Goodbyes and Winnie the Pooh

Two chapters remain in The Complete Tales of Winnie the Pooh.
Two evenings remain unscheduled before the grandgirls return
to their side of the world for a year,
perhaps two.
Their first week in the USA,
Anna and I went to Goodwill
and found a EH Shepard stuffed Tigger
(not the Disney Tigger).
Lucy immediately claimed him.
A whisker trim and a good washing--
which made him loopy,
somewhat like his tiger cousin Hobbes--
and he then joined Lucy's foxes
and became a bedtime buddy
and substitute pillow.

The Hundred Acre Wood we created last year
has been often re-explored
from the seat of the four wheeler.
Pooh and Uncle Rabbit are still engrossed
in their long conversation
at the foot of a mid-sized oak.
They stay rrrrrrreally still when the girls pass by.

Presently, Paul and his family are visiting friends in eastern PA
and I am catching up on laundry,
spacing out the loads because
even though we have had lots of rain
the well recovers slowly.
I was rolling towels
(Anyone else do that?)
and putting away clothes--
only four pairs of socks (it IS summer)--
and thinking about Winnie the Pooh.
Lucy's nickname is now "Tig"*
and I wondered which character I am most like.
When in college, I travelled upstate New York as Roo
with my roommate Holly as Uncle Rabbit,
but now I relate to Owl,
who thinks he knows everything
and bluffs when he doesn't.
He spells his name WOL.
I saw Denny as Pooh because he is so faithful and steady.
When asked, Denny agreed that he was Pooh,
but his reasoning was that Pooh sits around a lot
and always likes to have a little something around eleven.

The grandgirls' last day here will be Saturday,
the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Next week we will see the same moon,
just not at the same time.
And while I am having a few Eeyore thoughts,
these Pooh quotes come to mind:

"If there ever comes a day when we can't be together,
keep me in your heart,
I'll stay there forever."

"How lucky I am to have something
that makes saying goodbye so hard."





* Anna has gained a nickname, too.
She is Pip (chawming!)
as we also read Pippi Longstocking 
and James and the Giant Peach
among others.

Bigfoot Sighting

For years, Rockton Mountain has been known 

as a possible home for Bigfoot. 

We first heard of the the possibility over a generation ago 

when a Rockton woman found footprints near her pond 

and, upon further investigation, 

discovered some fish were missing. 

She concluded that this was the work of Bigfoot.

Why?

“Those footprints were an inch deep. 

My husband’s footprints are only a half inch deep 

and he’s a big fella, 

so the thing that made these footprints 

has to be bigger than my husband.”

And so it began.

A man returning from a New Year’s Eve party 

briefly saw something in his headlights. 

Bigfoot? 

One has to wonder what else he saw on the way home, 

but that same night, 

a woman who had NOT been drinking 

also saw an unidentified something in her headlights.

Later, a local jogger saw an unidentified creature cross the highway. 

Could it be a bigfoot?

Half-eaten roadkill?

Bigfoot.

Peculiar smell? 

Bigfoot.

Damage in your garden?

You guessed it. 

Bigfoot.

Even though primatologist Jane Goodall 

supports the possibility 

of the yet-unconfirmed ape-like creatures, 

we remained skeptical.

Over the Mountain restaurant, 

a mile from our house, 

advertised an upcoming meeting 

of The Bigfoot Society. 

We smiled condescendingly when we drove by 

and declined to attend.

And then the mystery invaded our lives.

At 2:20 on June 4, 2019, 

we were driving down the mountain 

toward the Anderson Creek bridge 

when I saw the silhouette of a bent over old man 

waiting to cross route 322. 

Behind him was the Moshannon State Forest, 

and in front of him, where he must have parked his car, 

was a spring at the bottom of a very steep, rocky mountainside. 

I watched him walk quickly and furtively across the highway. 

It looked like he was carrying something. 

I assumed he had picked up something that had blown from his vehicle— 

the day before I had watched a man 

retrieve an errant propane tank— 

but I could not see his vehicle 

as the highway curved and obscured my view. 

In ten seconds we reached the spring at the bottom of the mountain, 

but when we got there, 

there was NO vehicle. 

There was NO old man,

and there is NO WAY that a human could 

climb that mountainside in ten seconds.

“Whoa!” I said.

“Whoa what?” said Denny.

“I saw an old guy cross the road 

and then he just disappeared... 

I can understand why some people believe in Bigfoot 

because I have NO IDEA how to explain what I just saw.”

“Are you sure you didn’t see a deer?”

My vision is not what it once was, 

but I know a deer when I see one.

“Deer have four legs. What I saw was on two legs, bipedal.”

I enthusiastically continued to think about 

and then discard possible explanations 

until Denny reminded me that it was possible to think silently, 

a subtle suggestion.

When we saw friends that night, 

I told them of my Bigfoot sighting.

They smiled skeptically but admitted, 

if anyplace around here would have a bigfoot population, 

it would be on Rockton Mountain. 

Mary Kay listened attentively, 

then asked, “Are you sure it wasn’t a bear?”

I assured her that the creature was walking on two legs,

but later that night, eyes wide open, 

I contemplated her remark again

and padded downstairs 

to enter “bear walk two legs” in a search engine. 

Up came a video of a bear walking on two legs.

It. Moved. Exactly. Like. My. Bigfoot.

