Juste de Juste: Pyramid of Five Men (c. 1543)

" … closed on Tuesdays forever."

My pioneer forebears would have counted themselves uncommonly fortunate had they been able to make twenty miles a day for a month. That would have gained them about what I drove yesterday in just eight hours. FiveHundredMiles seems like a vast distance. We rarely drive more than three hundred miles in a day, and even then, we feel the miles when we arrive. But I needed to run a couple of errands in Portland, and the schedule suggested I might spare no more than a day, so I decided to try. I'd initially figured I'd drive alone since The Muse's schedule's more crowded than mine, but the night before, she sheepishly asked if she might tag along. When I assented, she quickly cleared her schedule. "You'll have to be ready to go by seven," I cautioned. Over and back in a day works best when accomplished in daylight.

We got away by eight. We crossed the Sandy River bridge into Troutdale four hours later and began our urban adventure. My first stop was to pick up my son Wilder, who I rarely see and who agreed to travel along with us through lunch. I was there to fetch my lawnmower from a repair shop. Who drives 250 miles to repair their lawnmower? I do since I couldn't find a qualified shop closer to home. When I dropped off the machine, I learned it was still under warranty so that the fix wouldn't cost me anything. The mechanic had called the week before to report that the broken handle was not covered by warranty, so he'd have to charge me eighty dollars for a new one. I agreed, feeling a little peeved since I seemed to remember that the handle had been broken out of the box, though it took me a few weeks to notice since the break wasn't all that obvious.

We arrived at the shop, and the mechanic was ringing up the sale when I noticed a blank stare as he sat before his computer. His wife/assistant was absent. I mentioned that he was exhibiting the helplessness I show when trying to do something I don't know how to do. He replied that my observation was not wrong. It was his wife's job to ring up sales, and much of his work is for parts under warranty, so he usually charges his customers nothing. He proposed a similar thing for me. "Let's say we'll let the company cover the charge for that new handle." I quickly agreed and exited before he could change his mind.

We had two more errands, lunch, and a brief shopping stop. We headed for a favorite spot, which was closed, so we headed for the backup. The backup was Grand Central, a bread bakery I frequent, especially since our local baker closed shop earlier this summer. They were out of bread but made us lunch: tuna sandwiches with fat tomato slices for my son and me, and a big fat BLT and a side salad for The Muse. Sitting in the shade on a warm afternoon renewed us after the morning’s drive. Afterward, we visited the shop we intended to go to but found it closed. We'll have to try to shop there long distance. I tried again to buy some bread, but the second branch of Grand Central we visited was also out of bread. We drove up to the top of Mt. Tabor to drop Wilder off at his new apartment, then headed down to The BIG Fred's at the bottom of the hill to try one last time to buy some decent bread.

Fred's had five Como loaves, which we quickly grabbed along with a Chibatta. We stashed those in the back and then headed for the freeway on-ramp. We got away just after three, which, if everything went smoothly, would put us home around seven, just before dark. The radio was in and out with the basalt cliffs making mischief with the signal, but I managed to listen to a baseball game anyway, the outcome of which I couldn't have cared less about. It was a focusing mechanism, a companionable voice as I passed through the wilderness. I've driven those miles so many times I might be capable of driving them in my sleep. The Muse dozed off before we reached Cascade Locks. The miles disappeared behind us. I maybe should have been exhausted. I'd been up since two that morning, but the river was a mirror, and traffic was almost non-existent.

I'm uncertain where the miles went. That first game, Washington at Miami, went Washington's way. I switched over to listen to the end of the Phillies-Blue Jays game when the Phillies were trailing. The Phillies went on to win on the strength of Schwarber's three home runs. The sun had turned into a big red ball as we crawled back into the Villa's driveway. The Muse helped me offload the mower, and I fired it up for a minute to celebrate its return. The cats were waiting for their supper, and all seemed right enough with the world. While I drove through The Muse's long afternoon nap, I wondered how many more FiveHundredMiles I might have left in me. I'd told Wilder that I'd been feeling like a minor character in a Vonnegut novel, with fate pulling me through space-time continuums without me noticing. Time increasingly seems unhinged. Visiting Portland, where I lived a couple of lifetimes ago, never fails to remind me that times have changed since then. I go looking for a familiar shop, only to find it closed on Tuesdays forever.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Grace, #PureSchmaltz