Last Days of Summer
Volume 1, Issue 32 — The Green Leans to Gold
IN THIS ISSUE, the final segment in Matt McGowan’s trip down the Current River, a celebration of summer’s last gin and tonic by Charlie Alison, and another mention of the little white dog’s annoyance with the red fox.
Northern Inhospitality
Two Days on the Current Prove Not Every Float is Perfect
PART 3 of three parts. Read Part 1 and Part 2.
By Matt McGowan
There’s a general rule about how long it takes to float from one spot to another on a typical Ozark river. If it’s safe to get on – meaning, not flooded – you can count on going about two miles an hour. So the math is pretty simple. A ten-mile float takes five hours. Of course, many variables can alter this formula.
But the Current River was running hard, and Kyle and I stopped less than others, mainly because we were trying to get away from their loudspeakers. Consequently, we found ourselves farther along than we anticipated.
We stopped at a comely sandbar across from Sinking Creek, about an hour upriver from Round Spring. I had concerns about it initially, because half of Chicago was on the other side of the river, partying like it was New Year’s Eve.
“They’ll be gone soon,” I said, after noticing that every boat over there had an outfitter’s logo on it. Kyle and I sat in our chairs and laughed at drunk people for the next hour. It’s all we could do.
Thirty minutes after they cleared out, a solo paddler came floating down the river. It was dusk now, and she was going to have to hurry to get to Round Spring before dark.
“What’s going on?” I said.
She knew what I meant and laughed. “I know! I always spend too much time in the cave.”
I knew what she meant. She was talking about Cave Spring between Akers and Pulltite. When Kyle and I had floated by it, people were lined up to enter the cave, like it was a ride at Disney World.
Too much time in the cave, I thought. Me too. Way too much time in the cave.
At Round Spring the next morning, I plucked my bike from the woods and started riding back to the Akers. I’d forgotten about one other outfitter, their office on the shoulder-less highway just north of Round Spring. What the hell, I thought, I’ll give it one more try.
No, the man said, they didn’t have any shuttles going up that way.
Matt McGowan, is author of the recently released novel, 1971, available through Amazon.
Gin and Tonic
LYRIC
By Charlie Alison
Let me be tonic to your gin, drink me in once again.
Let me be water to your scotch.
Let me be hot butter to your rum. I will come on the run.
Let me be vodka on your rocks.
REFRAIN
I am so intoxicated.
Completely inebriated.
Sipping your sweet smile sends me reeling.
Three sheets to the wind
From drinking your pure blend.
Shirley Temple never shared this tipsy feeling.
Je serai chenin a votré blanc. D’autre flanc d'un seul Franc.
Je serai bourdeaux a votré vin.
Je serai pinot a votré noire, pour le soir, tu et moi.
Je serai tonique a votré gin.
REFRAIN
I am so intoxicated.
Completely inebriated.
Sipping your sweet smile sends me reeling.
Three sheets to the wind
From drinking your pure blend.
Shirley Temple never shared this tipsy feeling.
Let me be whiskey to your rye, stop on by for one more try.
Let me be mickey to your finn.
Let me be bourbon to your branch, sweet romance, holding hands.
Let me be tonic to your gin,
Let me be tonic to your gin,
Let me be sweet tonic to your sloe dry gin.
Chronicles of the Little White Dog
By Mark Pennington
Yesterday, I set the bag of shredded leaves containing the squirrel corpse outside the backyard fence — on a trail that the foxes go by at least twice a day, usually in the evening — hoping the fox would fetch the body. This morning the bag was undisturbed. Well, I thought, the fox was hunting in the daylight, maybe she will jump the fence and return to the back yard today; I put the bag back where it was.
Late this afternoon, the fox did return. This time, however, the people who own the property next door were out in their yard so the fox couldn't launch itself from there. Instead it came around to our patio, where my wife and the little white dog were sitting. It walked right up to them, apparently intending to jump the fence behind them, at which point the little white dog began barking ferociously (in her mind at least) till the fox went away, resentfully my wife thought, so my wife left the gate to the backyard open and came inside. (It may well be that some neighbors feed the foxes, so the fox was checking to see if there would be a handout before it settled for day-old squirrel.).
At some point this evening the fox did come back and retrieve her dinner — leaves have been dug out of the bag and there is a space inside where the decedent formerly rested. All’s well that ends well, except from the squirrel's point of view.