by Bud Kenny
We were on the west side of town, and Patricia was ecstatic. Just moments earlier she seemed down because she didn’t recognize anything. But when we came to Bradley Street, she spotted it right away. Maybe because, besides the typical green residential street sign, at the corner was an eight-foot flower box with BRADLEY ST. on it.
The moment we turned onto the street, Patricia began to recognize things. “Used to be a little grocery store on that corner. When I walked down here with mom I always got a piece of candy.”
Now on the corner was a modern concrete block building with a beauty shop in it.
Bradley was a dead-end street that was probably developed in the 1920’s. It was a block long, with split level homes of various description on each side. They all sat about thirty feet from the street with lawns, shrubs, trees, paved driveways and sidewalks. It was a sweet old middle-class neighborhood that had the feel of home to it.
Beyond the guardrail, at the end of Bradley, was a steep downhill covered with pines and all sorts of deciduous trees. Impromptu foot trails led down the slope into the heath. “I sure spent a lot of hours playing down there. We built forts and climbed trees.”
Patty was a tomboy. “Down there is where Lafayette Jones kept trying to kiss me.”
I had heard about Lafayette Jones. He was Patty’s first kiss. “But it didn’t happen here. I wouldn’t let him because my sister or someone might see it.”
“Excuse me. Are you folks lost?”
The woman was stepping down from the front porch of the last house on Bradley. “I read about you in the Auburn paper today. Did you make a wrong turn?”
Patricia said, “No. I used to live on this street. In the Ryan house.”
“I know the one. I think that is the cutest house. When did you live there?”
“About forty-five years ago.”
“Really?”
The woman’s name was Kathy. A stocky woman whose parents probably didn’t even know each other forty-five years ago. Now she was the athletic director for Marcellus Schools. She asked, “Are you going to stick around for a while?”
After we told her we’d like to spend a couple of days in Marcellus, Kathy said, “You could stay in my back yard.”
A camp on Bradley Street seemed too good to be true–and it was. After Patricia went back and checked it out, she said, “Della would have destroyed it before dawn. I told Kathy about the place we heard of by the creek. She knows the spot. It’s close to the school, and she thought it would be perfect.”
On the east side of town was a road that led to the sewer treatment plant. It paralleled a creek, and fishermen often camped alongside it. So everyone figured we could, too. And a village policeman said, “I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
Upstream from the sewer plant we found the perfect spot to camp beside that road. It had plenty of shade and nearby was lots of lush tall grass for Della. Although we were camped on the bank above the stream, we couldn’t see it because of the dense vegetation–but we could hear falling water.
We parked the cart near a trail that went down through the trees to the creek. After we had Della situated, the tent pitched and camp set up, Patricia and I hiked down. I was ahead of her as we worked our way down to the gravel bar. It was below an old stone dam that was once part of a large mill. Across the creek was the shell of an old three story building. Both the building and dam were dilapidated.
Behind me, I heard Patricia gasp. When I turned around she had both hands clasped on her face. A face that beamed like someone who had just won a prize. “I can’t believe it! This is where my daddy taught me how to fish.”
On our way to that spot beside the creek, we walked through the heart of the village. When we pulled in front of the church that Patty and her family used to attend, she said, “I’d like to go to mass tomorrow.”
But Sunday morning we had so many people stop and visit, that mass was over before we got out of camp. So we just pedaled into town, did some exploring and picked up a few supplies. That afternoon, on the way back to camp, we pulled into the school yard where Patty was in the third and fourth grades. Marcellus didn’t have a Catholic school, so she went to public school.
It had several red brick buildings, a gymnasium, ball fields, play grounds and a parking lot. The west wing of the main building was where the elementary kids had their classes. Thirty yards from that side of it was a thick wooded area with all sorts of trees–most were pine.
“This is it,” Patricia said. “Here is where I let Lafayette Jones kiss me.”
“Right here?”
“Well, not on this spot, but in these woods somewhere. Isn’t it pretty?”
Indeed, it was a lovely little forest with a carpet of needles that made for soft walking. I could see where being in such a place might render a young girl vulnerable to seduction.
“Bud, what are you doing?”
I had walked up behind my wife, put my arms around her and began to caress her breasts. I whispered in her ear, “What do you think I’m doing?”
Then I kissed the side of her neck, as she said, “Right here?”
“Not a bad idea, eh?” I slid my hands under her shirt and up into her bra.
Patricia whispered, “What if someone sees us?”
Nibbling her ear lobe I said, “You didn’t worry about that with Lafayette?”
She bowed her back so her shapely ass was pressed hard against the bulge in my pants. “No, I didn’t worry about it then. And I’m not going to worry about it now.”
Patricia turned around and I pulled her to me. Her face was radiant when I said, “Come on Baby. Let’s make Lafayette proud.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself!”
The woman had followed us down the lane to our camp in her SUV. When she got out of it, she had a cell phone in her hand, a scowl on her face and demand in her voice. “Is this your horse? This is animal abuse!”
I said, “She’s a mule. And how are we abusing her?”
The woman was in her late thirties, wore hiking boots and army green shorts. “You left her here by herself, tied up, with no water.”
