Thankfully , our farm doesn’t want for water. Through it run headwaters of the Harihokake Creek. Say that three times fast ! Surely the Lenapes did, and it was their tongue-twister name in the first place.

These “creeks” are commenced at four or five locations from springs here on the farm. I would posit that these springs are near magical. In their chosen spots, they bubble up from the ground, cold, crystal clear, and flow to one of three tributary streams that also flow across the farm.

Near and dear to our hearts is a juncture where these streams join, then exit the farm as one further downstream to join the Harihokake which shortly finds the Delaware.

A grove of Beech trees populate the area on the farm where the three streams meet. This inspired spot prompted me to write the poem in my book , A.T.C. , who left carved evidence of his visit here 112 years ago.

Ponder the waterways just described and multiply by Lord knows how many times to appreciate the tributaries that feed one river. No wonder Washington had such a chore getting across it !

I’m uncertain how we skipped into the conversation, Judy and I. You know how chats proceed sometimes. Something is said that evokes something else. It flits from one thing to another . Then you have no idea how you spent the last few moments talking about something else.

In this evening ‘s case, I noted to Jude that I used to churn butter every Friday night as a kid. Yeah, I guess that is something else.

In fact, I wondered aloud to Judy… How many folks in Hunterdon County are talking this evening about their old butter churning days. Hundreds, right ? Well, maybe not.

“Sounds like you had one free-wheelin’ social life”, Jude noted, just a tad cynically.

“Just because I churned butter on Friday nights doesn’t mean that I was a social outcast”, I countered.

The fact was, Dad had an egg route on Saturday, peddling the dozens in the hoity toitier neighborhoods of Somerset County.

Some of you corporate types might refer to Dad’s butter on his egg route as a “line extension “.

Oh well. I wonder if today the whole butter thing would have been allowed. Surely some little law would preclude it today. Don’t you think ?

These guys were the best, the funniest.

It occurs to me that the most recent generations won’t know these guys. They’ve been gone for a while now, but they were hysterically funny in their day.

Jackie Gleason’s comedic legacy seems well-protected. Every New Year’s Day his old comedy series, The Honeymooners , is played the day long on one of the TV networks. The show is politically incorrect in a delightful way.

Occasionally Gleason, playing Ralph Kramden, a paycheck to paycheck bus driver in Brooklyn, is arguing with Alice, his wife.

With fist clenched, he exhorts ,” One of these days, Alice . Bang zoom! To the moon.

The audience quite understood his ridiculous bluster.

Some aren’t aware, but Jackie Gleason also did a weekly comedic variety show back in the sixties. Part of his repertoire on that show was pantomime. He was masterful at it. He was once asked why that show was so consistently successful. Gleason unceremoniously replied,

“Because it was funny .”

Nothing like cutting to the chase !

The variety show commenced with a dramatic announcement: ” From the sun and fun Capitol of the World, Miami Beach, we bring you the Jackie Gleason Show.!”

Drum roll . Orchestra.

The opening of the curtain was ushered by Sammy Spear and his orchestra. It then faded to the introduction of Gleason himself , who then commenced a monologue. Not but a few seconds into it, he perfected his classic double take.

The garishly-dressed Sammy Spear momentarily compelled Gleason’s attention. The audience loved Spear’s multi-colored, patchwork jackets. Gleason stared for a moment, then would say something along these lines :

“Why that looks like a bowl of Pastafazoo ! ”

Gleason then sat down . Preparatory to his monologue he was served coffee by two scantily clad ladies who then faded backstage, but not before his ingratiating acknowledgement of their compelling good looks.

These few seconds of the show were mostly non-verbal inflections in Gleason’s face; inference as to his present thoughts.

“Thank you,” he’d say to his ladies, “You may go.”

His initial sip of the coffee was classic.

“WOW”, he would exclaim. “Just how could anything compare ?”

Such comment was, of course, still tied to his disappearing starlets who’d just served him the coffee.

(Laughter and applause).

Weekly, the audience celebrated these slapstick openings . They were funny.

