Stream of Consciousness (#2)

During summer visits to the Delaware shore I occasionally came across a bizarre animal in the surf, the horseshoe crab. It looked like a cross between a horse’s hoof and a bicycle helmet, with a long rigid tail like a spike. The size ranged from a few inches to more than a foot in width. One winter day I drove to a deserted beach and discovered many thousands of horseshoe crabs; some crawling up from the surf, others littering the beach in a scene of carnage, half-eaten by a horde of gulls that rose in protest of my presence. It was that time of the year when these prehistoric survivors crawl from the sea to mate and then are plundered by birds migrating along the Atlantic Flyway. The drama had been repeated annually for millions of years. I stood alone on the beach that cold afternoon; witness to a great, slow cycle that had moved across the face of the earth longer than my own species. I was humbled.

I accompanied my mother to the grocery store one Saturday morning and there, to my delight, was the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. Oscar Meyer himself was seated at a folding table next to the vehicle, signing autographs. I recognized him immediately from the TV commercials, a jolly dwarfish man in a chef’s hat. I had never been so excited. I still have the miniature die-cast Weinermobile he gave me as a souvenir. I am vegetarian now, but if I ever wished I was a wiener it could only be an Oscar Meyer wiener.

I only hunted once in my life. A friend loaned me a shotgun and took me squirrel hunting. We sat on a rock for hours one autumn morning and listened for squirrels that never came. After changing locations three times we finally heard a rusting off in the distance. “There, under those bushes,” he whispered, “shoot when you see the motion.” I saw and I shot. It was a chipmunk. I felt very guilty and I didn’t want to hunt any longer. My friend shot a single squirrel before we left the woods and he dressed it out at my house. After skinning and quartering the carcass he placed it in a bowl of salt water to soak. “Now let soak for at least six hours in the refrigerator then cut it up in pieces and make a stew, you’re going to love it.” After he left my wife asked, “What are you going to do with it?” I buried the squirrel in the back yard after retrieving its skin and tail from the trash. I never hunted again, and I still find it uncomfortable to watch a Chip & Dale cartoon.

While on vacation we passed through a portion of Arkansas where caverns are abundant. Some small caverns on private land were open to the public and advertised by hand-painted signs along the highway. My wife and I stopped at one of these and received a personal tour by the farmer who lived and worked on the land above the caves. We descended a stairway at the back of his garage and into a system of rooms and passages, ending far below in a huge chamber through which flowed an underground river. Fascinating! As we descended I failed to notice my wife’s hand squeezing mine ever more tightly. By the time we arrived at the stream more than four hundred feet below the surface, her grip on me was painful. I noticed her face had no color. She was breathing in a shallow pant; her gaze locked straight-ahead and unfocussed. “Are you alright?” I asked. “Get me out of here,” she said softly. “You’re OK,” I tried to reassure her. “Get me out now!” she shouted in a panic. The farmer said calmly, “There is a short cut this way.” I didn’t know what was happening but I was anxious to return to the surface. As we climbed a winding stairway the farmer continued, “This happens sometimes, no problem, I’ll refund your entrance fee.” I still was clueless. Back at the car her breathing slowed and she gradually regained her composure. “What happened?” I asked. “I’m claustrophobic, everything closed in on me” she replied, embarrassed. “Claustrophobic?” It’s funny how we may think we know someone well yet really not. I had failed to notice her discomfort in elevators, that she closed her eyes when passing through tunnels, that her dislike of airplanes was not because they left the ground but rather that they were small and confining. She never told me, I never noticed. I wonder what new things I will learn about her during our lifetime together.