Old Crow Book Club Reunion (Part 2)
Pretty soon, pizza was inhaled, sodas and beers cracked open and conversations like so many blunderbusses being fired shot across the table.
No one checked their phones.
Highlights:
A discussion of the presence of macro invertebrates as an indicator of stream health, surely the only conversation of its kind involving homeless people in the history of American conversations.
A young woman wrapped in a blanket who kept circling through the park and refusing my offer of pizza. She tried uttering sentences but they didn't come out right.
A discussion about a cannabis product, (blunt) called a Moon Shot, that when consumed apparently puts you on the moon. All the homeless men and women around the table who used cannabis wouldn't touch it.
Several interesting haikus written on the felt Jack O Lanterns. And yes, I corrected the spelling errors!
Singing Dr. Hook's “Cover of the Rolling Stone.” (I knew almost all the words!)
Discussing what to expect when reading Call of the Wild.
Keith played a few licks on his guitar.
A homeless man who cold barely speak using a file to sand down a walking stick he was making.
Listening to Rick's story of how he became homeless and how he beat his addictions.
Listening to the stories of the homeless people and how they network with each other to survive, which includes avoiding the fentanyl zombies.
Not a single discussion of politics.
Hearing Jacob's story of how he will move into the basement of an elderly disabled woman's home in the neighborhood when winter descends. They met at the convenience store where she works and her husband had recently dies and she couldn't afford to stay in the home (she owned without a mortgage) unless she worked part time at the convenience store. She had no children to help her out. The house and yard had gone to seed and Jacob was hired to clean up the yard and do some other light maintenance on the house. That led to the basement shelter. As I've written before, this kind of arrangement is going on all over the country and is almost never written about it. It is the story I want to tell.
There was more, so much more. At the beginning I took a few notes and then gave up because so much was happening all at once.
Two hours flew by. We never got around to carving the pumpkin. I told the club we'd reconvene and discuss the novel in a couple of weeks. How I'll put that together, I have no idea. You just throw it out there, and see what transpires.
Why Call of the Wild? It's cheap and short and full of socialism and has dogs in it! After that book, maybe something by Robert Lewis Stevenson.
Mark never showed and that concerned me. He is not the kind of man to miss a party. I'd go look for him soon.