Shellshocked. Dispirited. A gnawing gloom like after a bitter romantic breakup that saps your natural, even mundane, enthusiasm for life. Like many others, especially here in blue Sonoma County, I climbed into bed November 2nd worried but falling into dreaming hope we could wake to a beautiful morning. Dawn’s rosy fingers did not gently summon, but clawed a stranglehold. And those who once denounced, raced loyally to support. The Tao Te Ching sang it thousands of years ago: “And when the country is in chaos, loyal ministers appear.”
I feared it would go badly, but not horrendously so. And it was Wednesday, the day the Oliver’s Market checker dreads (my job and place of work). Senior discount day, when the elderly citizens of Santa Rosa and surrounding locales descend on the market to do their week’s shop and get their ten percent off. Walker Wednesday, we call it; Day of the zombies; Wednesday Depends Day… From the Sonoma Valley retirement community of Oakmont (“Croakmont” as one grinning gray-haired offered), shuttle buses dislodge the elderly late mornings. Seniors pack the checkstands wielding checkbooks. They pettily demand refunds, like a $5.99 plastic container of watermelon chunks they bought in early May, complaining that “it wasn’t sweet” as though it was our responsibility to ensure sweetness in fruit bought out of season. It was rounding out to be a depressing day.
Dragging the gloom into lunch, I hoped for solace on a bench along Ducker Creek trail, a one and a half-minute bike ride from work. Lining the creek and shading the path are maple, willow, ash, live oak, white adler, and buckeye, and squirrels scurry across branches weaving their canopy. While munching my sandwich of despair, a lone dog trotted by. Giving me scarcely a nod, he seemed intent on sniffing the leaves beneath the tree against which my rickety bench leaned. I had the feeling he knew this trail, so I waited for his person to follow. No one for a few minutes, but the dog didn’t act like an escaped pet, more like one familiar with the route and checking for variations. Still no owner. The dog then squatted intently on a carpet of leaves, and did his business.
I made sure to spy the drop location, to inform the owner if and when s/he showed. We keep hearing we’re divided as a country, entrenched more like it. But we can easily reach across the chasm and locate comrades, whether liberal or conservative, as we who see our country made up of two groups: people who pick up their dogs’ poop, and those who don’t. The first group does its civic duty; the others are assholes, and they range across the political spectrum.
A few minutes later two smaller dogs wandered onto the trail from where the first dog came, and momentarily a large, older man shuffled slowly and carefully behind them. He moved stiffly rather than walking, edging his steps forward, a doubtful faith in balance. The two other dogs hovered around the man’s legs, not thirty feet from me.
Protective of my solitude when my job is dealing face to face with long lines of people, and Tuesday’s horror still simmering in my skull, I immediately tagged him as intruder and enemy, who was probably celebrating what will be a Pyrrhic victory. Without patience, I called over to him, informing him of his dog’s leavings. Didn’t quite hear me, so I repeated, implying his responsibility. Mumbling understanding, he then turned and shuffled away, noting he needed a bag. Would he dutifully return?
When he emerged onto the path a few minutes later, and I saw his unsteady gait, felt contrite for my ill assessment, and approached him, saying I’d pick up the poop. When I reached for the bag, he light-heartedly brushed away my attempts.
“No, I’ll do it, it’s okay. I just need to go slowly.”
But I could get it, I offered, I knew the exact spot.
“It’s good for me to walk. Exercise. Just had a knee operation, this’ll be good.”
I fell into step with him, sharing my own knee weaknesses, pointing to support sleeves on both knees. Why I deigned to take a job standing all day, at my age, I’ll never know.
Pointing to my lunch bag on the bench and bike, I explained this was my spot away from Oliver’s. He waved a hand over his shoulder and said he lived “right back there”, the house hidden by overgrown tan and pale green brush rising along the tree trunks above thin wire city fencing bulging and dipping along its route lining the properties.
Conversation then narrowed to finding poop. With brown and grayish green leaves blanketing the edge of the trail, locating the pile proved difficult. Autumn leaves camouflage dog poop maddeningly well. Finally found it, and he scooped it up. He said his larger dog just takes himself out, he knows this trail so well.
He pointed again to the house. “I’ve lived in that same house for fifty years! I grew up in that house.” There were photos of him, he added, as a teenager with his brother inside the foundation of the house his father was building right there on the property. “My father ran a sheep ranch. We had thirty-five acres. Our property stretched to Brush Creek!” I’d ridden the Brush Creek trail bike trail that morning, like most workdays. “There was a time,” he continued, pointing east to the hills and mountains over which a half hour away lays a long, fertile valley named Napa, “when our place and the house across the street--well, not those, those are newer--our two houses were the only ones in this area. There’s a photo of me and my brother on the road there, and there’s nothing but pasture between us all the way to Calistoga Road.”
My lunch hour was nearing the end. As I piled my book and toiletry kit and ravaged lunch sack into my bike bag, our conversation dwindled, then amicably petered out. He shuffled back up the trail, dogs weaving around his legs, and the family disappeared behind the wild-haired, leafy thicket.
Seven or so days later…
A shorter work schedule today, my lunchtime cut to half an hour, I raced to my creekside bench. Proving that canines and humans alike thrive inside routines, onto the trail ambles the same big furry dog, tail like a wide fan swishing and feathering the sun-dappled breeze, nose-down and forward-sniffing the fallen bronze leaves. He again tosses only a half-second sideways glance, reading me as no threat. But I could tell: he was on the search, scouting for the right patch to do his business. No sign of the man, or his smaller companions. Then he adopted the squat a little farther on, same side of the trail. I see another guy coming from up the trail, little dog on leash. The first dog finished, sniffed around to file his daily reports in the evening, then passed the other guy, his dog, and me, got to the sidewalk, then ran up his driveway. Still, no one emerged.
Passing slowly, the man paused. “Is that your dog?”
Eager to disclaim responsibility, I offered a full explanation of the owner’s house, the owner who came out to do his duty at my request at our meeting, and kept pointing to the house that once headed a thirty-five acre sheep ranch that stretched from this rickety bench along a Ducker Creek tributary to Brush Creek, a half mile away.
“Mellow dog,” he said, and walked on.
The dog’s drop was still nestled in the leaves. I wandered up the trail looking for a random littered bag of any kind, but avid stewards must patrol and keep this wild and bushy haven clean, bless them.
I finally found a clear plastic wrapper the size of a small envelope, partially hidden in wet leaves. Approaching the few yards where I saw the act, I bent over and stepped lightly while scanning closely an endless tapestry of leaves. There they were, only a few slender rolls to scoop. I walked over to the trash bin and dropped the bag.
A good thing done for our common ground, and it didn’t cost a penny.
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