill with ease. 

I stop at Dr Jim's. His lady says, oh, wait. She retrieves an insert from a window. It's a rectangle out of four 1 x 12" planks of unknown construction. It's open, so I have no idea what use it might be. I also do not remember loaning it to them. I do not recognize it at all, but I accept it. 

Dr Jim says, confidentially, "You really should go by and see Boss." This is an actual dim soul from my home town, given over to alcohol. I'm really too tired for Boss. Dr Jim reminds me he's my cousin. "Fish doesn't write to him anymore." This is another from the old days, a guy I was raised with of loony habit and imbibing nature. 

So a highly educated pair from my online acquaintance connects me with my meager hardscrabble past. 

Tim Bowden is twiddling his thumbs on his  iPhone 4S!

The Mountain Daily

Hut's Hunches
Renouned column in
Bonham Daily Favorite

It isn't daily, of course, or even weekly. After all, says the editor, nothing changes from day to day in our little unnamed village high in the Anonymous Mountains.

But when anything does happen, we all look to the Daily. And something has.

It was the only topic this day, and many after. A high wind at the peak. Much snow, presaging a flood of Something River, which runs through our village. Or perhaps it's one of those mine disasters. (We were reassured on that last point by the lack of mines or anything to dig out of Anonymous Mountain.)

What could it be? Surely, we all knew, something had gone wrong somewhere. We waited until the Daily could be printed.

The only distribution point was the Coffee Shop. (There was a contest one year to name that establishment, but nobody entered.) We roamed by the open door of The Coffee Shop all the day long.

The price of each issue was $5, which we paid, because each edition might carry months of incidents, and we were able to pay once for all of it, unlike the big city paper subscribers, who must pay a daily rate for their gossip, which amounted to a great deal over the year.

Here it is, freshly printed and in the bin. The paper flew out the door.

Something had happened, we read. Either a big snow at the peak, which would bring floods down below, or a mighty wind somewhere else.

We gathered in knots to discuss the news. Someone from time to time would take out her rolled copy of the Daily and slap it for emphasis with the back of her hand. It says so, right here, she would say.