Travels With Becky

One Cool Kitty

A lovely lady in Effingham, whom I’ve met at least four times and whose name I’m deeply embarrassed not to remember, told this story with a New Jersey accent only slightly tempered by years of living in New Hampshire. When I tell it, though, it’ll be full on New Hampshire.

 

Her husband suffered a serious heart attack. From his bed in the ICU he implored her to take good care of his cat. His first morning in the hospital, he asked the head nurse to phone his wife, and get her out of bed (he knew she’d have trouble waking up on her own -- she always did). His first words were, “Good morning, deah. Time to get up. How’s my cat?”

 

He remained hospitalized for several weeks. On his bedside table, at his request: a picture of his cat. “Not a picture of me,” the lovely lady said, “a picture of the cat!”  

 

Well, bad luck comes in threes -- or sometimes twos. While the husband was recovering, the cat died. The doctor said to spare the husband any shock and the lovely lady didn’t want to lie, so she put the corpse on the porch. It was winter, and the corpse froze solid. When the husband called and asked after the cat, she truthfully said, “I just put him out.”

 

Next time he asked, she said, “He’s on the porch. I’m looking right at him.”

 

And so forth.

 

This went on for some time, until at last the husband was well enough to come home. The doctor said the husband must be told about the death of his cat while still in the hospital. Just in case.  

 

"Oh, it was hard," the lovely lady said. She tried three times to tell him about the cat's passing and failed. On the day of her husband’s release, she burst into tears and managed to choke out the words, “Deah, your cat has died.”

 

“Oh well,” he said, “That cat never liked me anyway.”

The Crusher

One blog ago, I cited “headin’ out yonder,” as a euphemism for “going to the bathroom.” My friend Lorraine reminded me that another old Yankee euphemism for “using the powder room” is “going to the hopper.”

We also call the compactor at the dump “the hopper,” which makes sense — a hopper is a receptacle for something you want to get rid of.

Another old New England saying is “sprinkle the lilies.”  Day lilies like to grow near outhouses. Hence the connection.

My friend Dana added these to the collection: "drop the kids off at the pool," "take the Browns to the Superbowl," "give birth," and her favorite; "release the Kraken." These are all new to me. Dana’s not from around here. I suspect these expressions are from her native New Jersey. 

And here is another one: "I've got to see a man about a horse."

But getting back to the hopper... here’s an old story of mine with a hopper front and center. 

Where Selectmen Belong 

One of the selectmen, who was rumored to have a drinking problem, showed up at the dump unsteady on his feet. Maybe it was mouthwash that made his breath tangy. Or maybe he had one of those inner ear infections that upset his balance. Any of these reasons could have made him unsteady. You hear different things.  

Anyway, this selectman was heaving a heavy bag into the compactor. Kermit, the dump master, calls it the crusher because when a bunch of bags get piled up, he pulls a lever and the steel slabs inside the compactor come together. Everything gets squished. 

I was telling this story at the Linwood Senior Center, which serves the towns of Lincoln and Woodstock in the North Country, where technology is not as advanced as in other parts of New Hampshire. When I said the part about the compactor and how it worked, one lady got very excited.  “I've seen it!” she said, “in Rumney!” 

Anyway, back to the story. This selectman was swinging this heavy bag like a pendulum, and when he worked up the big swing to toss it, evidently he forgot to let go. He and the bag sailed over the railing, and down they went. 

Luckily, the crusher was near full at the time so there was plenty to break his fall. There he lay, spread-eagled. His eyes were open but he didn’t say anything. The bags puffed up around him. The customers gathered around, wondering how to get the selectman out of the crusher. 

Kermit emerged from his little dump master cottage, walked up to the rail, and looked down, placing his fists on his hips: “What the hell are you doing down there?” he said. “Get out of there! Selectmen don’t belong in the crusher. They belong over in compost.”

Run for Your Life

The turkeys in the backyard, twenty or twenty five of them, seem pretty tame to me. I remarked that even I could shoot one of them, no problem. My mother remarked that come turkey season, these same turkeys will make themselves scarce. They know. She added that hunting season starts in early May, which coincides with mating season, which doesn’t seem exactly fair to me. Shouldn’t turkeys be concentrating on making little turkeys rather than running for their lives?

I looked it up. Sure enough, turkey hunting season in New Hampshire is May 3-31. Limit: one male or bearded turkey. Hours: Thirty minutes before sunrise to noon. Legal methods: Archery or shotgun (10, 12, 16 or 20 gauge, using 2 or smaller size shot).

All this reminded me of a story I heard long ago, but haven’t told in awhile. Spring (it is spring, isn’t it?) seems like a good time to haul it out of mothballs.  

Years ago the salmon used to run heavy up the Cockermouth River into Newfound Lake. Of course, when the salmon were running up river to spawn, you couldn’t fish for them. It wouldn’t be fair. They had their minds on other things.

Nancy was in the backyard hanging laundry when she heard shooting down by the river. In other parts of the country, like Boston, if you hear gunfire you head in the other direction, but in New Hampshire, when you hear gunfire, you investigate. Which is what Nancy did. She walked cross country through the woods, clambered over a stone wall or two and came to the river, where she saw her neighbor Charlie sitting on the back with a .22 across his knees.

“Charlie, what are you doing?” she said.

“Shooting muskrats.”

Nancy looked and beyond Charlie in the ferns she saw three beautiful big salmon, all laid out, not looking too lively. “Shooting muskrats, huh!” she said.

“Yup. Scaly buggers, ain’t they?”