Salmagundi

Salmagundi (noun)

1. a mixed salad of many ingredients, such as meat, poultry, fish, and vegetables, arranged in rows on a platter.
2. a mixture or miscellany


I love this word. The first time I came into its company was through the name of a restaurant, a high end soup kitchen really, in San Francisco right across the street from the Geary and Curran Theatres and adjacent to the building that housed the ACT Acting Conservatory which I attended from 1976 through 1978. Most every day I’d visit Salmagundis and I’d be at a table or booth going over a scene while I feasted on one of their 3 soup selections of the day (English Country Cheddar Cheese was one of my faves!) or I could be very spare and Bohemian and just have an apple with a thick slice of cheese. (Cheese often factors heavily in my diet. What can I say, I’m from the Midwest.) It was a warm, welcoming, clattery place, lots of bustle and traffic. Years later I discovered that it wasn’t just a restaurant name, but a fantasticly colorful word in its own right. Salmagundi. It sounds like an Italian street festival to me. I conjured it up from my memory because its second definition embraces the spirit of today’s blog.

Dusk thoughts

Just down from a walk up our hill where the wild strawberries are in bloom along the path and all through the meadow. It reminds me of long ago hot spring days in Fort Wayne walking to elementary school and feasting on the wild strawberries that grew in abundance in the fields along the way, fields that year by year would disappear for new houses being built in our development. Oh! I just remembered it was summer solstice tonight. (Or is it tomorrow night? I can never get that straight.) Either way its still cool. Very New England. At the top of the rise, surrounded by tall meadow grass that looked flocked, I looked out on the gorgeous view of the Green Mountains at the top and it looked almost exactly like the book cover for “Cold Mountain.” A little less blue, though. Much much more green.

The frogs are making cartoon gulping noises across the road on the pond and way off in the woods there’s the sad song of a thrush. He sound so alone and lost. Someone’s mowing their lawn Again, memories of Indiana suburbs on weekends in the summer when everyone decided to mow their lawns as the light started to fade from the day.

The Geese

Ginger, Mary Ann, and the 6 Canadians. 8 More Reasons I Love Living in Vermont. That must bring the Official count up to around 26. Counting them in has all been inspired by Ginger and Mary Ann’s dogged efforts to be let into the fold, the “inner goose” circle and I think they’ve succeeded. This odd and motley salmagundi of geese go everywhere together – swimming out on the pond, promenading up our driveway, out munching together in the orchard. I watch it and I almost tear up; my lower lip literally protrudes. Our sweet geese have melted the hearts of those stoic, wild Canadian Geese. The adults even let Ginger and Mary Ann lie right next to their goslings. Amazing.

Ginger and Mary Ann are a trip. If we haven’t been outside in awhile, they will come up on our porch or side door and honk for us to come out and play and the second we come out they scurry away “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” They’re big teases. They can also leave big green surprises on our porch, but that’s another story. But speaking of that story I have found a new technique to zap away the goose droppings around the yard and side of the pond! I turn on the hose full blast and use the “jet” stream nozzle to pulverize the poop to kingdom come. It disappears right into the grass. Now isn’t that interesting? I sound like I’m in a commercial, a spokesperson for a brand new fertilizer: Goose Green.

1979 Bike Ride – The Best Man

I haven’t checked in for awhile on the 30 years ago trek. A lot had happened. I had visited relatives in Owensboro and Beaver Dam, Kentucky, had camped a couple other places and was now in the damp humidity of Trenton, Tennessee where I was visiting my great Aunt Nona and Uncle Jim, my favorite of my dad’s aunts and uncles. Aunt Nona and Uncle Jim would always have the liquor at family get togethers which often came in handy in the south because many times events would take place in “dry counties.” Aunt Nona and Uncle Jim were never deterred. Aunt Nona was genteel, a southern purr to her voice, and Uncle Jim was raucous, one of the best joke tellers I’ve ever come across. His were the stories that would wind on forever with ever interesting side roads along the way. It was the journey not the punch line that was the highlight to these off color delights. He’d tell these stories and then he and Aunt Nona would group around their piano and sing hymns. An interesting juxtaposition. It was a slower pace there, things lingered. You’d never eat before 8 which was unheard of for my family. This would be the last time I would see them. They were most hospitable and so happy I’d wanted to stop by in the midst of my adventure. They had both recently had heart bypass surgery and were on the mend and doing well. Uncle Jim claimed that they hadn’t sewn him up correctly and he laughed long and hard when he told me to give him my hand and placed it on his sternum. Every time he took a breath the bones in the middle front of his rib cage would click-clack apart. I pulled my hand back as if I’d had an electrical shock and Uncle Jim cracked up.

