The Carpenter's Hobby

    "Moping." A British black woman reported on an "unknown origin" of birthplace. 

     "Admonished," I glanced up from writing and told an advisor.  

     And had found another to comiserate with and now the two of them were acting like Beavis and Butthead.  One spit a pebble at a skillet and it dinged as the advisor motioned for them to be brought out of a (i)time out(i).  "Over here Davey Crockett, please." The advisor still had a trace of accent.

  The (i)Let's do it Rileys(i) had quieted down like morning embers.  There didn't seem to be anyone in our homecamp.  "Where is everyone?" My friend asked the first person to rouse in the other tenting places.  The woman shook her groggy head that she wouldn't know.

  "DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT WAR IS?!?!?!" The question had roared through the woods.

  "Where are the Seal rocks?" I asked out loud to the woman just sitting there.  She sort of blinked at the being spoken to and said, "They're gone."  

  "But," I stopped myself.  "Are you okay?" 

  "What kind of question is that?!" She stood and her dress slacks fell perfectly straight.  There was no still smoldering breakfast fire.  The woman barely glanced at the historic site as she went to her car and left.

  

   It was probably both money and passion that led to the advisor wars.

     Gordon took a sip of still warm tea, no sugar, and held it in her mouth until the guy stopped accusing her of trying to steal his students.  The spittle practically hung in the air with the mist clinging to everything.  The nights were getting far cooler.  And "mornings" for retirees really revolved around when the sun visited a mountain spot long enough to (i)have a day(i).

     After the guy finished "venting" Gordon calmly said, "Actually Mr. what did you say your name is

     "I didn't

     "I'm a student." 

     Us girls drew in a shocked but delighted breath, "HAh, you are?" Then two of us broke into a shoop-shoop dance and started a (i)Go Gordon, Go Gordon(i).  This did not relieve her worries that there would be no one (i)my age(i) in her group.

     The guy had a series of looks come over his face which Edward Gorey once described as (i)epiplectic(i).  Then he turned, started to stalk off, and stepped in a spaded poophole.  He looked down at his foot.  Removed it.  And turned wiping the wet toilet paper off as he did and said, his finger pointing to the sky, "You're just (i)LUCKY(i) I don't sue you for this." Then he left.  But here came more visitors.

     Gordon shifted her papers and notebook and her butt on the folding metal chair.  "HI!!!!" A woman with a walking stick and basket said.  So Gordon said, "HI." 

     "My name is Melinda.  And I've come for the beaver."  Gordon looked over her shoulder.  "Oh, you have?" 

     "Yes!  Can you tell me what it's been up to?" 

     "Well, I...." She shuffled some papers on her lap.  "Well, that's okay, I heard from a friend, my son actually, where the beaver has been hanging out." 

     "Oh, you have?!" 

     Inside one of the tents a bookish looking girl was lying on her back.  "Is she sleeping?" A man whispered loudly enough to be heard above the din of the creek but wouldn't come out from behind a bush.  "Is he hiding?" One girl asked another girl.  "Her eyes are kind of closed, but kind of open."

     "And her hair is laid out above her head

     "'Cuz she's laying flat on her back

     "Okay, cuzz, let them describe it."

     Up the freshly graveled road came Sherry with her own (i)carved(i) walking stick.  Gordon got up from the chair but everything in her lap stuck to her like Velcro.  "Sherry, what are you doing here?" 

     She didn't stop walking but explained, "I just wanted to take a hike.  Try out my new walking stick," which she kept pointed at the ground but showed.  "Ooooo lah lah," Melinda cooed as she and Gordon crunched onto the gravel.  Sherry faced the direction in which she'd been walking and asked, "Is that the trail up there?" The women looked but couldn't really say for sure.  Then Sherry asked, "Are they still behind me?"

  They'd been killing animals at that point.  Not the hunters.

  And at one of the (i)show down(i) camp spots there was found a pile of discarded, stripped, electronica. 

  A sample "boney" (one of those skeletons that ride on motorcycles and other vehicles) had been "lost" in a showdown, the information chips or whatever, taken.  "Co-opted," was the word used when it pinged a cell tower or something.  But by then other automation was also in play.