The sports desk flashed the green light Tuesday night, said Wednesday’s local schedule was thin indeed. “Oh good,” I thought. “Now I can go right to town on that column I started Monday and revisited Tuesday.” So, proceed with caution. I have been known to get carried away.

Which reminds me. I was in my own little world a week ago when Irmarie passed my desk on column night. Focused, I didn’t even know she was in the building until she addressed me.

“Hi Gary. Oh, must be working on your column.”

I looked up, didn’t want to be rude.

“Yeah, Irm, sorry. You know how it is.”

“Yes, yes, is it long?”

I nodded, sheepishly grinned and said, “Well, yes, I’m afraid so.”

She responded with a reassuring one-word answer: “Good!”

How about that! I guess some can stay with it. Then again, others surely don’t, like, for instance, the guy who told his wife he didn’t like my writing because it had a hard edge. All I can say to that is, I love compliments, but we all have a soft side, too. Truth is, I can’t write for everyone. No one can. I learned that long ago from respected mentor Howard Ziff, an old newspaperman, UMass professor and “New Journalism” visionary from my distant past. The best advice he ever imparted was that “if all you make in this business is friends, you’re not doing your job.” That and, “Write for the reader, not the subject.” Two golden rules of journalism, realities all scribes should heed. That said, I do believe my audience has changed dramatically in 33 years, especially since I allowed a gentle ray of filtered light into my soul, which some enjoy and others don’t. I can live with that, too; enjoy it, in fact. Why should I be ashamed of my bedrock philosophy? The other side isn’t.

I must say it was nice to bump into my two deer Wednesday morning, right out in the middle of the hayfield at 9 o’clock, the same doe and her yearling fawn I’ve been watching since February’s thaw. I assume they just couldn’t resist the infant clover, small, tender and of the healthiest, most exuberant green, so rich-looking that I thought about taking a nibble. As I drove toward them, they lifted their heads and froze like alert statues, ears erect, watching. When I parked, the larger one ran to the northern wetland’s lip and stopped. Then the little one fled to join her when I opened the truck door and stepped outside. By the time I had released the dogs, the deer had disappeared over the bank and we proceeded to meander through both sunken meadows, the second one leading to my sacred Indian red rock in the Green River, illuminated by the bright sun in a high sky cleared by the waxing moon. I hadn’t seen those deer for more than a week but knew from their tracks that they were near; them and a small loner buck that will be a 6- or 8-pointer this year. I know the buck’s distinctive print, the front hooves better than three inches long and split into a V. I don’t know the sex of that little skipper, but neither it nor its mother appears pregnant to me. Maybe they’re just not showing yet. It is only early April.

Moving indoors, the old-tavern mantles and tabletops are decorated for Easter, if you can imagine that in the home of a deist, pantheist or whatever the heck you’d call me; certainly no Christian. Well, actually one mantle, the one in the study, isn’t decorated, at least not for the Resurrection. The reason is that it’s full of books stacked high in four piles around a large, gilt-framed, trompe l’oeil, after-the-hunt oil painting of two wood ducks hanging upside down from a string tied to a cut nail in the wall. The books have been read since fall, with still others piled on the chest of drawers in the adjacent everyday parlor. The one I’m currently reading, a Timothy Leary biography by Robert Greenfield of Rolling Stone fame, is lying handy on a wooden TV tray alongside a green La-Z-Boy recliner decorated with tiny gold fleur de lis. It may sound fancy but, let me tell you, it’s overdue for a dump run. Midway through Leary, that most unusual Springfield rebel, all I can say is that it’s once again clear to me that the wrong side prevailed in the Sixties. Now look what we’ve gotten ourselves into: Nixon/Reagan/Bush lackeys who think cavity searches for simple misdemeanors are cool. Hey, it’s all about national security, right? Well, maybe so, but I sure do hope I never have to schedule a colonoscopy at the local State Police barracks. Sounds way too much like Hitler’s Germany, maybe Baghdad to me. You know the routine: create a terrifying bogeyman to frighten ignorant voters and they’ll permit all sorts of government invasions in the name of “protection,” probable cause or no probable cause. Maybe if I went to Huckabee or Hannity for “news,” didn’t read and wasn’t intellectually curious, then I too would go along, just another dazzled ewe following a clueless conformist flock to the slaughter or shearer. Thankfully, I saw the light young, when it was bright and idealistic, and decided to hack my own trail to autonomous wilds. Some may even call it anarchy, I suppose, a scary word indeed, but that doesn’t concern me in the least. They too have a right to their opinions, too. Just, please, don’t lay them on me. I ain’t buying it.