While visiting there it came time, as I mentioned earlier, for me to be Best Man at the wedding of the first man I ever slept with. The wedding wasto be in Champagne, Illinois, so I caught a Greyhound bus in Trenton and traveled north. It felt like stepping out of “Roughing It” and into the pages of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. Right off the bus, I was whisked into tuxedo fittings (I’d sent my measurements in May when I had agreed to take part in the ceremony). There followed quick introductions, rehearsals, etc, closely followed by drinking, drugging, and all around Great Gatsby hedonism with old and new friends. Most of it was great fun, but there was some careful maneuvering around a minefield of weird behavior. The night before the wedding – a big Jewish affair – the bride to be went off to spend one last night at her parent’s house and I stayed with the “first man” – we’ll call him “Jeffrey.” Jeffrey surprised me by saying he wanted to sleep together one last time. Now, this was the ‘70’s and I was 24 and frisky and still attracted to him, but still, it was just too bizarre. The night before? “Why are you getting married, Jeffrey” I asked. No answer; he just smiled an inscrutable smile. We managed to get through the night without going to bed with one another and without a huge amount of uncomfortability, but still it was strange. And sad because I felt in some way, arrangement or no arrangement, Jeffrey was denying he was gay. I think both he and his wife were well aware of the fact and they were going along with it anyway. It smacked of another time. And Jeffrey - so beautiful in an androgynous kind of way I’ve always been a sucker for - was starting to gain weight. At that time it was hardly noticeable, just the beginnings of a paunch, but the last I heard of him he was very heavy. Strange, strange, strange.

Despite all this bit of sturm und drang, the wedding turned out to be a blast. Both families welcomed me wholeheartedly and everyone was treated like royalty. By this time in the ride I’d grown a beard, my hair (I had MUCH more hair then) was bleached out from the sun, and I was ruddy tan. It was surreal going from shorts and sneakers and no shirt to a fitted grey tuxedo and cravat, gallivanting over country club golf course in golf carts filled with champagne, having a joint or two on the 17th Hole, but it was wicked fun.

Soon, all too soon, I was back on the bus headed back south having to pinch myself and ask if that all had really happened. It had and it had been a fantastic break from the pedaling. I spent one more day with Aunt Nona and Uncle Jim. The next day thunderstorms were predicted, but I wanted to get back on the road unless it was really horrible. I planned to take off at daybreak around 5 or so and Aunt Nona said that was a little too early for her, so I bid farewell and much love to both of them, giving them a hug good night. The next morning I looked outside and lightning was lacing the sky, but no rain. I got myself together and tip-toed through the house, heading out through the kitchen to the garage where my bike was waiting, fully packed. When I got to the kitchen, though, there was Uncle Jim in his bath robe at the stove, spatula in hand, frying me up a couple eggs. I almost burst out crying. It was so dear of him. He said something about me having to have a good breakfast for the road. He was spry and good humored, a warm smile, so caring. I wonder if he knew we wouldn’t see one another again? After the breakfast, he walked me out to the front. The sky had an eerie light to it, completely clouded over, but bright, bright, with periodic flashes of lightning. Very theatrical. And it was so still, the air thick with moisture. He might’ve asked me if I was sure I wanted to leave, that I was welcome to stay. I thanked him, but said I wanted to give it a try. He wished me God speed and I took off. I remember him standing there in his bathrobe in that bright, eeire light, waving. The day would hold a lot of rain and delays that day, but the memory of him in the kitchen fixing me breakfast kept a smile on my face and a warmth in my heart.

Back to now on the porch.

It’s dark, peepers going to town. Sofia’s been grappling up the screens after moths on the outside of the screened-in porch. She doesn’t quite get that they seem to be there, but there not when she leaps up to get them. I had to banish her to the inside before she clawed holes. All the birds are “cooped up.” Did I tell you that Nanna, our broody hen, just hatched 7 chicks? Yes. Richard had an exotic mix of eggs mailed to him a while back and Nanna sat on them and warmed them to life. They all have the coloring of chipmunks, too cute for words peeping out the bottom of Nanna’s feathers as if she were putting on a tiny puppet show.

Just as the light was beginning to fade tonight, I got a loud honk from over at the pond from either Ginger or Mary Ann. Their chirpy voices are changing and the honks can be quite loud. This one echoed off the fir trees. They were out on the pond with the Canadians, having a nice swim round, but I swear the honk was “It’s getting dark, isn’t it?! It’s time you put us in our shelter, right? Get with the program.” (Yes, all that in one honk.) So I got up and walked out to the break in the stone wall where they like to waddle up the bank from the pond and when they got to the top, we all raced across the front lawn together, me laughing, and the 2 of them close behind with their wings flapping and their little webbed feet going flat-footed for all they were worth. They’re fast now! Royce was out in his garden tending to his peonies (which are gorgeous and which he generously and often gives us) and he saw our wild goose chase and chimed in “That looks like fun.” It was.

Good night. I hope your day was a miscellany of wonderful things.