AS I roll down my sleeve, that’s my stock parting line to the gals at Miriam Hospital. I was there this morning for the 90-day pre-check check. Will be back there tomorrow.
I’m anticipating a conversation with the doc, where he’s feeling the nodes in my armpits, around my collarbones, up and down my neck, under my jaw, and he says: Are you antagonizing this disease process?
Yes, sir, I am. Because when I can’t swing an ax anymore, that’s going to mean something worth knowing.
A pile of black locust I split the day before yesterday. Split a bunch of black oak the day before that. I’ll likely be back out there this afternoon.
The oak here. It’s a lovely wood, very dense. You get long-lasting coals from it and the smoke smells wonderful. Sometimes I’ll leave the damper closed when I open the door to throw in another stick. A puff of smoke perfumes the whole house.
Same for Norway Maple. I’ve burned quite a bit of it this winter.
One of the great pleasures of winter… keeping the home fires burning. Family time, too, that’s nice. We seem to get more of it in the winter.
Everything I know about family I learned from Pam. She’s made of love.
The family was over Sunday for a birthday brunch for Daughter #3. Pam made D3’s favorite treat, tiramisù. We’re still eating it.
This morning, Pam saw me staring out the window at this locust tree and said don’t even think about it. Because she knows I do.
I keep waiting for it to come down in a storm. It’s about ready. Looks pretty tired of holding up all that free firewood. The tree’s close to 4 feet in diameter.
It’s on a thin ribbon of state land that runs along a decommissioned rail right-of-way. Every time a storm fails to take the tree down I start thinking it’s probably my duty to go over there and liberate it from the jackboot of state oppression, move it into my woodpile as God intended.
It actually would be a hazardous fall, though. It’s growing out of a steep bank, about 40 degrees, a good 90 percent of its weight is to one side of the bole, it’s got rot where the hinge needs to be… yeah that’s a dangerous tree to cut into when the terrain is like standing on a 9-in-12 roof pitch.
Will root for that next storm…. Come on, baby!
Got a big LOL out of this yesterday, one of our sister strips at King Features Syndicate. It’s poking fun at my people.
While waiting for the blood lab to open at 8:30 this morning, I caught the latest Chronicle Chamber podcast, which is always fun. Tune in at the 72-minute mark if you want to see what the blokes have to say about the daily and Sunday newspaper strips.
Next week I want to get around to saying something about the why behind the new daily narrative in the Phantom strip; if only because I said I would in a reply to a reader last time.
Thanks for stopping by.
Tony DePaul, January 24, 2024, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
Thanks, Tony.
You always take me to a world I have never seen whether it is The Deep Woods or New England.
Thanks for being here, Joe.
Dear Tony,
Here’s a tip.
Try to obtain either some cedar firewood pieces or even an old piece of cedar furniture (bureau or chest, or used cedar planks for cooking fish) will do. Place a chunk into you wood stove for that whole house fragrant puff of smoke. Pam will like it for sure. Remember cedar closets and chests repel moths with the aromatic compounds so you can always claim it is a necessary, organic, insecticide home treatment!
Hope to see you again some day amigo.
Stu! So good to hear from you down the long tunnel of time since Orono. Great idea about the cedar, I’ll be on the lookout for an opportunity on that.
The cedar porch swing we bought many years ago came with a bottle of cedar oil for spritzing the unfinished wood now and again. A lovely scent. It was a western red cedar oil extracted in Clallam Bay, on the Olympic Peninsula. We’ve got a bit left, maybe I’ll try spritzing the oak, see what happens.
Hello Tony, I love that you start out with a story about a Black Locust on an incline; that’s definitely a hairy situation. If I was there, I’d piece the top out for you and then we could crank the stick over with a come-along or something. Black locust is some real fine burning wood (excellent btu value), and I like what you said about the smell of Red Oak.
I’m praying for good results on your check-up, even though you don’t seem to let anything slow you down!
I think you and Pam were made for each other, your worlds revolve around each other. And yeah, that dessert she made looks delicious!
Thanks, Will. We’ve got to get squared away on a MABDR plan for the spring! Or maybe the NEBDR if the trail’s been made rideable again, or rerouted, or whatever they’re going to need to do.
MABDR sounds like a whole lot more fun, going by your experience, and what I’ve heard from Scott in Fredericton NB.
Hi Tony,
I have never met Pam but hope to this summer when I ride to your place just to try that awesome looking dessert.
You have a great attitude my friend.
Hey! That must mean you settled on a new bike after the tryout on the Road King. Glad to hear it, Bob. You’re always welcome here.
No Road Pig,my Sportster.
Your writing is so good, Tony, and especially this line: “Everything I know about family I learned from Pam. She’s made of love.”
Keep chopping that firewood. It’s like an elixir for you.
Thanks, Amanda. Coordinate with Pam on a movie night. We’ll find another great old classic like The Barefoot Contessa.
Hey Tony! Sending positive thoughts in your direction. And, putting a hex on the locust tree so that the next storm blows it the hell down and you land a giant pile of free wood.
Best,
KZ
Thanks, Karen. We were supposed to get together and then you went to Argentina, I think? Coordinate with Pam on that. We’d love to see you!
…Thinking of you Tony-man. Keep splitting the wood. I love the line about Pam — it’s so true and I think your whole family is made of love. Sending you all good thoughts my friend…Always love visiting with you guys.