Ooops! There I go, distracted again. Colonoscopies in police barracks? Huh? Where’d that come from? Sorry. My mind got to wandering, I guess. That can happen to a man my age. Back to those other two downstairs mantles, the ones that are Easter decorated with collections of hand-carved wooden rabbits, eggs and chicks — all well-executed, probably bought years ago at Yankee Candle, before it went corporate — surrounded for effect by that shiny, plastic, purple grass you’d put in an Easter basket. Grandson Jordi, who lost his dad, was in town over the weekend. I picked him up Friday evening in Randolph, Vt. The decorations were for him, a way to inspire egg-coloring and whatever other Easter activities the wife had planned as I finished an interesting Ambrose Bierce biography and watched a little Final Four. Most interesting to me about Bierce was that he and I share common Mayflower ancestor William Bradford, likely other old Plymouth and Bay Colony families, dissident all. A Civil War vet and San Francisco newspaperman with an infamous bite, he wandered off as an old man to Poncho Villa’s Mexican Revolution in 1913 and never returned, the location of his bones and  cause of death an infinite mystery, right up his alley. Bierce was that kind of guy, from Indiana by way of Connecticut and Cape Cod, his grandfather a Puritan minister, his dad a deacon, his mom devout indeed. I am cut from similar cloth but, like him, have found my way through that dense, disorienting Christian fog to an oasis where reason and reality outweigh faith and fallacy.

I must admit that some of the old Easter photos scattered about at home hit a mournful string in me. They show the kids — Gary, now dead, and Rynie — on past Easters, holding rabbits, coloring eggs, hunting two-piece, hidden, coin-filled plastic eggs outside, all in gay, now grieving hues. A white-framed oval photo stands on my desk, just to the right of the monitor, right in my face, kind of haunting but happy, too, if you get the gist. The kids, wearing soft, devilish grins, are dressed in their Sunday best, gray formal slacks, pale-yellow Oxford shirts under white V-neck sweaters, limp white bunnies gripped behind the shoulders dangling from their hands. The attire reminds me of when I was a kid and my mother took us annually for those dreaded, frantic Easter shopping sprees. Remember, I was no alter boy, didn’t care much for church and chants and prayers and choral song, hated dressing up for Easter service and posing for sappy shots. But that’s just me, I guess, and I can’t say I’ve changed much. I remember the circa-1990 photo session that produced that desktop photo of the kids. We were at Rick Roy’s High Street studio, which, unless I’m mistaken, was in the same gray house once home to Dr. Low’s practice. That night, I had discretely slipped out of work and was handling his angora rabbits when, suddenly, my eyes started watering, itching and feeling like coarse sandpaper when rubbed. Having experienced it once before, I realized a dangerous allergic reaction was erupting. No time to spare, I quickly excused myself, scooted off to that nearby CVS Pharmacy in the old Grand Union building, bought some Benadryl, doubled the dose and went back to work, where the irritation soon passed. Quick thinking, no doctor; once again I had done it my way and lived to tell about it.

