We Could Have Danced

A fifty-year-old literary vignette… born of a winter dream, sown from a secreted sorrow, and written from the sleeve of my seventeen-year-old self.

On a summer’s day in the middle of a winter night, I happened upon a small park whose green grass and shady trees brought to mind hand-painted postcards from days gone by. It was there, whilst I sat on a bench beneath a willow, that the old man happened by.

With neither a friendly “Hello” nor a pleasant “Good day,” he sat down beside me and began to speak as if he knew me.

    “She used to come here,” he said, “…in the old days.”

His gaze was straight and distant, and so I followed it, not unlike the way one might wander down an unfamiliar path. I was led to a patch of yellow wildflowers dancing in the breeze. 

 

Just when I thought I might stir and be on my way, he spoke again… but this time, in a voice tinged with a sorrow so familiar, it caused me to wonder if perhaps I knew him.

 

    “She came here often at first, so much so that she’d be here more often than not.”

 

He pointed to an empty bench beneath another willow.

 

    “She would sit there, reading her book.” 

 

I noticed that he looked upon the empty bench wistfully, almost as if he could see her there. And so I broke my silence.

 

    “Who was she?” I asked.

 

He seemed confused and spoke as such, “Why do you ask what you already know?”

 

    I tried again, “Did you know her?”

 

He seemed put off by my response but answered anyway.

 

    “I knew of her,” he said, “…and she of me. Our eyes had met, but not yet we two, but for her smiles.”

 

    “Did you ever try?” I asked, “To speak to her, I mean?”

 

    “No,” he said, “…and I have long regretted that…” 

 

He paused… then continued. 

 

    “Over time, she came here less and less… until she stopped coming altogether.”

 

His eyes, now moist, reflected the summer sky above.

 

    “How long has it been,” I asked.

 

    “Many years. More than…” his voice trailed off.

 

I could feel his regret… so much so that it felt as if it were my own. 

 

    “But still you come,” I said.

 

    “Yes,” he replied. “To see her one last time is all I ask of the time I have left.” 

 

A gentle gust of wind accompanied a change in his tone. 

 

    “I know what you are thinking,” he said. “I am a foolish old man chasing the shadow of a memory. You think I might as well chase the moon when it rises behind those trees tonight.”

 

He motioned toward a covert of pine to the east. 

 

I wanted him to know that I did not think that of him, but his unexpected confession quelled my response. 

 

    “I know… I have always known,” he said.

 

He turned toward me for the first time. His eyes were drowning in a sea of anguish.

 

    “I will probably never see her again. I know that. But I would rather chase the moon than wonder if the one time I did not come here was the one time she did. I can live with being thought a fool… but not with knowing I may have missed her.”

 

I remained silent, for I did not know how to reply. 

 

He looked again to the empty bench… then spoke in a voice that bemoaned his defeat.

 

    “I don’t know what it’s like…” he said, “not to remember. Yet, there are times when I wish I could do that. Not remember. But no. In the end, I always want to. Remember.”

 

His gaze drifted off and fell once again upon the yellow wildflowers swaying in the breeze.

 

    “We could have danced,” he whispered.

 

An awkward silence began to form in the space between us. It told me what I already knew… his words were all spent now. 

 

And he turned away… and I left him to his memories.

– – –

Last summer, while rummaging through some old boxes, I came across the above. I penned it on a winter's night in January 1974. I fell prey to its words upon finding it, clearly recalling when (and why) I had written them. 

 

Reading what I had found caused me to realize that I had unknowingly created a literary vignette. Wikipedia characterizes a literary vignette as “…a short and descriptive piece of writing that captures a brief period in time…more focused on vivid imagery and meaning rather than plot.”

 

Thinking that my stumbling across the vignette was more predestined than by chance, I allowed myself to be coaxed into thinking I could transform it into something worthy of sharing. So I took to working on it. But, in the end, I mainly dealt with (as best I could) its overabundance of mechanical problems… leaving the vignette, for the most part, as penned a half-century ago.

Alice and Jerry... and Mr. Carl

I learned to read with Alice and Jerry (not Dick and Jane). Those wonderful books are still there… in my mind… along with Alice and Jerry’s parents, their dog Jip, and their neighbor, Mr. Carl.

I always liked Mr. Carl the best. He lived in a cozy cottage and spent much of his time puttering around his yard and garden. If I recall, he had a bird in a large birdcage in his living room.

Mr. Carl was much older than Alice and Jerry’s parents, and I liked him because he appeared to live a peaceful, quiet life and seemed very happy. I remember one particular story that mentioned him raking leaves in his yard (on an autumn day, not unlike today). I’m looking out my window as I write, and my yard here in the shadow of the Blue Ridge is a sea of brown and yellow leaves. In the days before I owned a yard tractor (and started mulching my leaves), I would rake them… much like Mr. Carl.

When I first began reading, my teacher was Mrs. Munyon (first grade). She was an older woman with white hair and reading glasses. Each day, she introduced the class to three or four new words. They were printed on large flashcards that she slid into slots on a display that hung from the top of the chalkboard. For a reason that has always escaped me, I have retained the memory of learning the word “old.”

