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Sunday, June 30--

88 degrees. Marigolds are eight-inches and three.

Rounding the curve below the bridge I saw a teen-aged girl nearing the top of a rebar steel ladder wearing a pastel lilac granny dress and a matching old-fashioned sunbonnet. Something like that. I attributed the perception to swamp gas--there's a lot of it here, and slowed to pass under the bridge. Another girl was beginning her climb, and as she raised out of the water a cornflower blue dress raised with her, exiting the water around her ankle. She wore a matching cornflower blue bonnet.

Great photo opportunity!

I stopped upstream from the bridge and feigned nonchalance, pretending that I was merely stopping to cool off the motor, or fish, then realized I had no rod and reel on board with which to influence the ruse.

I copped a sideways glance.

There is a ménage of Mennonites living in the area. A mother and two young girls, wearing head coverings of scarves or bonnets, sometimes show up at the store with a teenaged boy requiring eighty-penny nails or a PVC fitting or a tube of glue leading the way. They are cordial, but quiet, and the girls know to look down at the floor and stay tamely mute in their place. The boy always seems ready to run but solemnly dramatizes his patriarchal role. The mother pays for his hardware and they leave.

There were eight teenaged members of the sect standing on the bridge: five girls in gorgeous pastel-hued simple long dresses wearing matching bonnets, and three boys wearing black trousers and buttoned-to-the-neck white dress shirts. Water dripped, they had all been in the river. Two of the girls leaned over and wrung out their hems.

I stopped looking for a minute. Then looked again. A black-and-white rainbow was conferring and stealing surreptitious resentful glances at me.

The huddle broke. Five headed toward the east end of the bridge, the other three went west. A car motor started. Then my motor started and I moved away fast in hopes that they'd see me withdrawal and return to rejoin their swims.

It's the hottest day of the summer so far. Eighty-eight degrees, and I am sorry for intruding on their privacy. I only wished for a photo or two, only wished them well, but I am sure they get hassled for being different and are tired of attention from wondering eyes.

7:31-

Anchored in the office. Deerflies with deep tans have arrived for the summer from Cancun. One is pestering EZ; another is drilled into her nose. But the big pestering flies are no longer around, or are being eaten by the legions of frogs, which are being eaten by mouthfuls by bass, which are not being caught. Maybe I should bring a fishing rod up here and see what I can do.

Lots of boats on the river today. Parades of pontoons passing each other along the narrow waterway. Mr. and Mrs. Zik are tied to their tree and floating in inflatable loafers, he and a beer cooler forty feet downstream from her, "So I don't have to listen to what he says," she says. He owned the bowling alley for twenty-two years before selling out and starting his own landscaping business.

"Life doesn't get better than this," he says, holding high his beer. "When I have to piss, I just piss."

Up past Rufus's house where a yard party, with croquet, is under way. I have seen no sign of Rufus this year and expect he's no longer living, at least there. Up through Sandy Flats. A pontoon is anchored; a family is wading. Around three bends--a speedboat curves and straightens out going fast. I stay right then am emoted to see it's SPURTIN' MY JET man attended by three teen-aged girls not confined in pastel long dresses. SPURTIN' MY JET doesn't slow or even show a slowing but roars on by letting me know what perturbation he's capable of.

His wake bounces EZ. Then the portside marigold pot, which hops to the edge of the deck, does a flip into the air, ejects its white plastic saucer mid-air and lands on its side, spreading vermiculite and black dirt onto the floor.

"Bastard."

I express myself digitally, then look back, but they're already leaning hard into the far curve.

Mother marigold--just shaken up, will be fine. I scoop back the soil and set her right, back on EZ's deck.

Up through the bridge, past my Mennonite Sunday-best dressed friends, who never knew it. Onward upstream past a sharp curve where the current has been ravaging the bank where magnificent tall red pines stand, and some used to stand, now prone in the water. A new house has been built there where a cottage used to be, and I am curious why the owners don't lay in rocks, or erect barriers of resistance to slow the river's relentless destruction.