I mentioned something to my wife last week about putting me through the wringer with those photos of Gary everywhere. She understood but offered no apology, said all we have are memories, why deny ourselves those pleasures? She’s right. I accepted it. But they still stir sadness, probably always will. That’s life. We’re not alone. Everyone must learn to cope with loss. Bierce lost two sons in their 20s, one shot and killed in a lovers’ triangle (imagine that, from Puritan stock no less), another a pneumonia victim. My son also died from pneumonia, and other insidious hospital infections; 76 grueling days, never a chance, no matter what the upbeat surgeon insisted, always upbeat. The nurses knew better. I read their gloom. But why go there? Onto more cheerful subjects, starting with one that’s actually not so happy when you think of it. No sir, Lily is due for a trip to the vet. That liver-and-white bitch, a flushing dynamo in the field, can sure be expensive. She needed two surgeries last year — cha-ching! — first to remove a dead puppy from her womb at that collateral-demanding South Deerfield hospital, then to my regular vet to drain a ribcage abscess, the result of a pheasant-season puncture in a beaver-infected alder swamp. This recent problem appears to be a simple urinary-tract infection, which shouldn’t be too outrageous if the first antibiotic works, never a given these days. I’ll just cross my fingers and hope my layman’s diagnosis is correct. I can’t imagine it’s something more serious. Not from her demeanor. Other than frequently squatting to pee small diluted drops of blood after her bladder’s drained, she’s happy, hungry and full of vigor, tail constantly wagging a happy rhythm you just don’t see in a sick animal. I hope it’s not wishful thinking on my part. Old Lily-Butt’ll soon be 9, but she’s a rugged bird dog and should have a few good, productive years left after showing no signs of decline last season.

Back to the Green River, I know things can change fast this time of year, but it looks perfect for fishing, running strong and clear, the latter development a welcome sight. The river is due for its first stocking this week. I’ll have to watch and see how long it takes for the fish stocked at the Pumping Station and above to get down to my secluded rock. I would guess not long. Before I start thinking about fishing, though, I better get to that yard work I’ve been uncharacteristically delaying, which reminds me of a song I’ve been playing in the truck for Jordi. Titled “Arkansas Traveler,” it’s a traditional tune about to strangers that’s been around for ages. Some call it “Hello Stranger.” My version comes from Grisman & Garcia’s “Not For Kids Only,” which makes great traveling music for any alert 6-year-old. I know Jordi gets a kick out of it, especially the part of the verse where the two strangers, mandolin and guitar, address a little home-repair issue:

“Cant you see that your roof’s a leakin’? Why don’t you fix it?” asks the wanderer.
“Well, right now, it’s a rainin’ too hard,” responds the man sitting side of the road. “And when the sun’s a shinin’, why, the roof don’t leak.”

Jordi gets a kick out of that little skit, thinks it’s silly. I explained to him that the man with a leaky roof is procrastinating, which we can all be guilty of from time to time. I can’t say I was surprised the new word piqued his curiosity. Quite intentional. He looked at me with inquisitive eyes and said, “Grampy, what’s procrastinating?” No lie, pronounced it perfectly.

“Well, kid, that’s when people put things off, kinda like the woodpile under that maple tree in my front yard. I should have cleaned up that mess long ago.”

“I’ll help you pick it up, Grampy.”

“I know you would, Jord, but I have to split it before I move it and must go to Home Depot to buy a new handle for my maul.”

“Maul? What’s a maul, Grampy?”

“You’ve seen one out in the woodshed. It’s a heavy ax, not as sharp, kinda like a combination ax/sledgehammer.”

“Oh, why don’t we just get the handle?”

“Well, I guess for the same reason that stranger doesn’t patch his roof: I’m procrastinating.”

I knew before mentioning the impending chore that it would be a good one for the two of us. I could show him that the maul was too heavy, tell him I’d split and he could throw the pieces into my truck. Then we could drive around to the woodshed and throw the split wood in. It didn’t happen this weekend and likely will be done before his next visit, if I stop procrastinating. More importantly, though, I believe he’ll remember that new word, even suspect he’ll use it at some point next time. Just a little game I like to play with him, one he doesn’t even know I’m playing but has responded favorably to in the past. God, I do hope he’ll learn to enjoy language, tinker with it, bend rules. And I sure hope that some asinine teacher doesn’t discourage his future attempts to use such words by penalizing a misspelling in an otherwise creative, precocious description. I can’t say I’m confident something like that won’t happen. In fact, it’s probably inevitable.

Uh-oh! There I go again, that “hard edge” protruding like that big, red, Green River rock, initiating a reflexive cringe from “good boys” who learned young to genuflect and make the sign of the cross.

Oh well, better back to “turn-on, tune-in, drop-out” Timothy Leary. Damn, I didn’t even get to that Wendell cougar artery I intended to bleed. It can wait.