Settle down: It’s not about Erica Jong’s book.
At the neighborhood block party down the street from my house, I sat at a table with two of my neighbors and we discussed the ways in which our lives intersected. The main thread was embodied by the Australian Blue Heeler who lives with the couple. Drifter stops to drink at the dog-watering bowls I’ve set up on the edge of my lawn, then looks for me. On the days that I see him pass, I go out to spend a few minutes with his energetic wriggling and licking. My youngest granddaughter watches a cartoon series about Blue Heeler dogs called “Bluey,” so she calls Drifter by that name.
I shared a table with Drifter’s “parents” and as we chatted, we learned some things about each other. The couple have been curious about my Tuesday evening forays past their house. I am usually carrying a long pink case, and the speculation was that I had a 6-can insulated beer sleeve. I laughed, explained that I was carrying a case with my two pool cues, on the way to the nearby pub to practice my sport. Drifter’s dad smiled and stroked his beard: “So, you’re a shark, huh?” I demurred, quietly insisting that I am merely a practitioner of a sport I love. He said that as a teenager, he used to shoot pool. I invited him to join me at the pub some Tuesday, when the tables were free and open, and added that I have been shooting pool for more than 60 years. Surprised, he asked my age and laughed to hear that I am in my 8th decade. I’m not sure how we got off the ground, but the subject soon became rock-climbing.
“You’re always moving,” he said. “I’ll bet I can teach you rock-climbing.” I told him that I have a fear of heights and even as a passenger in a jumbo jet, I cannot sit beside a window, nor look out during take-off and landing. “If I can see the ground,” I said, “I know I’m in the air,” and fear kicks in. He then began a Zen-like explanation of the sport, saying that my focus would be on the climb, reaching for the next rock, and … “Nope.” I interrupted his reverential exercise with my favorite demurral: “Nope, nope, nope.”
When young, and egged on by older kids, I leapt from second story windows and landed safely on the ground. As a teenager, I soared from that ground, dunking basketballs. But as I got older, I grew more terrified of being off the ground. The fear is irrational; I’ve never been the man who fell to the earth. But climbing ladders to clean gutters: “Nope.” My two youngest children shamed me into taking them to the top of the St. Louis Arch, and I still shiver when I remember glancing down from the top of that 630-foot structure. I’ve looked at kids doing rock-climbing at “fun parks,” and turned away, shivering. Airtime scares me.
After some “stick wagging” — I went home and brought my pool cue “Esmerelda,” to show to Drifter’s dad — I left the block party, happy to have attended and hopeful that I would have some company in the pursuit of the land-based activity that a long-ago friend of mine called “chess on felt.” And despite Professor Harold Hill’s warning, there is no trouble in River City, trouble that starts with “T,” which rhymes with “P,” and that means “Pool.”
And should I fall from the table, I’ll drop no more than 32 inches.
cjon3acd@att.net