Rarefied Air
Mark Twain had a wonderful story about Uncle Lem who was under a scaffold with his dog, sick or drunk or something. An Irishman was up about the third floor with a hod of bricks. His foot slipped and down he came, bricks and all. He hit a stranger and knocked the everlasting aspirations out of him. It broke the fall and saved the life of the Irishman.
People asked, “Why warn’t the dog appointed?”
Twain replied, “Because the dog would have seen him a-coming. You can’t hit a dog with an Irishman.”
In an unrelated incident, Paul, Ruth’s father had a haystack fall on him just as he was putting a bale on the tailgate of his pickup. It pinned him against the tailgate, broke his leg, a couple of ribs and almost smothered him. He knew it was going to happen an instant before… he saw the dog look up and run back. It was a week before our wedding and Ruth’s brother Glen walked her down the aisle.
They say Graestone was a TB sanitarium before it burned in 1927. Colfax was known for its good air. Every time we drive home from the valley, I say, “Ah, the rarefied air.” We are so glad we didn’t by the Grey Partridge place in Auburn or the Hillsdale place in Meadow Vista; we landed in Colfax. Colfax has rarefied air.
We like to walk in the rarefied air, to get the mail and newspaper. The trip down the driveway takes us under the tree with the “toomah”, which seems to be sagging since the snow. We walk on the far side of the driveway when we pass under it.
Ruth’s cat, Herkimer, is ancient and the last few years in Madera she laid by the back door and wheezed. Poor Herk. She drank great quantities of water, sneezed and wheezed and laid around. In the rarefied air of Colfax, Herk has revived. Don’t get me wrong; Herk still old and wheezes and sneezes but Herk is absolutely lively. She began to venture about. Her first stop was the barn where I park the motor home, so I had to make sure I locked her out of that.
As the days go by the cat seems to be stronger and stronger. Now she walks almost all the way down to the mailbox with us. She wheezes and weaves around, sick or drunk or something. The last trip to get the mail we stopped to look at the toomah and discussed that if we were near and heard cracking above we should run. If that thing ever hit you it would knock the everlasting aspirations out of you. As we started walking again, Herk made a sudden weave and I had to watch my step.
I can see it now:
“When the toomah fell on George, why didn’t he get out of the way?”
“The cat got under his feet.”
“Did the cat get hurt?”
“No. The cat saw it coming. You can’t hit a cat with a toomah.”