In February 2018, I sat at a table at a new cidery with two other people. Wes Homoya, (“Birdman of Indianapolis,” the Weekly View 09/22/2016) was hosting a bird trivia event, and I was teamed with Holly James and Sydney McQuade Otto as a 3-person trivia team. Holly and Sydney were the beginning of what I call “The Circle Of Joy.”
After the bird trivia event, Holly and Sydney and I maintained a tenuous connection; Sydney is an artist, and I have been to see her work at various venues. I did not see or hear from Holly as much, until the person she calls “my lovely daughter” began to work at the new location of the cider house where Holly and I first met.
Sally Knoop was a quiet addition to the staff at the cidery and she was the next to become a part of the circle that linked Holly to me. In a moment of frivolity at her job, I offered to dance for Sally if she was sad. She responded, “I’ll dance with you,” and I have memorialized our gentle movements together in a poem, “Dancing With Sally.” Over the years, Sally has often closed the 29 inches of counter space between customer and server with personal notes about her mother, Holly. A few years after Sydney, Holly and I first met, I moved my residence to the corner of E. St. Joseph Street and N. Hawthorne Lane. One day, I saw a woman walking a beagle, and after a brief interaction – I keep dog watering bowls near the lawn – I realized that the woman was Sydney. We spoke briefly, and she continued her walk to Ellenberger Park.
My youngest granddaughter attends Irvington Community Elementary School and goes to YMCA after-care. One day, she called out to a young kid who was pedaling past the corner: “Devon!” The 9-year-old boy is also a student at ICES and has been Myah’s friend at the YMCA aftercare. Devon started coming to see Myah and one day, I learned that that his last name was “Otto,” and that his grandmother was Sydney Otto. Devon Otto joined Myah as another link in the “Circle of Joy.”
My good friend Paula Nicewanger, the co-owner of this publication, is a “frequent gifter,” and one of the gifts that she bestowed on my youngest granddaughter was a Little Golden Book: “The Little Mermaid.” Myah’s school put on a musical about the Little Mermaid, and Myah loves to sing and dance to the original Broadway version of “She’s In Love.” Myah has a lot of books, thanks to Paula and her mother and (ahem) me. I examine all her books, scan them, read them. And I was surprised to find an inscription inside the book that Paula had given her: “This Little Golden Book belongs to,” was imprinted, and handwritten was “Sally Kate Knoop.” I showed Sally the inscription and she confirmed that the book came from her mother. I spoke to Myah and suggested that she re-gift the book to Sally. Myah agreed and wrote Sally a note.
I returned the book to Sally on Thursday, September 11th, but not before her mother gave me a framed and signed print of “The Escapist,” a character from erstwhile Pittsburgher Michael Chabon’s novel, “The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay.”
There are not six degrees of separation between the people in this recounting, but from Holly to Sally; from Sydney to Devon; from Paula to Myah; from Devon to Myah and from Myah to Sally, there is for me, the completion of a circle of joy.
cjon3acd@att.net