Earlier that morning, Della kept getting her rope tangled around saplings and brush while she grazed. So I decided to tie her short, in the shade, with a hay bag in front of her. I had offered her water before we left for town, and I offered her some when we returned. She didn’t want any either time.
I was setting the bucket down as I asked, “Lady, are you a horse expert?”
“No! But anybody can see this is animal abuse. I’m calling the police and the humane society.”
“You’re nuts!” Patricia said, as she threw up her arms in disgust, turned around and stomped off. My hackles were up too, but I was restrained. Over the many years I’ve worked with equines, I have been accosted by many animal rights activists. They did it during my trip across the country in the 1970s. When I ran the mule trolley in Hot Springs, at least once a year someone accused me of animal abuse. And on this journey, we were lambasted for it a few times. It had happened enough that I came up with a routine to deal with it.
“Well lady, maybe that’s what you should do. Since you aren’t a horse expert, maybe you should get someone down here who is. I’d be happy to talk to them.”
She stammered a bit, then said “I will!”
“Good. That way between us we might be able to convince you that I’m not abusing this animal. See, I’ve been a horse-shoer for about thirty years, and . . . .” I went on to outline my equine experience to the woman. “And I did all that so I would know what I was doing on this trip.”
By the time I had finished explaining why Della was tied in that fashion, the woman had completely mellowed out. When Patricia returned to the scene, the confrontation had turned into a conversation. During which, my wife said, “Now, if you want to see animal abuse, I’ll tell you where to go.”
The day before we got to Marcellus, we stopped at a barn with a lush green paddock alongside the highwa
y. It was obvious no one was using it, so we thought it might be a good place to camp. A woman who lived in the house across the road tried to locate the owner, but never could find him.
While she was trying to track him down on the phone, she told us about a horse that was closed up in the barn. “It belongs to the man who owns this house and that barn. He asked me to feed it for him, but all he left was straw. I asked him about letting it out to graze, but he said no. So all it gets is straw and water. And it stays cooped up in that barn all day. I thought about calling the Humane Society, but I just rent here. I don’t want to cause trouble and get kicked out.”
After Patricia told the animal rights lady that story, the woman said, “That’s horrible! Where is this place?”
While we described where it was, the woman’s eyes began to glaze over. Then she said, “You’ve got to be kidding? I know that place. He’s my brother in-law!”
That woman had just started her car when another one pulled up. In it was Marcellus Mayor Fred Eisenberg with Dena Beratta, who wrote for the Marcellus Observer. When the mayor shook Patricia’s hand he said, “I heard you grew up here.”
“My family lived on Bradley Street for a couple of years when I was a little kid.”
“Well, on behalf of the village of Marcellus let me say, ‘Welcome home Patty!’”
He gave us a few town mementos and told us a bit of Marcellus history. In 1794 the first settlers set up a grist mill on the creek. The town was named after the Roman General Marcus Claudius Marcellus who lived two hundred years before Christ.
The mayor also told us that during the Civil War, the old mill where Patty’s father took her fishing, made material for Union Army Uniforms. He didn’t know when it closed down. “It’s been that way as long as I can remember.”
After Dena completed her interview, they wished us well and got in the Mayor’s car to leave. They were turning around, when another car pulled into the lane and came our direction. Patricia leaned over to me and whispered, “Do you suppose this is another visitor?”
It was Kathy from Bradley Street. When she got out of her car she said, “I just stopped for a moment. I wanted to give you this.”
She handed Patricia a white envelope. “Everybody in the neighborhood contributed.”
Inside the envelope was $62.10 in cash. On the outside was written, “For Patty and Bud. From your neighbors on Bradley Street.”
Where Patty’s daddy taught her how to fish.
CHAPTER 18
A LIFE WORTH LIVING
FROM MARCELLUS, WE WOUND UP through Syracuse toward Oneida Lake where we came to R&L Farm Market on Highway 31 between Lake Port and South Bay. It was a large metal building, and adjacent to it was a paddock with llamas. The moment Della spotted them her ears went rigid, she snorted and began to prance.
“Della, whoa!”
Suddenly it was like I didn’t exist. Her collar rammed into my shoulder as she turned to go toward the llamas. When I pushed back, her left hoof slammed down on my right foot, and it hurt. “Dammit, Della!”
I jerked hard on her lead rope, but it made no difference. Della was determined to cross the road, and would have trampled me if I hadn’t elbowed her in the neck. She winced, grunted and took a step back. I jumped in front of her, grabbed both sides of her bit, yanked and yelled. “Della, whoa!”
She reared her head back and snorted mule snot in my face. It was gross, but I couldn’t wipe it off. I didn’t dare let go of her.
“It’s okay, girly pie,” Patricia said. “Mommy’s here.”
She was stroking Della’s neck and she seemed to be calming down. The llamas still had her attention, but she wasn’t as intent on going to them. We were both rubbing her as my wife said, “Do you suppose she’s thinking about Superman?”