Over all the years, whenever I think of Mrs. Munyon introducing us to new words, it is always the same memory that comes to mind… her teaching us the word “old.” It’s the only one I can distinctly remember. Strange? Or maybe interesting… I’m not sure which. I can still see it printed on its card and hear Mrs. Munyon pronouncing it for us… as she slid the flashcard into a slot on the display.

Mr. Carl was old—and he still is. Isn’t it funny how characters in stories never age? If you read a story as a child and then again as an adult… even a senior… the characters remain the same no matter how many years have passed. They never change… and are always right where you last saw them. For me, Mr. Carl still lives in his cozy cottage… with his bird… and is undoubtedly raking leaves today.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all be characters in our favorite stories?

Thank you, Mrs. Munyon, for teaching me to read (1962-63).

And while I am at it… thank you, Mrs. Lafoe, for taking the time to read the entire Little House on the Prairie collection to the class over the course of a single school year (1965-66). It is something I have never forgotten.

Thank you, Mr. Bufo, for teaching me how the digestive system works (I found it fascinating) and for sharing your stories about your time in the Air Force in Thule, Greenland. I also thank you for taking the time to look at the “computer” I made (1966-67). You were the first teacher to take an interest in something I did on my own.

Thank you, Mrs. English, for being (simply put) the nicest teacher I ever had… and for moving me from the back of the room to a seat in the middle when you noticed I was a little lost back there, in a seat that sadly went from being the next to last seat… to the last seat. And also thank you for who you sat me in front of… it helped… a lot (1967-68).

Mr. Scott, thank you for taking me from arithmetic to mathematics (1968-69), and thank you, Mr. Payne, for introducing me to the mathematical world (1972-73).

Thank you, Mr. Provenzano (1962-68), Mr. Fish (1965-68), and Mr. Ligart (1969-71), for the music.

Thank you, Mrs. Fowler, for making me read three books over the school year… and for somehow knowing and understanding on that day in November when your well-timed “I’m so sorry” helped me during one of the most fragile moments a fourteen-year-old can have (1970-71).

Thank you, Mrs. Jackson, for making me write… and then liking what I wrote (even though I was terrible at it). You opened up another entire world to me (1972-73).

I wish all of you could be like Mr. Carl… and I could find you right where I left you. 

Thank you all for your part in making me who I am today.

My Tale of Two Octobers

I ran away once… in September 1976. But not in the usual manner. Friends and family understood I was leaving, but I knew—inside—I was running away. 

 

I ran all the way back to where I was born and raised in upstate New York… to my hometown of Perth in the shadow of the Adirondack Mountains. I bring this up because, as I write, it is October, and that is when it all comes back to me… when my thoughts wander north, both to my hometown and the Adirondack village of Lake George. 

 

The village lies just thirty miles north and east of Perth (as the bird flies… driving is another matter) and cozies up to the southern shore of the lake from which it takes its name. Sir William Johnson (a British Army officer and colonial administrator) named the lake in 1755 for King George II. He also built a fort there during the French and Indian War, where the village is now. Those familiar with James Fenimore Cooper's novel “The Last of the Mohicans” (or, more likely, the 1992 movie of the same name) know of the 1757 siege of that fort—and the horrific massacre that ensued. Although both the novel and the movie are works of romantic fiction, their portrayal of the underlying history of the fort is accurate. The tragic events remain engrained in the region’s history.

 

The French ultimately burned the fort to the ground. However, a re-creation serving as a living museum stands on the site today. I remember going there in the 1960s, as a child, on school field trips to learn of the fort’s history and to comprehend, as best a child could, what transpired there.

 

History lesson aside, I spent many treasured moments at the lake with my family. It is a place that I wander off to in daydreams (and nightdreams) often enough. I should also mention that even though I was born and raised in upstate New York, I did not grow up there. I grew up in Virginia, moving to Virginia Beach in June 1968.

 

Yet still, it is easy for me to imagine myself at the southern end of that lake with its thirty-two miles of Adirondack water before me, especially in late October. And not just because of time spent there as a child, but also because of an afternoon spent there some forty-eight years ago in 1976… when I was but a few weeks into my twentieth year… and had recently (and surreptitiously) run away.

“You don't waste October sunshine. Soon the old autumn sun would bed down in cloud blankets and there would be weeks of gray rain before it finally decided to snow.” – Katherine Arden (Small Spaces)

I was staying at my aunt and uncle's tavern in Perth… a good-sized place on County Road 107. My aunt and uncle built it in 1949—with a wonderfully cozy three-bedroom home above—about a quarter mile west of the Perth four corners (home to the town’s one and only traffic light). Back in the day, one would find there: Perth Food Center, the firehouse, Hank’s Sunoco, a Texaco station, a small café, Lamanna’s Market, Butch’s Drum (another tavern, this one owned by a former big band drummer), and a beautiful Victorian home. 

 

Sadly, none of these places exist now; most were torn down long ago. Some have been replaced with new buildings, some have not, and a few remain but serve other purposes now. My aunt and uncle’s tavern is a restaurant these days. I’ve never been… and probably never will. They both passed away some twenty-odd years ago… but not a day goes by that I do not think of them… and the home that they provided me during that somewhat confusing time in my life.

