Friday, June 8, 2007 1:07 AM CDT
Column: Sitting on porch a nice consequence of higher Ameren electric bills
By HARRY REYNOLDS, Editorial Page Editor
hreynolds@jg-tc.com
Sitting on the front porch, sipping iced tea, that’s an unintended consequence of Ameren’s skyrocketing electric bills.
From my perch in one of the squirrel-gnawed wicker chairs, I watch the rodent as he climbs around the porch’s column. We’re mutual acquaintances and he’s not afraid of me much.
My wife doesn’t take such a benign view of the squirrel, taking irritated exception to the escalating damage. The weaving's a mess, but the chairs are still stout. They’re old, faded white, but still make comfortable accommodations for observers.
Son J.L. sits with me, sometimes, when he’s home. He smokes his cigarettes, not taking heed of my half-hearted entreaties — having been much denied — to give up the habit.
Well, I was young once. I remember lighting up a cigarette on the grounds of the old Washington School in Charleston. The grade school’s long since been reduced to rubble and slumbers under a collection of apartment buildings.
It was built around the turn of whatever century that was before this one. I cannot keep them straight.
The janitor at the school, a short, pudgy, bald-headed man, except for whispers, with watery eyes, attired in coveralls, came up from the ancient basement, where he had been stoking the coal furnace.
I was waiting for the bus to take me to Jefferson Junior High School, which was once the Charleston High School, and since has been transformed into a grade school. Sometimes, I walked to Jefferson. It wasn’t that far away. But, this was a cold winter’s day.
The cigarette was the latest effort to impress the black-haired beauty I pined for. She was popular, sassy and murder on a boy’s heart.
“You don’t be needing to do that,” the janitor said, deploying the full effect of the stern tone he sometimes took when dealing with the misbehaving young.
Just then, the long yellow bus pulled up, brakes squeaking, and the driver cranked open the doors. As I headed for the bus, I made some smart remark to the janitor. He didn’t hear me and I’m glad he didn’t.
The janitor was a nice, old fellow. He was probably 55, perhaps, younger, but to me, he looked 80. Youth maintains a distorted view of age.
At this juncture in my life, I imagine, I’m relegated to the grave by the same edition of smart-mouthed kids attending the so-called “middle schools” today. Only the latest step in the evolution of bureaucratic jargon, “middle schools.”
I tossed the cigarette before climbing onto the bus, hoping the object of my unrequited love noticed. As I strode down the aisle, the only thing she noticed was that my jeans were unzipped.
The effect was undone by a careless memory, and red-faced, I proceeded to the back of the bus, where I zipped up my pants.
J.L. flicked his ashes into the growing mound of cigarette butts and launched into a recounting of his latest foray into Boundary Waters, a place perched on the U.S.-Canadian border featuring a thousand lakes and cell-phone defying wilderness.
This year, no bears came roaming through camp — unannounced. Bears, big lumbering creatures, like to sneak up on people. And they’re good at it.
This year, no bull moose woke J.L.’s red-headed friend, Marty. It must have been interesting, to be stirred by the sound and feel of a 1,500-pound critter slurping one’s face.
This year, there were no ground fires allowed, impelled by the carelessness of another camper, who had, earlier in the spring, touched off a conflagration, which consumed millions of acres.
The nights were pitch black, said J.L., so black, it was impossible to see beyond one’s nose. And, yet, the stars blazed — by the billions. They played host to shooting stars.
All these things unnoticed in the world of civilization, where light in the night erases endless beauty. Where the chaos of noise, clutter and artificial day reigns.
In past days when the old Washington School stood, its great chimney embraced by a thick band of steel bolted to the building (a precaution against collapse), the nights were deep and black and stars ripped the sky.
Street lights, there were, but the neighborhood’s predominating characteristic was the sound of children playing. Awaiting, but not hearing, their mothers’ calls to come home for supper.
On summer nights, when the sun was only a memory and the cool breezes struggled to usher out stifling heat and humidity, mothers’ calls would beckon stomachs growling.
Doors would slam and the outdoors would still, the only interruptions being the sounds of passing traffic and the occasional nonsensical shouting of a teenager heading for the root beer stand in his daddy’s car.
Summer nights and steaming summer days, when the only fights on the school playground erupted over an unsupervised baseball game. Disputes knew no reason, but sometimes resulted in an angry player — who happened to own the only ball, or the only bat — taking his imperative home.
Thus, did many a game end. Way back then, in the summer, when air conditioners existed mostly in movie theaters. And the monthly electric bill didn’t demand a loan.
Still, there’s the porch. And memories.
Harry Reynolds is editorial page editor of the Journal Gazette/Times-Courier. Contact Reynolds at hreynolds@jg-tc.com or 238-6861.
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Billie Brant wrote on Jun 8, 2007 7:08 AM: