Excerpts from Eleven Days in August
1982
It's a cold November wind that is blowing but I pay no attention to it though
I'm dressed in a suit and wear no overcoat. The chill and other reminders of late autumn
and even winter - dead, blowing leaves, brown grass, and a sun low to the horizon - all
seem somehow fitting. It would be wrong, somehow inappropriate, today, to bother with a coat
or to shy from the cold northern wind. I'm here, in Milwaukee, for the second time in just
a few days which is unusual living in Michigan as I do. The year is 1982 and, other than a
couple of days ago, I hadn't been here since August, for the last Fair.
Then, I had a
chance late one afternoon to take her for a short walk. She was feeling well enough that day, had
decided to come to the fairgrounds for a little while. I placed my arm in the crook of hers and
slowly, very slowly, we walked and talked and made our way up Second Street, just as we did way
back in 1959 when we tried to stop the bold relocation plans of grandpa and the cowboy.
But we're relaxed now, no hurry today, couldn't go fast even if we wanted to, which we
don't. Close to her, like this, I smell her unmistakable musky fragrance; it's not from a
bottle nor is it unpleasant, it's just her natural scent, the one I was imprinted with as a
child...as a baby more likely. I'm vaguely aware that people are looking at us, me the young
man in the Mille's T-shirt (I was only in my late 30's then...young is a relative term) and
"the grandma from Mille's", who's also wearing one of our T-shirts, although largely for old-times'
sake. From the corner of my left eye, I see that a woman has stopped and is pointing at us,
whispering to her friend. She is smiling and is obviously touched by the scene. As for me, I'm
simply soaking up the quiet pleasure of the moment, realizing that there are likely few more
such walks in our future ("few," I will learn, is a relative term, too).
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