High Noon On The Moon

   I don’t think I was 10 years old when the Harbor Freeway was just a graded mound of dirt that passed by my house in Gardena. It was paved down to El Segundo a couple of miles north of me up to the beautiful Pasadena Freeway just north of downtown Los Angeles.  

   I would ride sometimes push my Huffy bike, replete with ape hangers and banana seat, up and over that mound tossing packs of firecrackers into the air heralding my arrival to the top. I was King of the Dirt Pile.

   In those days I was spellbound by my ABC’s, Asimov, Bradbury and Clarke. My imagination ran wild and I would often be lost in my hopelessly eternal reverie. Even so, I was acutely aware of my surroundings.

   Lying in the grass watching the clouds roll by I would often get distracted by the sound of a bug crawling through the blades and roll over to investigate.

   At that time I still had a father who cared about me even though my mother and he had been divorced and my mother remarried.

   He’d buy me pretty much anything I asked for, within reason, as he was fairly pragmatic as well as a hardworking man.

   I say fairly pragmatic as I owned no less than 5 different chemistry sets. They ranged from beginner to ATOMIC! (There were limited child protection laws at that time so parents could buy you dangerous chemicals then beat you up if you did anything wrong …in fact YOU as a child could buy dangerous chemicals at the local five and dime! I used to make gunpowder, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story…)

   The house we lived in had been converted into a war dorm for returning soldiers during WWI maybe WWII, I’m not sure but it was old enough to have been fitted with gas piping throughout.

   I had a little kitchenette off my bedroom upstairs with sink and counter and ice block refrigerator. This is where I set up my laboratory!

   Glass tubing, rubber corks on beakers and of course a BUNSEN BURNER!

   It was there in that kitchenette alcove that I first developed my foaming instant paint remover. My only problem was that it also dissolved Formica and linoleum. I was Colin Clive, ‘It’s alive, alive!’

   That particular day it poured swiftly out from the beaker above the blue flame of the burner, a blood colored foam expanding exponentially as it touched the air flowing over the Formica counter top and down my mother’s meticulously painted wall to the linoleum below. It was truly a day of days!

   The wind rustled the curtains as it blew through my bedroom window that balmy afternoon; I was bathed in the glow of the sun. In the distance a barely audible choir was singing.

   I was ecstatic; the purple red foam was everywhere. Suddenly a rapidly moving gnawing thought crawled up my back and into my brain. My mother would soon be home.

   I could hear the half hour toll in the town’s clock tower, ‘Bonnnggg!’ If I was Colin Clive then my mom was Gary Cooper and the inevitable analogy was drawn. It was either strap on my six-shooter or ride out of Dodge, fast. There was danger in the air. I was in danger. The town folk were locking doors and shuttering their windows, they could smell trouble brewing. They knew it and I knew it. It was going to be High Noon on the moon and Gary was going to win.

   She always does!

Wooden Decks, Creeks and Lagoons

   The sun beat down gently as we relaxed on the wooden deck of the old house that was one of many lining the water filled creek that emptied into a small lagoon that flowed into the bay before us.

   We were laughing, the three of us, in no hurry to be anywhere or be anyone. We just were, dreamers on a dreamy day.

    Behind me in the front yard off the deck Geoie busied herself puttering around in the garden or maybe she was hanging clothes on the line, I don’t know, but her voice drifted in and out, sing-songy and pleasantly calming.

    The sky was cloudless and blue as a piece of silk from some far off land. My daughter Leigh sat on the porch leaning back running her fingers through the water and upon the rocky bank of the creek that rose up to the side of the house. The water was clear and slow running, the earth that lay beneath reddish-brown but the creek waters reflected the silky blue sky then turned to green upon entering the lagoon.

    Before us the lagoon was filled with dinghies, a cotillion of lazy boaters rowing to and fro upon the glossy lake under golden sun.

    As Leigh ran her hands on either side of her face pushing back her hair, her freckled white face radiated the blue of the sky and returned to porcelain… I could see she was just like her mother and for a moment appeared as so.

    She had a book on pirates and we perused it together. I looked away towards the lagoon and back and noticed the book in the water floating.

    ‘Hey! Why did you toss the book in the creek?’

    ‘I didn't’

    On further inspection the perceived pages took on the shape of Disney’s Captain Hook and as I reached down to pick it up found it to be now glider shaped with Hooks head forward, the back topside and his arms spread out like wings. His coat was copper and I felt compelled to toss it into the zephyr that blew across the lagoon.

    It took off.

    The three of us looked upon the quickly moving pirate aircraft that zipped swiftly above the water between the crews manning their dinghies in the peaceful lagoon. We heartily laughed.

    As it touched down upon the lagoon it suddenly sped off like a motorboat buzzing across the lake. I was amazed and turning back to my daughter I remarked, ‘hey I want that back’.

    She smiled at me and as I thought about it in that moment, my daughter, Geoie’s lilting voice, the lagoon, the Captain Hook glider and the peaceful day filled with wonder, my vision suddenly fogged without into a cloudy white obscuration… I struggled to focus, to see the grandeur of that day of wonder when I found myself imminently staring, face immersed, at the outside of a pillow as I slowly awoke somewhat disconcerted from my dream yet still fondly deep in introspection.