Love,
Fabo
Come see us soon, Fabo! Hi to Jimmy.
Tony, even before I had the pleasure of meeting you so many years ago, you were one of my favorite writers/journalists. The way you always marry just the right words together to create such beautiful imagery is truly a poet’s gift.
And your comment about Pam – I’ve only been in her company a few times, but she sure does radiate love and kindness. Kind of like an aura emanating out to envelop and protect family and friends. 🙂
I think of you often and you remain in my prayers. Best of luck tomorrow, and keep the posts coming please! It’s always the high point of the day when I see The Nickels is (are?) in my inbox. 🙂
Thank you, Sue. You were at the Beacon when we met, I think. Seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?
Do you read the Phantom posts? I always feel I might be losing readers when I write about the newspaper strips. I’ll have to have some sort of warning label, like those cautions they put in the upper-left corner of the movies: violence, smoking, drugs…
Saw Oppenheimer the other night. They had a caution advisory on nudity and I thought: well I certainly hope this thing has $6 worth of nudity in it. Great movie but I think they owe me at least $12 back and something that will blot the sex scene from my memory. Until I saw Oppenheimer I thought the most unattractive sex scene ever was in Enemy at the Gates. Now I feel it’s kind of a toss up.
“Everything I learned about family I learned from Pam. She’s made of love.”
I think her father and my mother were steeped in love.
Just about every day I say to her at least once, in passing: “Baby, baby, don’t get hooked on me.”
She says: “Too late.”
Sending powerful good juju to you from the eastern Sierra, Tony. I’d say splitting wood is an excellent way to meditate. I relish in yard work/gardening. Over the fence, Jon’s garden is flourishing, but with completely different species. Still beautiful.
That old tree, let it fall and then scoop it up, split it, and warm the home…
Oh and did you know… there’s a new Jon Alan Peterson? He’s not a year old yet but has a twin sister…
That rings a bell, Denise. I think Kathy did tell me about the new Jon Alan who has a twin sister, just like Kit Walker, the 22nd Phantom in waiting.
Thanks so much for checking in. I hope to see you and Kathy on the next trip west.
All the best Tony. Rooting for you all the way!
My eyes & ears on the Sunday Nation! Thanks for checking in from faraway Nairobi, my friend.
Born to be wheeled… leaving this rock being wheeled, but free wheeling all one can in-between. A great life in my view.
You said it, amigo. Right now I’m looking at that artsy line-cut photo of me you took some years ago, it’s here on my office wall: a distant shot of me and the iron piggy on a road to nowhere. Nevada, I think. It was that time you and iron man Nestor were riding up from Houston to Prudhoe Bay, I met up with you in Wyoming, then again at Keith’s place in Washington some weeks later. Great days…
Wishing you and yours a belated Happy New Year, with prayers for good news from your end.
Thanks, Stephen. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’ve got a whole lot less discomfort now than I did four years ago in British Colombia.
It’s bilateral now, that’s different, but it feels like more of the same; kind of like a stone in your shoe: you wish it wasn’t there but it’s not that big a deal.
Sending my all my best wishes for good news tomorrow.
I’m not going to tell him it hurts to split wood, ’cause I’ll bet he knows that old Groucho routine:
“Doctor, it hurts when I do this.”
“Don’t do that.”
Gotta admit, if you had to go retro in the story line the unexpected presentation of Diana as a blue haired 40ish woman in a Cole of California swim dress was an excellent start point.
I love that look, too. Bret’s having fun.
Brother in IV’s! I’m right there with you amigo – headed in for a PET scan on Monday, because I was bushwhacked by the CT Scan guys earlier this week looking for stroke evidence in my brain and they said “Hey, your brain looks fine, but we think we see cancer in your midsection, again”. And I’m like FOUL, there are rules against tricking me like that and catching me unawares. Dirty it is. And then oh, by the way, did you know your kidneys are kind of on the way out – a little asterisk to it all. pfffttttttt…..
Those pretty AARP magazine covers where the silver & grayhairs are all having the time of their life playin Pickleball and dancing at The Villages at night, I’m pretty sure those are all lies…..
Chop wood while you can. Eat more desserts!
Pickleball… lol…
CT scans, MRI, wonderful machines, but they generate so many incidental alarms that turn out to be nothing. They keep flagging my abdominal aorta as a potential gusher. I’m as concerned about that as getting hit in the head with a space rock.
Wishing you the best Tony. Love reading about your comings and goings. Let nature take the tree down!!
Barbara!! So funny to hear from you just a few days after somebody was talking about Warwick and somehow I free-associated your name and wondered how you’re doing. Thanks so much for reading.
Nothing much to say but. “Hey, Tony!” It’s rainy winter here in Hugetown. Gray, humid, ugly as only SE Texas can be. Upside, no mosquitos.
Last night I was looking forward to riding the iron piggy to the hospital. Woke up to find an inch of fresh snow had fallen overnight so I took Pam’s car instead. And on the drive in I saw a guy older than dirt putt-putting along in the snow on a bicycle powered by a chainsaw motor… lol… Hats off to that road warrior.
Sounds like Maine instead of Rhode Island.
We never know what to expect, bud. We had mosquitoes the first half of December and are just now coming out of a couple of bitterly cold weeks.