Repetitive, week after week, but endearing

I’d love to hear the debate between those in the know. Who was the better pantomime artist ? Jackie Gleason or Red Skelton ?

One of Skelton’s funniest skits was in the earliest days of the transistor radio. While hoeing in his garden, he stooped down and his radio accidentally fell out of his pocket. Fast forward a few months . While harvesting, he discovered a pumpkin that played music when handled.

Who imagined this stuff, anyway ? Pulling it off took talent. Skelton had it. Gleason too.

Both were icons of their time.

Sometimes you need listen very carefully. Other times it is a tumultuous uproar. Last night it was the later.

There is a certain order to it, though. It commences with the coyotes. There is no exact hour in the darkness, but it is of their choosing.

I venture to guess that I hadn’t been at slumber for terribly long before our dog, Echo, started barking at a very audible pitch. Echo was awoken by the coyotes, so she thought she’d awaken me.

So I listened for a while. Why not ? I was awake now. Guessing distance became the order of the black night. How far away were those dastardly beasts ?

Was the shrill of a fox somehow magically in the mix ? All of the sounds offered a quizzical canine mixture tonight.

I guessed that Echo’s pen is +/- a hundred feet from the bedroom. That was easy. Now, how far is Echo from the howling coyotes ?… a more difficult calculation, indeed.

That mournful cry is designed to pique the imagination. It creates an elusive puzzle in the darkness. Distance becomes part of the overall phantasm.

How distant ? Ah, the blinding vicissitudes of night, further obscured by the coyote’s howl. Who is to ever know ?

Alas, they may be closer than you think !

It’s called Rhapsody In Reverse a la Corona.

What lovely music it is!

The local ShopRite stores are opening early for folks 65 and older.

Judy trotted out bright and early this morning to take advantage of uncrowded grocery shopping. She was stopped at the door by a sentry.

“Excuse me Ma’am,” he demurred at the entrance. “I’ll need proof that you’re 65 or older.”

Well, wasn’t this a new twist ?!

Isn’t quizzing a woman about her age some sort of forbidden taboo ?

Regardless, at 70ish , Judy didn’t really mind.

What might be a more unsettling contemplation would be the last time she was carded at the door of a saloon !

Our democracy is being tested ! The president has deferred to the individual states to chart their own course to navigate through the pandemic quagmire. It’s surely not a ‘one size fits all ‘ solution for each state .

Hats off to our founders for sufficient instinct to foresee such circumstance.

The system certainly doesn’t kick in without a few chinks in the armor. Take Texas, for example. The shutdown there has recently disallowed a young mother to work in the hair salon that she owns. That wouldn’t be so much of a problem for her if she didn’t have hungry kids to feed.

Civilly disobedient, she did what she had to do. She opened her salon for business.

For doing that, she was apprehended by police and brought before a local court judge.

Via the telecast of the court proceedings, the judge gave the impression of being a tad irascible and flippant , surely heavy-handed. He sentenced the woman to 7 days in jail for her non-compliance and refusal to apologize to him.

Given the local outcry of protest over the judge’s action, the woman was soon released from jail. She gave an emotional statement to the gaggle of reporters who awaited her release.

It is interesting to observe how the states function when a normally federal function is offloaded to them. They seem to bungle a bit. Surely they did in Texas.

I’m not sure what to make of this. Surely there’s a touch of the subliminal in the message.

Pardon me while I look over my shoulder, but in the last two days an odd bit of circumstance caught up with me. Two friends on two different occasions brought two different country tunes to my attention, both about old men.

I’m fairly versed in country music, but I’ll admit to not being familiar with either of them. Maybe that’s part of being an old man , but hop onto your Spotify app and see if you enjoy both : Old Man From the Mountain, Merle Haggard and Don’t Let The Old Man In, Toby Keith.

Thank you both friends for including me in the loop, but remember. When I come knockin’ , don’t let the old man in.

A fox and a coyote were walking down the road.

Tell me that doesn’t sound like the opening line of a joke !

What might the next line be ?

The fox says to the coyote, “So, are you gonna be howling tonight ?”

