Who Are Looking Shambolic

If a neighbor asks something once you can assume he’ll ask about it again later.  My neighbor up the hill is in his late eighties.  He has a lovely porch up there, above our property which he can’t see.  He is asking if I would be willing to cut the right arm off a beautiful white pine on our property and I don’t want to.  I hedge.  I’ll speak with the wife and get back to you on that. 

 

But this time, as he did last time, he asks about why China doesn’t have its act together.  And this time I’m not caught by surprise: “George, it is China that does have its act together.  They are down to single digit cases in a population five times our own.  They have addressed the situation and credibly managed it.  It is us who are looking shambolic George.  “Is that right?  Really?  They are down to single digit cases? Well isn’t that something?”

Tomorrow morning at 8:45AM we’re going to have a walk through Fanny Reese Park.  It was just the other morning, we were all heading over the Mid-Hudson Bridge when we turned right and saw mist over the verdant hill side along the west bank of the Hudson just about to turn color.  That stretch of protected forest was, in fact, Fanny Reese park, named after the naturalist benefactress of the last century.  Today, I cheated and took a left up 9W and went south to see the trail head. 

Real big Sassafras tree there lording over the parking lot, that has all but completely turned Halloween orange.  I walked up to the map they had but there were two people standing there, appreciating the map, talking animatedly.  This being Covid I walked along, further in than I’d originally intended and finally turned around and came back to find the other couple off, down some other trail.  Well, now I’m ready, when we park here, me, my wife, my dad, tomorrow morning and head in.  “Guys, let’s take the white trial. That’s the one with the real views.”

Thursday, 10/01/20