I bought a Springfield thermometer/humidity-measuring instrument at work today, so I can stay current to heat index trends and report instantaneously just what the deal is. Currently the temperature is 81, humidity 80, down from 88 and up from 70 two hours ago when we surprised an old gentleman in a straw hat and a small anchored boat, fishing in a Grand Sandbanks curve.

EZ hopped out and hit the water, lapped it greedily for a time, then stood to her chest and looked around.

I wanted to swim and cool off in the water. But I needed to change from shorts into swim trunks. And the man was too close for a virtuous switch. So I stood in the bow where a white pine branch somewhat obscured me and made the transition.

The man started his Evinrude and moved upstream. I guess I was too ill mannered.

The one-inch P-pipe (inside diameter) has been retired in favor of a fifteen-inch, one-and-a-half inch (inside diameter) length of black ABS plastic pipe. The old pipe was too small, sometimes stinging and leaving red rings around my collar (so to speak). The New-and-Improved model allows for complete insertion and easier living, especially by being black and more effectively warmed by the sun. We appreciate comfort where we get it.

8:22-

The sun is orange just above the trees, and the breeze that earlier was more of a gale is taking its ease.

Am going to explore bigger motor options tomorrow. Yesterday's mail brought a surprise benefit. An ancient great aunt nobody liked, and some quite literally hated, finally, at one hundred and three, departed her coma and died and freed up some lucre to be divided among heirs who could put it to good cause. One of which might be a powerful new motor for me to escape if a nest of violent bees should choose to give chase. Also, for EZ's sake, we could outrun ugly storms and show off to other fast boats what horsepower adoration is really about.

I'll let you know. But I do worry about Mother Marigold and her fledging small son who might be blown to shreds by hundred-MPH winds. Or EZ's cheeks, which could permanently set in a wide G-force grin.

9:01-

We've idled with the current and are now stopped just inside the shortcut. A couple of minutes ago EZ got up from laying on with her chin on the fore-deck and sat facing backwards as close to me as she can get from the front, without further permission. It's hard to ignore a dog staring, especially when it's about the time of night and place going home where I invite her back to sit between my knees and get a good talking-to and lots of hard scratchy pets.

I relent and say, "C'mon." She leaps gladly and settles down facing me at first and I attend to her need, then she faces front and leans on a knee.

Does God take offense if a man says out loud, "My God," when he's overwhelmed daily by continual mixes of summer sensations melded with affection for a partner dog who is supremely alive now and may not be in a few weeks?

9:12-

Drifting under a snaggled maple, peripheral stirrings attracted my eyes.

Bandits peered curiously from a fork in the tree. Two, then another, higher and more menacing, leaning out over the water in poses of ambush where we were about to pass under. EZ, always alert to a stir, got up from her post and stood ready for fun. Two other hairy bodies scampered down the leaning tree trunk and disappeared into a confusion of green. Dark raccoon masks--youngsters too marveled to flee, bobbed and wavered and watched where we were going and sought to know more of us passing beneath, leaning out, precarious grips to see as we passed underneath.

9:30-

The hot wind blowing through me has whiffed through Morocco and Mexico and Miami's horrid hot nights. It has gusted flower petal scents in Cambodia and lifted up skirts in Hawaii. Aromas and voices and demeanors of beatniks who threw back their whiskers and struck out for more. This breeze has no hint of Middle East; it's patient and safe. Like babies supple skin and a duckling's fresh breath.

And the temperature is stuck at 79, humidity 93.

A young duck is swimming slowly, directly ahead, forty feet. EZ is standing on the bow lip and bobbing her head, wagging her tail. Life went on well during winter and school and work, shutting out frigid winter temps. But this is what I waited for, like a bride waiting to get wed. Bullfrogs croaking and raucous secret splashings somewhere out of sight.