– 0 –

On the afternoon that I drove up to the lake from the tavern, my intention was to travel north, along the lake’s western shore to Bolton Landing, but with the days growing shorter—and a telltale chill in the air—I thought better of it and made the village my stopping point.

 

I parked at the lake's southern shore under the watchful eye of Fort William Henry. It stood tall and silent on its ramparts behind me, shuttered for the season like the nearby steamboats slumbering in their docks. Though by rights, autumn could lay claim to more weeks ahead than behind, she had already begun her peaceful surrender… her whispers were on the wind for those who cared to listen, and they spoke guardedly of the winter to come.

– 0 –

I had come to the lake to write, but as I sat in my car, with pen and notebook at the ready, not a single word came to me. So, I took to looking out over the lake instead. The autumn colors were now long past their peak, and the onslaught of tourists in the village had dwindled to a trickle… but the lake was as beautiful as ever, and it held me captive for more moments than a person who had run away deserved. 

 

Most folks were elsewhere. Their calendars marked for the opening of the ski resorts and lodges… or the opening day of one of the dozen (or so) winter carnivals held across the Adirondacks. 

 

The lake, of course, knew nothing of these things. It had been there, bounded by the hills, for twelve thousand years, formed by a receding glacier at the end of the last ice age (and no doubt will still be there when the glaciers return). Its clock, the one which it abides by, is not something the likes of you or I can easily comprehend. To the lake, the passing of autumn, the coming of winter, and the eventual arrival of the ice that lingers into spring all happen in a solitary tick of its eternal clock. 

 

Yet, to those of us who live our lives between those ticks, there is something extraordinary about all of it. The water there reaches far into the distance, and for those who take the time to dream upon it, a gift is often bestowed… a masterpiece painted in light upon a crystalline canvas… a canvas that has known every blue sky, radiant sun, and billowing cloud ever to have been perched above it.

– 0 –

It took a while, but I eventually began to write… but just twenty-eight words came forth.

 

“I both love and despise being alone,” I wrote in my notebook. “I love it for what it has allowed me to write. I despise it for what it has taken from me.”

 

With nowhere else to go, I sat there, pondering my words. And, in time, turned to a fresh page in my notebook. There, I wrote a letter… to a girl who meant the world to me… some three thousand miles away.

 

I will never forget that day at the southern end of that beautiful lake, surrounded by the Adirondack foothills that were once so much a part of my life… for the letter I wrote… changed my life forever.

– 0 –

She and I last saw each other in August… at an airport in Virginia. We both cried, but not together. We cried unbeknownst to each other, she in her seat on the plane, and I somewhere in the airport. Before that, there was the customary kiss followed by the usual promises to write, but all I could think about were the words I wanted to say… the words I needed to say… the words that remained with me as I watched her turn and walk away.

 

And I could tell that she wanted to say something to me, but sadness won out that day—for neither of us said much of anything. And so, it came to be that the words I could not find in summer came to me in the fall, effortlessly finding their way into the letter that I wrote at the lake's southern shore. 

 

Her answer came swiftly, taking me by surprise. I rediscovered much that I already knew. She was different… patient… and knew what she wanted. And I was blessed… all along… for what she wanted was me.

“For the longest time, my life had been confined to a handful of moments. They were all I had until the day I met her, when my moments began to runneth over, causing me to realize it would require nothing less than the rest of my life to behold them.” – Thomas Smith (Remnants from my dog-eared notebook)

A year later, in 1977, she and I journeyed north from Virginia Beach to upstate New York. And nary a day after arriving, on a beautiful but cold late October morning, we drove from my aunt and uncle’s tavern to the village… and, upon arriving, sat together in my car at the lake's southern shore. 

 

There was scarcely another soul in sight… almost as if we had the lake to ourselves. Everything around us hinted at a winter waiting in the wings. The nearby steamboats were slumbering peacefully in their docks, the shuttered fort stood tall and silent behind us, and a familiar chill filled the air. 

 

We could hear the whispers of autumn, lamenting the remnants of her beauty now resting brown and fallen upon the hillsides. But to the lake, it mattered not. Its crystalline waters were as beautiful as ever, and a deep blue sky full of white wispy clouds lay mirrored upon its surface. It was as if Monet himself had happened by earlier that morning… and painted it… just for us. 

 

We smiled at the whimsical thought that perhaps he had.

 

After a while, we continued our journey, traveling east into Vermont to explore its Green Mountains, quaint little towns, and old barns full of curious antiques. And a few days later, at the end of October, the girl turned twenty to my twenty-one. And a tick of the clock later… we were wed.

"Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw; formed by a contour of mountains into a basin... finely interspersed with islands, its water limpid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves... down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony." – Thomas Jefferson, May 31, 1791

The photo is not mine; I found it on a Lake George travel site. If you have read this far (and thank you for doing so), you will know where to look… to find where I wrote my letter… and where Laura and I sat and looked out over the lake a year later (click on the photo to enlarge it).