sounds familiar

My grandfather loved word puzzles, logic riddles.

When I was thirteen or so he attempted to teach my brother and I how to play blackjack.  I can remember sitting at a table writing down the things he told me (no doubt he suggested I go grab a pen and paper to commit his “system” to memory).  He’d deal hand after hand of twenty-one to each of us, bloody mary or whiskey neat not far out of reach, and instruct as we played.

It’s a pity I didn’t understand how important those interactions were.  What stories.  He told us of gambling on a riverboat on the Mississippi. This is the same grandfather that bought me a .22 rifle when I turned twelve and used to send me handwritten missives address in my last name prefixed by the regal-sounding “Master.”  Do you know how cool it was to get a letter like that as a kid?  He was a character.

Between explaining the concepts of insurance and splitting and doubling and when to hit and when to hold he would regale my brother and I with his riddles.  Most you’ve probably heard: the fox, the goose, and the sack of wheat; the liar and the truthteller; the hotelier and the three magicians.  But my grandfather’s coup de grâce was a puzzle he called “the three crosses.”  I can recall him building up to this one, happy that my brother and I were truly trying to puzzle out the lead-in problems.  It went something like this:

Three men go into an office, all to interview for the same job.  The employer takes all three into a room at together and explains that this position requires a keen intellect and solid sense of reason, and that they’ll all be put to the test for their interview.

The interviewer arranges three chairs in a triangular formation and seats each man in a chair so that each can see the other two.  He then blindfolds each man and explains aloud that he will be using chalk to draw either a white or black cross on each man’s forehead.

Unbeknownst to the men the employer draws black crosses on each of them.

He then instructs them to remove their blindfolds and to knock on their chair if they see at least one black cross.  Furthermore, he states that the first man to correctly identify the color of the cross drawn on his own forehead, and explain correctly why he is sure of this, will secure the position.

The men lift their blindfolds together and all three begin rapping on their chairs.  Thirty seconds elapse and one man raises his hand to announce that he surely has a black cross on his forehead.

How did he know?

At thirteen this riddle wrecked my brain.  No there are no mirrors; no he didn’t catch a reflection in another’s eye; no he didn’t cheat and smudge his hand against his skin.  I can vividly recall sketching out the triangle, trying to grasp the situation.  My brother and I even acted out the scenario with the help of my grandfather.  He was beyond amused at how hard we thought on that puzzle, and remarked accordingly, “Boy David you’re really thinking hard on this one, good!”  To him the mental exercise was the fun (I suppose with him for a grandfather and my dad for a father I was doomed to a similar stuffy intellectual sentiment).

Try as we might, however, my brother and I could simply not crack the puzzle.  I think what frustrated me more, though, was being unable to understand the answer when my grandfather finally deigned to accept our defeat and explain it.  I asked him to go through it over again for me, talk through the steps really slow so I could get it.  It didn’t work.  I would think I understood and then try and follow the logic in my own head and get confused.  Thinking on the answer now it’s clear enough, but back then it may have been a bit beyond my grasp.  It’s one of the clearest and fondest memories I have of my grandfather though… and for that I’ll always remember  it.

Before I go, I wanted to show you Cohen’s new smile.

And that’s mild compared to some of the ones we’ve not had the presence of mind to capture on video.

Goodnight.

There was a rockslide on Mt. Drama this past week.  A sorry tumbling jumble of shock and surprise and sadness.  Dust hung thick in the air well into Friday.

Weary from breathing the ruin, Sharaun and I fled the choke and stink of it all and made tracks up into the mountains.  A coworker has a small cabin on Lake Tahoe and we stole to its broken-down charm.  We pulled up the shades and let in the sunlight and began forgetting about that pile of rubble just over and hour down the hill.  Passed the time playing Chutes and Ladders and sleeping in.  Had a couple good meals around town and had a quick run-in with nature where Keaton and I challenged a mound of granite.  On the way out of town we spread a blanket on a patch of green grass and had an outdoor lunch.

It’s a shame, but the relaxation didn’t even sink in until we were sitting on that blanket eating sandwiches in the sun-mottled shade.  Took that long to shake the weight from my shoulders, the act of winding-down.  I think Sharaun could tell; maybe I looked it.  She asked me, sitting there, “You want to just call in sick and stay another night?”  She smiled.  Neither of us could really do that, of course… and we knew it, but I think it was nice for both of us just to imagine it for a minute.

We bought some Christmas gifts for family.  I ate an omelet that positively dripped cheese.  Keaton went on a squirrel hunt.

And now we’re back.

Up in the canyon there was a swing.

A hand-fashioned thing hung by two rough ropes (jute-rough) from the stout limb of a tall tree.  The plank for your bottom was an old fence board and there were fat washers that at one time were probably shiny silver.  The tree stood near the edge of a small butte, and the drop as the ground abruptly shifted levels was probably a good ten feet down, mostly vertical (maybe 80°).  When you got going you’d swing wide over that cleft in the land and your feet would dangle above the tall yellow grass that lay below.

Like an ocean, the seedheads stretched to the road at the property line and represented the end of the domesticated earth and the beginning of the untamed wilderness.  I would pump my legs wildly and arc out with an ache for the unknown.  I wanted to get out there… into the swaying grass and disappear.  Maybe flatten a little circle and make myself a hovel, setup camp and hunker down for an evening, wear out a flashlight and listen, afraid, to the noises of night.  Never did though.

We stayed there for a week and I was on that swing most evenings.  Back and forth.  Out from the known and into the unknown and back again.

Over and over again over the abyss and always back to the middle where my feet could touch the ground.

C’mon ground.