Vanderpool Crossing
We lit out Friday night heading northeast on highway 20 to Vanderpool Crossing. Sweetie had heard that there was an estate sale going on up there from a friend, who also collected snow globes. She's always had a penchant for the antique ones and in the last few years had taken to collecting pre-WWII globes with Bakelite bases. The woman who died had been her friend's teacher from her grade school days I guess. She had met up with a logging truck repairman and moved into his house near the Okanogan National Forest. It was a hard life after the timber all dried up and the last few years of her life were spent scraping by on her teaching pension and a few items she auctioned off on E-bay. We left Friday night because sweetie wanted to be the first ones there when they opened up Saturday morning.
We spent the night in our sleeping bags in the back of the El Camino looking up at the stars and talking about if Jesus was cool or geek. It was my contention that he was cool cause why else would people follow him around writing down all the stuff he said. Sweetie was thinking no way could anyone "Mystic" from the Middle East be "cool". Ever. At any rate it made a cold night pass a little faster and at 8 a.m. we were parked outside the estate sale, ready to go.
By the time they opened up the doors, Sweetie had already picked out the one she wanted through the living room window. It was an old penguin sitting in a three quarters full globe. Inside they were asking 38 bucks for it but Sweetie talked them down to 30.
She didn't say much on the way home. She just sat staring into the dirty water and the little faded bird. I've never asked her why she likes those things so well, although I'm sure whatever mystery is there, probably isn't too far under the surface. Just scratch a little, bleed a little and any ones life is an open book. Heading home past all that clear-cut though, I don't think I need all of life's answers in a wide-open space anyway. There's a world outside your line of site in every forest I've ever been in and I think Sweetie feels the same way about those snow globes. The mystery is why you read the book, why you get up out of bed everyday.
We got home that afternoon and the boys were just waking up from their naps. After letting the older one shake it and the younger one put it in his mouth, Sweetie put the globe up on the ledge alongside the others. We stood there for a moment watching the snow drift to the bottom of the glass and then took the boys outside to play.
Sweetie found it hard to just let the snow settle though and for the rest of the afternoon she kept going back to the window ledge, shaking it, then watching the dirty snow swirl to the bottom of the glass.
We spent the night in our sleeping bags in the back of the El Camino looking up at the stars and talking about if Jesus was cool or geek. It was my contention that he was cool cause why else would people follow him around writing down all the stuff he said. Sweetie was thinking no way could anyone "Mystic" from the Middle East be "cool". Ever. At any rate it made a cold night pass a little faster and at 8 a.m. we were parked outside the estate sale, ready to go.
By the time they opened up the doors, Sweetie had already picked out the one she wanted through the living room window. It was an old penguin sitting in a three quarters full globe. Inside they were asking 38 bucks for it but Sweetie talked them down to 30.
She didn't say much on the way home. She just sat staring into the dirty water and the little faded bird. I've never asked her why she likes those things so well, although I'm sure whatever mystery is there, probably isn't too far under the surface. Just scratch a little, bleed a little and any ones life is an open book. Heading home past all that clear-cut though, I don't think I need all of life's answers in a wide-open space anyway. There's a world outside your line of site in every forest I've ever been in and I think Sweetie feels the same way about those snow globes. The mystery is why you read the book, why you get up out of bed everyday.
We got home that afternoon and the boys were just waking up from their naps. After letting the older one shake it and the younger one put it in his mouth, Sweetie put the globe up on the ledge alongside the others. We stood there for a moment watching the snow drift to the bottom of the glass and then took the boys outside to play.
Sweetie found it hard to just let the snow settle though and for the rest of the afternoon she kept going back to the window ledge, shaking it, then watching the dirty snow swirl to the bottom of the glass.
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