Fragments

After tethering our canoe to the ‘nearest cleat, Tom and I walked across the wooden walkway bridging the gap between the dock and navy-grey store. Pushing through the aluminum-framed door, we entered. To the left sat an old, mechanical cash register atop a glass display case. Shelves featuring a variety of snacks and other items ran the length of the space to my left.

The vividness of this moment in my memory is surpassed only by its incompleteness. That’s all I remember.

I can tell you where this occurred, why I was there, who I was with, the approximate time of day — even the weather conditions! Taking each in order: the Colorado river, a camping trip with my Boy Scout troup, my best friend from elementary through high school, midday, and dry and hot.

What I don’t know is why I recall this particular moment in time. It’s not part of any bigger, more meaningful or memorable experience. And yet, every now and then it pops into my consciousness with a vibrance and clarity undiminished by the passage of more than 50 years.

There are more, many more such fragments — I dare say easily outnumbering the more cinematic.

Kelly Sorenson was a “summer friend.” We played together a few days each year when my family traveled to a nearby state to visit my grandparents. Intensely freckled, with a Hair-Wiz haircut and country accent, the two of us were fast friends. He was Huck Finn to my Tom Sawyer, always picking up wherever we left off regardless of the time and distance.

One of the boys in the area had a tree house in his back yard built high up in the branches of a massive bigtooth maple. Every so often, without rhyme or reason, an image comes to my mind of the three of us, laying on our backs looking up at the sky, the dappled sunlight breaking through the dense green canopy. We are eating Granny Smith apples taken without permission from a neighbor’s orchard.

That’s it. No story. No meaning I can fathom or reason I’ve been able to deduce for it’s recurrence. Still, the details are so clear and consistent I could paint them with photo-like precision.

One more, cued almost every time a single-engine aircraft crosses overhead. Mind you, I don’t have to see the plane, just hear the low, mechanical growl of the propeller changing pitch as it passes by — eeeeoooowwww.

And there I am. Laying across my bed, Led Zepplin’s “Physical Graffiti” album cover in hand, the pounding, rhythmic opening riff of the sixth track, “Kashmir,” beginning to play.

Duh-duh-duh. Duh-duh-duh. Duh-duh-duh. Duh-duh-duh. Duh-duh-duh.

I can see my brown and yellow paisley bedspread, describe the clothes I was wearing, and know the time of day this moment took place, but nothing more — except in this instance, to report that nowadays hearing “Kashmir” invariably makes me think of airplanes.

A while back I began making a list of these fragments, each with a one-word title written on a 3 X 5 index card. I was suprised by the number — some coming to mind frequently, others less so — quickly filling a half dozen or so, before giving up. It made me wonder about my storied memories. Those I recall at will. The ones I repeat in the company of family and friends; that have a beginning, middle, and end, and often, a point.

Such as … long after my scouting days, but still many years ago, I revisited that store along the Colorado river. I was strangely relieved to find it exactly the same as my intrusive memory pictured it. The same aluminum-framed glass door, display cabinet and shelves.

I was walking back to my kayak, soft drink and bag of chips in hand, when a child began screaming.

“That duck!” clearly distressed, “That duck!”

Looking in the direction she was pointing, I immediately saw two — one bright and colorful perched atop another more muted and mottled brown. The former held the neck of the latter in its beak, and was flapping and kicking to maintain its position.

“That duck is hurting the other duck!” she shouted repeatedly, pleading, “Daddy, help that duck!”

I watched as both parents knelt down, enveloping the child in their arms. Pulling her close, the mother leaned in and, through a cupped hand, whispered something in her daughter’s ear. As she did so, the look of alarm on the girl’s face gradually morphed into a mixture of confusion and disbelief.

Of course, I don’t know what was said, but can guess. I wonder what, if anything, those parents and their child recalls about that moment.