I can only wish that I had been on the Writer’s Perch this afternoon when it happened. Nevertheless, my seat wasn’t bad ; looking through the French Doors, down onto the lane as two coyotes sauntered leisurely by. They were in no particular hurry, even though in broad daylight . Coyotes, as you know, quite prefer the darkness of night.

The scene, though, was evocative of a cartoon. It is not unusual to see two walkers, human that is , on the road engrossed in conversation . I just couldn’t help but assign animal conversation to the screenplay.

In lockstep, the coyotes , also, looked as though they could have been in a meaningful chat. What could they have been saying ?

“Nah . I think I’ll pass tonight. When you’ve been around as long as I have, ya come to realize this howlin’ only gets ya so far.”

The plot thickens. Just as the coyotes divert off the lane and into the woods, a single fox walks up the lane in the same direction as the coyotes. I say single, meaning only that there was one, not that the fox was unbetrothed.

What on Earth could be going on here ? At this juncture our dog, Echo, had scented the activity and assumed a crouched position mid-way down the driveway leading to the lane.

I told her, be careful. Those two coyotes could kick her ass ! The fox, in the meantime, seemed a lover, not a fighter. He continued his jaunt.

I wondered, was some sort of confluence in the offing ? A convention of sorts somewhere up the lane ? They are all canines , you know. I love to remind people of that when they insist that their dog must sleep in their bedroom or it will expire . ButI digress.

It then occurred to me. Perhaps I’d been sequestered too long ! Was I lockdown loco ? Or, just too many episodes of Wild Kingdom ? Do coyotes get Corona?

I digress further !

Having coffee this A.M., my wife and I discussed an upcoming trip to a grandchild’s college graduation. That, in and of itself, is sobering.

Drilling down on the details, we needed to know the distance between Oxford, Ohio and Nashville, Tennessee. Not skipping a beat, Jude addressed Siri on her cell phone to request that information. Siri instantly advised that it was 304 miles.

The thought occurred to me as to how casually that most recent portion of the conversation had unfolded. After all, it was not between two people. It was between Jude and a tiny device that she held in her hand.

That was seemingly no longer remarkable, much less astounding. The device was just simply party to the conversation. No big deal. Never mind that a tiny smidgen of time ago, that reality would have been unthinkable.

Will there come a time then, in few ages hence, when coffee time conversation is between us and our device? I’m hard pressed to believe that we’ll have to wait til 2525 for that to happen!

It wasn’t ever going to be Johnny Cash’s #1 Hit, but Egg Suckin’ Dog did grace the cover of one of his more obscure albums way back when. The tune lamented the nasty habit of his dog that would raid his hen house.

“If he don’t stop eatin’ my eggs up

Though I’m not a real fat guy,

I’m going to take my rifle and send him

To that great chicken house in the sky. ”

By now I’ll assume that you’re wondering where I’m going with this . Here I thought it would be obvious… Jude and I have an egg suckin’ dog !

It goes like this : I’m seated atop the Writer’s Perch the other day when I unglue my eyes from my iPad enough to see our dog, Echo, rummaging around in the Pachysandra. I am aware that two wild ducks, Mr. & Mrs. Mallard, are inhabiting the pond that is overseen from the Perch.

I am further aware that Mrs. Mallard has chosen to nest in that Pachysandra.

Not liking what I was seeing, I yelled to get Echo’s attention. I knew it was a bad situation when she paid no mind to my shouts. That dog was singularly focused near the spot of the duck’s nest.

Relegated to near immobility on the Perch, it wasn’t as though I could race after her. It was too late anyway.

Presently she trotted by the Perch, obviously with egg #1 in her mouth. Up by the garage, I listened helplessly as egg shells cracked. Our egg suckin’ dog returned eight times to Mrs. Mallard’s nest !

The next day, the Mallards no longer adorned the surface of the pond. Sadly, they must have flown to other waters. We’ll miss them. Mr. Mallard’s colors are truly magnificent.

Surely there is always leveling circumstance. In her pen, Echo had a night of wretched sickness. Will she know better than to do this next year ? In all likelihood, no.