A Footprint in Time

Last week, we attended the "Night of the Arts" program at my sons' school. My boys are in the choir

and in the band and their performances, under the new music teacher, who is excellent, were outstanding. At the end of the night, though, a slight problem: the handle on my son's trumpet case had broken.

Let me tell you about the case, and the trumpet it contains. When I was in middle school, my father, who made his living as an arranger and a trumpet player, decided to buy himself a new horn. He went with a Bach Stradivarius "'73 Lightweight." It was an very expensive instrument; today, to give you an idea, the trumpet lists for around $4,000 to $5000.

My dad played it for awhile, but decided, in the end, that he liked his Yamaha horn better and he went back to that one. So, when it came time for me to start playing trumpet in the school band, he handed me the Stradivarius and said, "Just be careful with it." I have to say, deserving of it or not, I played it for quite a few years, and not a dent.

My son received the treasured (and expensive) family heirloom with the same instructions, and he is also doing well with it.

When the case handles broke, I went to look online for a replacement case. The case my father had (a Bach case), in an updated form, costs $300, so I decided to simply look for replacement handles. I found them and ordered them, so, problem solved.

Before I ordered, though, I wanted to measure the broken handle. For this, I needed to take it off of the case. As I unbuckled the ends, I had to pause. That handle had also been a replacement for the original one. It struck me pretty hard: the last pair of hands to buckle that handle onto the case had been my dad's.

He's gone now, but, that small thing he did remained done until that moment. A moment, from the past, overlooked and, in the grand scheme, unimportant was preserved. That moment in which he simply fixed that case was preserved as long as that handle remained buckled. A silly thing, isn't it? But it always seems to be those things are the most profound evidence of a person's existence -- things from the everyday that endure like footprints in time.

It feels a little like I brushed my dad's hand when I took that handle off -- like we touched each other, if only in the most brief and ethereal way.

The LAUREL SPRINGS NATIONAL BANK: My Hero

When I am gone, I want to be like an old bank building.

In my area, there are a few old bank buildings, and, true the financial scenario, they have had many different names: TD Bank, Citizen's Bank, Wachovia, Susquehanna, Bill's Bank, Fred's Bank, The First Bank of Louise...you name it.

...etched in stone. 

Each of these banks has had a parade of plastic, internally-lighted signs. Each of them has been emblazoned on the face with a hundred logos and slogans. It seems as if their names change every week as the phony, surreal financial tides of the world and of the country shift.

But a mile or two away from me, there is a bank in a "downtown" area that hearkens back to earlier days. There is a pizza place that looks like it might have been a general store; a building that was obviously once a saloon or hotel is now a hairdresser's. A railroad track that runs through the heart of the downtown area passes a small train station building (which no longer operates, since the trains that come through now are only freight) that Walt Whitman once used to get from Camden, NJ to his summer digs, a short walk away from the station.

A Tale of Three Dogs, Minus Two

Some years ago, in my neighborhood, I began noticing a man who would walk his three dogs. They were all small, white, West Highland Terriers. Anyone who knows Westies knows they are small, but sturdy and fearless. Cute little dudes.

The man is somewhere around his late fifties, I would guess. He is sort of heavy, with a balding pate and, usually, when I picture him, I imagine a winter jacket with the collar turned up.

When I first noticed him, several years ago, he would walk his three dogs but he would only hold the leash of two of them -- the younger ones. As the "pack" made their way down the pavement, they would be followed by their elder, his leash dragging behind him on the concrete. I imagined this was just precaution; just in case the venerable old chap got a whiff of his youth in the scent of a passing squirrel and decided to make a dash for it.

I would see these four, day after day, and it always made me smile.

Then, maybe two years ago, he walked by, but with only two dogs. The most-honored, white-furred fellow was no longer with his family and, I imagined, no longer with the world at all. (I was struck by how much I missed the delicate sound of the dragging leash.) I let out a sigh and smiled a sad, warm concession to the cycle of life and death.

This morning, (maybe two years later) I saw the man again. This time, there was only one dog and he was slowly walking by his master's side, the leash dragging behind him, as the two took their leisurely stroll under the clouds and through the fallen leaves. The man's hair was a little whiter.

At one point, the little dog stopped to "do his business" and the man crouched down, cleaned it up, and, smiling, scratched his canine companion under the chin.

They walked off together, the man with his hands comfortably clasped behind his back, the dog dragging his leash over the beautiful, orange eventuality of the season that was littered around their six feet.