Since her encounter with Superman back in Arkansas, I don’t think the Big Sis had seen another llama. When we got moving again, I had control of Della but I didn’t have her complete attention. She was still focused on them and was prancing like a show horse as we passed the market. Several people were in the parking lot applauding as we walked by.
Less than a mile past the market, we pulled into a rest area and set up camp. Patricia was in the tent about to pump up our bed, when a pickup truck with a huge man driving stopped next to our camp. I recognized him as one of those applauders back at the market. He said, “Some of my customers said they saw you on TV last night.”
Lavern Grant opened the truck door and got out with a big paper bag full of produce in his arms. Celery, carrot tops and romaine lettuce were poking out the top of it and giant grin was across his face as he said, “I didn’t see the news last night, so I missed the story.”
He handed me the bag. “Here. I figure no matter where you’re going you’ve got to eat. So tell me about it. Where you going?”
After I told him what we were up to, he asked “How do you make money?”
“I’m a poet, and we sell my poetry books.”
“Can I see one?”
During our winter at the Watt Farm, I put together a new collection of poems titled, From This Side of The Road. While Lavern flipped through it he asked, “How much are they?”
“Ten bucks.”
He pulled a twenty out of his wallet. “Give me two. I’m going to my granddaughter’s confirmation tomorrow. She likes poetry. I’ll take her one”
After I autographed the book for his granddaughter, Lavern said, “I want you to do another one for my friend, Nancy.”
He handed me another twenty. “Don’t worry about the change. Will you deliver it to her? You’ll walk right by her place tomorrow. She’s got cancer and isn’t going to be around long.”
“We’d be happy to.”
“She doesn’t see very good. So she can’t read it.”
I said, “I’ll read a few poems to her.”
An hour after Lavern drove off, another pick up pulled in and stopped. The driver leaned out the window and said, “Could I buy one of your poetry books?”
“Sure.”
“Lavern came in Pier 31 with one a little while ago. He had the bartender read a couple of poems. They’re good.”
I recognized Pier 31 as the name of the restaurant where we were to deliver the book to Nancy. It was a family business, and she lived above it. Before we went to bed that night we sold two more books to people who had heard the reading in the bar.
When we got up in the morning, it looked like we could get rain soon. In the past week and a half it rained on us at least once every day. And it looked like it could happen again soon. The rest area was already a soggy place. More rain would make it worse.
So we broke camp and packed everything away before it could get soaked. Just before we got on the road, Lavern stopped with more produce. “My friend Nancy won’t be at Pier 31 when you get there. She went to stay with her sister.”
“What do you want me to do with the book?”
“Just leave it at the bar. They’ll get it to her.”
It was mid-afternoon when we arrived at Pier 31. The building was big and blue with a large parking lot out front. On the back side of the restaurant were huge windows that overlooked the marina, RV sites and Oneida Lake. About half a dozen cars were in the parking lot when we tied Della to the telephone pole. Inside, as soon as we sat down, the barmaid walked over and smiled. “Are you folks directing traffic somewhere?”
We had our orange safety vests on. I said, “No we’re traveling with a mule–”
“Oh, you must be the walkers.” She slapped the bar. “I heard about you guys. So what can I do for you?”
I laid the book on the bar. “Lavern bought this poetry book for Nancy yesterday and asked me to deliver it to her.”
The barmaid’s smile drained away and an awkward hush came over the place. The only other customers at the bar were the two men she was talking to when we came in. She glanced over at them, and they just looked down. Then she turned toward us, cleared her throat and said, “Nancy
passed away at three this morning.”
We never met Nancy, didn’t have a clue what she looked like, but in the past eighteen hours she had become a part of our lives. Besides Lavern, the other three people who bought books from us last evening said wonderful things about her. That afternoon in the parking lot at Flo’s Diner, we met an older couple who adored her. And now she was gone. I sat on the bar stool and fought tears. Patricia did too.
“I’ve already signed it for her.” I handed it to the barmaid. “You might as well take it.”
We ordered ourselves a beer and heard more stories about Nancy. The barmaid Jacque said, “Everybody loved her.”
A man down the bar said, “I don’t care who you were, she treated you like family.”
When we walked into the restaurant, a handmade sign was on the door that said the place would be closed Saturday August 2nd.
“Her granddaughter is getting married then.” Jacque said. “Nancy was bound and determined to make it to that wedding. But–.”
When Patricia and I walked out into the parking lot to leave, we found a small group of people standing around Della. A couple of them asked if they could take our picture. We were posing for them when a very somber looking man walked up and stood at the back of the crowd. He had passed us going into the restaurant as we were walking out
After the photographers were through, the man walked up, extended his hand to me and introduced himself as John Hadyk. He owned Pier 31 and Nancy had been his step-mother. John shook my hand and thanked me for bringing the book. “Where do you plan to spend the night?”
“Somewhere down the road.”
“How about here? Let me show you where.”
I got in his car and he drove me down to the lake front where the marina and RV spots were. “Any open spot is yours. The mule can graze where-ever she wants.”
After we climbed back into the car, I said, “With Nancy’s funeral Tuesday, and your daughter’s wedding Saturday, you’ve got a heck of a week ahead of you.”