Life On a Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

318

This is a left ear, right? That bit yesterday about firecrackers going off in one's hand as one cocks the arm back, preparatory to the throw, took me back. I was about twelve, living in Seattle, and of course all of us had to have purloined firecrackers (a small cache, anyway) and find a place to shoot them off unobserved, or where alarmed neighbors wouldn't call the police. (This was back in the days when, if you called the police, they came the same day.) It was along a private drive leading off of Magnolia Blvd.

So I cocked my young arm and prepared to throw, but the cracker went off in my hand, or rather fingertips. I didn't get a burn (don't know why, but I did get a persistent ringing in my right ear. I thought not much about it; it lasted a few days.

That is when my deafness began, I now recognize.

Then, while in the Army, on the dreaded firing range, where all soldiers must "qualify" annually, there was in place a method of "coaching," where one soldier lay at right angles to the one who was firing, and made sure he didn't point his weapon at, say, his company commander, which was an imperative no-no.

We all wore steel pots over our helmet liners, and the sound from the fired M1 caromed back into helmets with resounding force. My ear(s) rang for days afterwards. When I was discharged (separated, it was called tellingly), I told the doctor in charge of our final physical that I couldn't hear too well. He shrugged it off and I was a civilian again.

Five years later I was working for Boeing in a factory area, white collar. The factory clanged all day long but provided no specific grievance. All the same, I was given a Boeing hearing exam. I don't know how I did, but it was written into my record; by now, of course, the paper has turned to powder, and, besides, I don't really have a claim to file. But I do have a pair of expensive hearing aids. Like most of them, they don't work well enough for me to want to wear them.

On my right side I am deaf as a stone. Perhaps this is why I don't attend many meetings and write blogs and journals and articles and books. Thank goodness for closed-captioned TV movies.

I mean, who cares, besides my old self? Nobody, and that is how it should be. But the kid next door, cocking  his arm to throw an Indian firecracker (nobody else can sell them), brings the whole thing back from the veiled mists where it has appropriately resided, all these years. And I understand a little more why I am the way I am.

A bit weird, in certain directions.

317

Ah, the Fourth (of July). Thanks goodness it is past. At the lake it is a big occasion for some--those with children. And for parents who are big children themselves. The rest of us dread it.

The local Indians make a lot of money selling year-round fireworks, which can only be shot off in some parts of the state, namely, Washington. They also sell tax-free cigarettes and liquor, but have no gambling casino . . . yet. But I digress. . . .

I have to admit, the denizens pretty well contained themselves until, O, about ten in the morning. (Not so the following morning, which began with a BANG that not entirely disappeared from the night before, tapering off about 2:30 AM.)

Bottle rockets are something new to me. They start off with a disarming soft whistle, then whiz overhead, and explode with a startling bang. A beer bottle makes a good base for the rocket, which is attached to a little wire stalk, much like a flower. Kids and Dads ignite the bottle rocket with a punk (no pun unintended) and dash back a small distance, in case the thing misfires and nails you detrimentally.

Now, firecrackers are ubiquitous. The Chinese and some others ignite them in string fashion and they form a fuselage of tiny, sharp explosions. Or else they can be lit off a punk (your next door neighbor?), the arm cocked behind the ear, and the firecracker thrown a short distance. (Short, I say, because it has no weight.)

Here they throw them out over the lake which, if done incorrectly, are snuffed out by the water much in the manner that Macbeth was born. Early, that is. Or else, as intended, the explode over the water, startling the fish in a similar manner in which, on land, they startle dogs.

Or neighbors to the East put their small terrier-type dogs in cages, then into a closet, for the duration. We close ours inside, but they roam free in a copious downstairs multi-purpose room--my studio and TV station. I play the music loud, and it partly drowns out the exploding rockets overhead.

Some of those must be expensive, since they equal in complexity and firepower what I've seen in commercial fireworks display, such as Seattle has every year in multiple locations. Three to five booms of ascending strength and each bearing a bright flowery explosion.

It still gets dark late, and many small children doze off before the show reaches its zenith. Annually I guess this to be about ten PM, but it is actually later. Midnight is still dense and loud. And by one AM we agree that it is tapering off, but still too early to put the dogs in their kennel. They have weathered their normal going-to-bed time and are into what corresponds in dogs to rapid-eye-movement.

Wish that we were, but that happy time in two hours yet away. We lie abed, listening to the cacophony of bottle rockets, as our dogs whine and alarm bark, and then finally all four of us fall nervously asleep.

It is over for another year, and I have to remind myself that I must try harder next year to be a good American.

316

Since so many have asked, "How do you catch perch?" I've decided to pass along my magic summertime formula. It involves a float, a split-shot, and a smallish hook.

"Take an ordinary-sized angle worm and, with sharp kitchen scissors, divide it into six equal parts. . . ."

Hey, come back here!

 
Novelist Edna O'Brien, in a photo taken about 30 years ago.
Some babe, eh?

315

What is it about you Irish writers? You can't stand Ireland. First it was Jimmy Joyce, who fled to Paris, Trieste, etc., and never returned. But spent the rest of his short life writing about--what else?--Ireland. Obsessedly.

Now Edna O'Brien, who escaped to London, years ago. Well, thought I, there still is William Trevor. Irish to the core, living in the old country, writing about small town Irish in their timeless ways.

A recent short story by Trevor in The New Yorker reports that he resides in  . . . Dover.

Ah will The Troubles never end? I think not.

314

Sign along State Highway 530 (Washington) reads, "Kangaroo Petting Zoo, Two Miles."

Uh, maybe some other time.

Robert Arnold, Editor
rcarnold@direcway.com