A woman whom I had befriended on the bus had organized a crack Buckthorn Removal Squad and invited me to join her and the rest of the squad for a late-morning cull out at Token Creek Park.
One afternoon she noticed me reading Thoreau's Walden on our bus rides home and asked me what I thought of it. This was the first of many chats about nature writing that we've had. She introduced me to Sigurd Olson and I Ben Logan to her. Having a B.A. in philosophy, she was able to help me understand Aristotle when I was reading him. We share a joy of spending time in non-man-made environments as well as laying importance upon not despoiling them. Our conversations have been great fun and quite enlightening.
The invitation for some oak prairie restoration came after I had sent her an email lamenting that I would no longer see her on the bus as I had moved and was taking a different route to work.
My venture in Stoughton having taken a bit longer than expected, I would be late. I held out hope that it wouldn't be a problem or hold anything up. So, upon returning home, I hastily put on my boots and scrambled to find my gloves which were exactly where I had put them.
Much to my shame I have to admit that I'd never been to Token Creek Park before yesterday. At least I have no recollection of having done so. Better late than never. I found the meeting spot where my bus book buddy and her boyfriend were waiting. Not having seen her in a while, it was wonderful to see her and meet her beau.
We grabbed our equipment - a saw, pruner-snipper thingies, gloves, etc. - and headed down the trail to where we'd be working.
The area was littered with heaps of brush and our task that day was to cut the felled buckthorn into burnable size and stack the pieces into burn piles. My bus buddy gave her boyfriend and me a lecture on how to identify buckthorn and an overview of the restoration process. She'd been at it for a year and a half and had cleared a not insignificant area of invasive species. I was tasked with being the sawyer and so grabbed the saw and got to work on a pile of trees.
Kneeling on the ground, I cut the small trees into three foot lengths and piled up the logs. Despite the din of Highway 51 in the distance, it was lovely outside in the woods, er, prairie. The oaks had donated their leaves to the the ground and every step produced an autumnal crunch. I think the sawing was good for my back as it mimicked the physical therapy exercises I've been doing to get various muscles loosened up and run through their paces. In addition, I enjoyed feeling the cool air on my face and smelling the prairie as it prepared for winter.
When her boyfriend took over sawyering duties, my buddy and I went around to deal with buckthorn stumps. I trimmed them of new growth while she applied herbicide. We chatted as we worked. I told her of my visit to Walden Pond and she of hers to Yellowstone.
We called it a day at the noon whistle. For my part, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. A little exercise, a little banter, and a couple hours spent in Nature - just perfect.
The crack Buckthorn Removal Squad meets again next month on or near the solstice. It was our hope that there would be snow on the ground as this would be the perfect accompaniment to burning the brush piles.
When I got home Piper knew I had been out of the city as she gave me a thorough sniffing.
I removed my boots and prepared to go shopping with a friend. We went to buy picture frames and groceries. In typical fashion, I forgot to bring my list which had needed comestibles and the dimensions of needed frames. This wasn't too big an impediment as I recalled the size of one of the frames I needed and consulted the internet for the other.
As we drove to the supermarket, my friend and I chatted about Christmas. She noted that, from her experiences in Europe, Christmas there is about lights and food and good company versus the endless sales and materialism that characterize the holiday here in the States. I think this was prompted by my observation at the frame store that they had a Black Friday sale going despite being almost a week out from the dreaded shopping day.
Not being a Christian, I don't celebrate Christmas and I am rather ambivalent about it these days. It used to be fun watching my stepsons open their gifts when they were young but they somehow grew up into men. And my divorce has riven the family my wife and I had into splinters, a process that began back in 2016 or 2017, to be honest. After that, Christmas no longer meant getting together with the kids. Then at some point my wife became uninterested in joining me to visit my family in the Chicago area and Christmas devolved into me visiting my family while she visited friends or family. We would convene at some point so I could give her gifts and that was that.
Sadly, I found the last 3 Christmases at home to be rather depressing. I loved spending time with my family in the Chicago area but giving my wife gifts had become rote and largely devoid of meaning for me. I felt as if I was simply feeding her lust for more things and do not recall just being together for any time beyond the opening of gifts. Sharing a meal, perhaps?
I am not expecting to begin any new traditions this Christmas but do expect to miss the days when it was a joyous time spent with the woman I loved. However, it will be nice to not feel any anxiety over finding the right gifts and right number of gifts for a woman from whom I was becoming ever more disaffected. I shall enjoy my trek to Chicagoland followed by some time spent with Piper on the couch. Not particularly celebratory, perhaps, but less stressful than in years past. Maybe my youngest stepson can find some time to spend with his stepfather. Or maybe I shall take a walk in the woods.
Diversion over.
Grocery shopping was a similar experience to that at the frame store as I recalled most of what was on the list and then just improvised. Thanksgiving is approaching and I would be going to two people's homes to overindulge and then I am off to Chicagoland the next day so I didn't really need a whole lot. But I enjoyed being in the company of my friend as she pondered the possibility of rye dinner rolls at Thanksgiving and we engaged in supermarket badinage.
I got home, put away my things, and prepared for my next venture: seeing For Heaven's Sake downtown.
For Heaven's Sake was being screened at the Overture Center's Duck Soup Cinema. A comedy from 1926, it stars Harold Lloyd as J. Harold Manners, a wealthy, if bumbling, man about town.
Duck Soup Cinema is more than just the screening of a silent film. We were treated to the strains of a vintage Grand Barton Organ courtesy of Clark Wilson. He played before the show began as well as providing the soundtrack to the film. The organ at the Capitol Theater dates to 1927 and was built by the Bartola Musical Instrument Company up in Oshkosh. It is one of only three of such organs that remain unaltered from their original manufacture.
The show began with the emcee, Joe Thompson, making some dad jokes to his co-hostess, Alanna Medearis who works for the OC. They introduced Duke Otherwise who played some fun and funny tunes on guitar. He brought up a couple people onstage for one song and invited audience participation for another, asking people to shout out animals to be included in the tune he was performing.
Somehow I had missed Wayne the Wizard elsewhere in the building performing magic tricks for patrons. DSC spares no expense for patrons!
For Heaven's Sake was great fun. It's only my second Harold Lloyd film after Safety Last!. Although Manners has the wealth of Croesus and enjoys being a dandy, he is a good man at heart. And so when he accidentally sets a charity cart afire, he pays the owner, Brother Paul, enough for the man of God to start a mission. One day Manners is aghast that Brother Paul has named the mission after him so he goes down there to correct the situation only to become enamored of the churchman's daughter, Hope.
Their decision to marry draws the ire of the city's elite who kidnap Manners. However, he is rescued by some drunken groomsmen who are denizens of the mission. A long stretch of physical comedy follows as Manners' attempts to get the intoxicated groomsmen back to the mission are foiled by their random behavior including abandoning the driver's seat of a double-decker bus in motion.
For Heaven's Sake was great fun and, just as yesterday's visit to Token Creek Park was my first, I do believe this was my first time at Duck Soup Cinema. But not my last!
On my way out I ran into one of the ladies from the Polish Heritage Club who made some of that nalewka that I sampled earlier in the month along with her beau. We chatted briefly and was told that I would be invited out with them on their next trivia outing. We PHC members take care of our own, doncha know.
The ride home was uneventful despite the bus being well-populated on a Saturday night. When I got to my door, I found that the Beer Fairy has stopped by.
A fine close to a busy but highly rewarding day.
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