The Morning Drill

In cleaning up the garden this glorious and bizarre spring, we've come across many a tooth marked ball, all belonging to beloved Emma, of course. These warm early mornings are when I used to get my first glimpse of both my dad and Emma each day. Sometimes my dad and I would chat, sometimes I'd throw a few balls myself, sometimes, when my dad looked pensive and Emma was resting at his feet, I'd leave them alone. Here were my dad's thoughts from one such morning:

He wondered at the great stamina of the dog, especially since she was packing an extra 10 pounds or so on a small frame. Mornings, he’d take her out for her exercise before her breakfast. He’d sit in a garden chair and toss tennis balls--50 times up and down the incline she’d go.

He’d know when she was beginning to feel the effort when along about the 35^th toss she would start detouring to the fishpond on her way back. She’d dip the ball in the pond to clean it off, while she caught her breath and then would come back to him looking for more. At the 50^th toss, though, she was done for the day. She’d hold the ball in her mouth and stretch out in front of his chair, and he’d pet her and tell her what a great dog she was and how well she had performed her primary duty of chasing the tennis ball. If only everyone did their job so well the world would be a great place, he often thought.

Quiet then, and invariably he would look out across the gardens and down to where the metasequoia stands. It is his favorite tree, shaped like a pyramid with needles that fall like leaves in the fall with a shimmering gold tint to them. In the short span of six or seven years it had grown to a height of 35 to 40 feet. Not huge yet, but it would get there, said Joe, his son who had planted it and who managed this place called the Garden of Ideas.

The tree was just one of the horticultural delights in the gardens, but it was the one most in his sights and the thing that triggered his morning speculations. Considering it on most mornings never failed to jump start his thinking about everything from the grandkids to the state of the country’s affairs, He worried a lot these days about the war in Iraq, about India’s and China’s growing powers, about the state of the environment and the president’s cavalier attitude toward greenhouse gases. He worried about Iran and our new policy of pre-emptive war. He worried about Africa and Aids and problems in Nigeria.

He nearly always worried about the country’s fiscal health. He could barely breathe when he thought about the calamitous path we were going down, piling on enormous debt in order to pay for a disastrous war while at the same time working to extend the tax cuts for the country’s richest citizens. He worried about the Democracy, which had suddenly grown fragile to him. He didn’t worry on his own account; the runway for him and his wife was short enough that the chickens wouldn’t land in his living room. But the grandkids, they’d be sleeping with those chickens. He’d bet on that. Still, his oldest grandson, at 15 a whiz on the internet game circuit, hadn’t appeared to be concerned during his last visit and had even told him that he worried too much.

The dog was growing impatient and began nipping at his shoes, prodding him to get upstairs and dish out the Purina. He picked up the ball and tossed it down the hill. She looked at him disdainfully and he was sure he heard her say, “I don’t do 51.”

Right, he thought, and went upstairs.