I phoned a friend, a retired Penn State Wildlife professor, 

and asked him if a bear would walk across a highway on two legs. 

“That would be highly unusual,” he responded, 

“but it is possible...”

So now I think my Bigfoot sighting 

was really a highly unusual bear 

crossing the highway on two feet. 

Two big feet. 

But I could be wrong.

Dinosaur Bob, Glaciology, and Micah 6:8

It is a frosty morning here on the mountain 

and Dinosaur Bob is worried.

Weeks after we trekked down the road to Punxsutawney 

to hear the groundhog prognosticate an early spring, 

the snow remains. 

The robins are two weeks late.

The daffodil noses are still buried.

While waiting,

I am reading David McCullough’s book 

Brave Companions: Portraits in History. 

It contains chapter biographies of remarkable people. 

Theodore Roosevelt. 

Miriam Rothchild. 

Frederick Remington. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

I was particularly struck by the lives 

of Alexander von Humboldt and his friend Louis Agassiz.

Agassiz studied rocks in Switzerland’s Aar Valley

and first voiced the scientific opinion of Ice Ages,

that the Alps region had experienced prolonged periods

of being covered by vast glaciers 

whose retreats scoured the bedrock.

When Agassiz moved to America to lecture at Harvard, 

he found similar evidence there of prior Ice Ages. 

Agassiz is now known as the Father of Glaciology.

He loved to justify his opinions 

of science and nature

and his talks were packed with fascinated listeners.

We also love to give our opinions—

just ask us, we’ll tell you!

But last week our friend  

asked for opinions on Facebook 

and I had trouble answering.

She wrote

“What historical figure (not current) 

was not as great as people have thought?”

My mind went immediately to Louis Agassiz, 

as further Wikipedia reading informed me 

that his name had been removed from a Boston school 

when his interpretation of science 

did not line up with some current thought.

How easily he was dismissed!

One of my major memories of college 

was sitting in Ethics class 

listening to the prof go through a list of philosophers— 

“(Insert philosopher’s name here) 

believed 

(Insert philosophy in twenty-five words or less here), 

and this is why he’s wrong: 

(Insert current opinion here.)” 

One of my classmates asked, 

“These are among the greatest minds on the planet; 

who are YOU to dismiss them so quickly?” 

BAM. 

Over the passing decades, 

I have often thought of his words, “Who are YOU…?”

when someone is dismissive 

(often me).

I looked again at the Facebook post. 

Commenters offered the names of flawed people:

Thomas Jefferson.

Lincoln. 

Mother Teresa.

Gandhi.

JFK.

Winston Churchill.

Mister Rogers had not made the list. Yet.

Hmmmm. What IS my opinion?

I immediately thought of Abraham

and how Sarah encouraged him to sleep with Hagar.

How that one act has changed the world!

Obviously, King David would be a candidate

for the Bathsheba Incident.

Then I heard my classmate’s words:

Who are you?

and I responded by quoting another friend:

“None of us are as good—

or as bad—

as others think we are.”

But the question continued to bother me

and I woke in the middle of the night 

to unload my brain on paper:

“Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Is that language sexist? 

And how far do we go to remedy the translation?

“Hindsight is 20-20.”

We are all influenced by our culture, 

our century, 

our personal stories, 

our belief systems.

We make decisions based on these things.

I look at decisions in history

and recognize that some 

WERE made strictly for selfishness 

and evil purposes, 

but that many decisions have been made

believing information whose faultiness was later exposed.

People have been tasked with making decisions

while being ignorant of important information. 

These people made decisions 

without knowing what the side effects might be.

They were trying their utmost to make their best guess. 

Examples could include plastics,

fertilizer,

the reaction to 9-11,

dynamite,

hand sanitizer,

genetic modification, and

the post-WW II drawing of national boundaries.

We all, hopefully, try to make our best guess 

with the information we have.

We need to hope the future will forgive us our sins,

known and unknown,

as we forgive those who sin against us.

If we cannot gather information 

and then make our best guess,

how are we not paralyzed to make any decision?

Denny recently didn’t notice a stop sign on a quiet street.

When I brought this up,

he responded, “That was one time. 

Don’t you remember all the times I have done things right?” 

I make plenty of mistakes all the time.

I am a fallen creature in a fallen world.

So are you.

I hope I am not remembered for my sins. 

I need to apologize

for things I have done that I should not have done, 

like the Tuxedo Incident 

and things I have not done that I should have done,

like listening with both sides of my brain

and speaking up.

I am often more pursuant of logic than of love. 

Should I also apologize for the mistakes of others?

I recently did that for the first time. 

When someone told a story of being verbally stung 

by an opinionated, self-righteous person, 

I apologized to her on behalf 

of opinionated, self-righteous people everywhere.

Should I also apologize on behalf of mothers? 

Teachers? 

Christians?

North Americans? 

When does “water under the bridge” come into play?

I have been a questioner all my life.

Want to get the teacher off the subject? 

Ask me.

Need someone to ask what everyone is thinking? 

I’ll do it!

For years, our car had the bumper sticker “Question Authority.”

Yet Corinthians tells us, “All things are lawful 

but not everything is beneficial.”

There are times when questions don’t aid in healing.

Sometimes we can tell when that is happening.

And sometimes not.

We try to live our lives by the quote

Err on the side of compassion,

and Micah 6:8,

Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly.

If we have wronged you, 

we are sorry.

Please remember us with compassion.