TheBanyanTree: Bearings

[B Drummond]

Took some time out tonight to walk the hound.  He loves his walk more than
he loves anything, save maybe his chow.  It is the highlight of his day.  I
hate to deny him something that gives him so much pleasure - something that
is so easy, when it comes right down to it, to do.

It's when he gets to run at full blast, when he gets to "drag" me around the
neighborhood, when he gets to smell new smells, when he gets to leave his
"mark" on this great big old world.

I can't help but believe that his little doggy imagination runs wild when
his nose finds the "mark" of a gal dog along his path.  You should see him
react to such a find.  Disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful!  He seems to
lose all control, acts almost rabid, mouth foam and all.

On tonight's journey the stars put on their clear-weather-windy-night-light-
show for us.  Mars is still the brightest, reddest thing hanging in the fall
sky.  

Fall slipped up on me this year.

It came in when I was at one of my busiest in years.  "Look at the rising
sun this morning, or the setting sun this evening," the weatherman said.
"The first day of fall is when you can get your bearings.  Because the sun
rises in exactly the east and sets exactly in the west," he said.  That,
sadly, was the way I got jolted into realizing fall is here this year.

The hound sprinted on, tugging at his leash, pulling my gaze away from the
overhead light show.  Down to the end of the neighborhood's confines he
headed.  And at the entrance to the subdivision he marked a Leyland cypress
that I have watched grow from 6 feet high to over 25 feet now.  He finished
his signature off with powerful digging at the mulch of the cypress' base,
his short legs  working like high speed drag lines, raking and slinging the
cypress bark mulch yards behind him.  The pride in which he did this was
impossible to miss.  That's it, I thought.  Gotta' get their attention.
Gotta' make 'em notice where you signed in.

On we went, me trying to look up every chance I got, he working his rounds
with nose to the grass, his sniffer working a mile a minute.  On pass the
shrubs that smelled so sweetly in May. Blooms hung like snow on cedars from
their branches.  The smell so powerful that it almost made one sick at the
stomach to inhale it deeply.  And as we rounded the corner of the entrance
the fall wind hit me squarely in the chest, bringing back memories of
walking the hound in January, in a howling, figid wind that had us both
running to stay warm, both tentatively sucking in the cold air that felt
like inhaling little ice knives.

Soon it was time to turn back and work our way to the house.  A rabbit
bounded across a yard on the way, a fresh marking from a girl dog drove him
into another foaming episode, and I was able to get another couple of
glimpses into the night sky as we finished the 360 degrees of our circular
route.

Fall feels like fall tonight.  The chill in the air, the clarity of skies,
and as I looked heavenward a reminder that Youngblood left us on the first
full day of fall, now several years ago.  I still miss her, especially at
times like tonight.

I can almost hear her, like the weatherman a couple of days ago saying,

"Fall is the time for you to get your bearings . . ."

The difference is that she says it in a whisper.  And she ends it with a
"darlin" that is sweeter than the blooms that graced that bush in May

as the hound and I made our rounds.



   bd
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