My father grew up in a small house in a small town in a rural area through which first French trappers traipsed and then settlers came, carving out farms in the fertile valley of the Wabash River. In places such as that, the roads are in a grid pattern only if they were added later, following section lines. And, of course, there is the river and the low-lying flood plain that will stop your logical route and send you backtracking. You don’t really get lost; you just aren’t quite certain sometimes of “the big picture.”

I don’t think I really grasped that big picture of the relationship of locations; I was a backseat traveller; we were at Grandma’s in Kingman and then we were at Uncle Trell’s, or Aunt Mary’s or Duane’s. It just happened that way; I’d get in the car and then I’d get out – a sort of slow motion Star Trek beaming.

But one place I was certain of – the house at the end of the road, my grandparents house. I have a firm understanding of everything there, or as it was. When I was there, I generally climbed the staircase, which turned at a landing and then at the top, I would turn right, into a room with beds and flannel sheets and my great-grandfather’s picture in Union Blue on the wall. I wonder now for the first time: Was my father born in that room?

Sometimes my cousin closest to my age would stay overnight with me. I have never thought of it before, but I imagine that room is the backdrop – the wallpaper – of all this time we have known each other. We haven’t spent that much time together, living in different parts of the country for several years, but we have always been linked by our grandparent’s house.

Her mother, my father – brother and sister; I believe we have many genetic traits in common. She is the cousin who I wrote about becoming ill after having just been up here. We sat side by side in the infamous Maria’s Mexican Restaurant that didn’t have enough menus and where my taco salad was soupy. We, along with her sister, were caught up in the seemingly ridiculousness of the experience.

I had been thinking of both of them and the idea of more little adventures in the future when I found out she had suffered a heart attack. Now I find myself trying to merge the memory of that room with the flannel sheets at the top of Grandma’s stairs with this reality of updates. I think of her on crisp hospital sheets and surrounded by pharmaceutical smells instead of the scent of rural Indiana coming in the window.

I don’t really understand why this turn of events has such a hold on me. Is it the selfish thought that it could have been me who went from laughing at no menus to being seriously ill? Does it scare me? Perhaps. I think, though, I am deeply affected by the shadow cast on that memory of the room at the top of the stairs with the flannel sheets.

I am confused in my feelings and in my ability to express them. I have no way to end this post. Probably only the typing will stop; the essence of it will linger on.

I have an old bench in my backseat, resting on a Pendleton wool blanket – one Mother probably got at GoodWill for a fraction of its retail price. It is not an antique, just old – pioneer, settler type old. Relicky old.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with it or where I am going to put it, but I got carried away with my mental meanderings and carried it to the car. And there it rests. It is possible it might be there five days from now; I am so defined by procrastination it is ridiculous.

While I was the LaGrange House, I realized I had only one bottle of water there. Usually I have bottles of water in my trunk, in different rooms of the house, in different refrigerators, in different houses. This time: one bottle. How did this happen? Obviously, I have not properly stocked the trunk of the car I am now driving – although, I did manage to transfer the Lands End Robin Egg Blue Trapper Winter Hat.

I will have to gather packs of tuna, cans of soda, a 24 pack of bottled water, a couple of packs of iced tea mix, extra underwear, paper towels, more tools, a sleeping bag, a couple of sweatshirts . . . numerous gadgets including a whistle with a compass and so on.

Now, doesn’t that make you feel better about yourself? Not THAT crazy; not AmeliaJake crazy?

Last week on Thursday I met two of my first cousins who were visiting the Shipshewana area and we spent the day together. This morning I read an email from one of them that was written last evening. The other cousin has become seriously ill. I was shocked, stunned . . . but there it is, an unexpected unfolding story. You can’t flip the pages ahead; you just turn them day by day.

A week ago it wasn’t a story at all. Life: it surprises you; it always does. (Bette Davis)

Cameron and I devoted two hours to the garage today – for the sake of establishing on-going project work. We got one half of the garage cleared out and and swept and designated the front corner for the “dumpster pile”. Everything in the house that needs to be thrown out is now going to that pile. We enlisted Robert who emptied out expired drinks and squashed plastic bottles and, most crucial, played Wubba with Shane and kept the fire pit going.

We stomped lots of stuff in the trash cans and found a couple of things and then called it quits for the day. That leaves the other wall of the garage and the little add-on behind the piano. Yes, didn’t that sentence test your equilibrium? The red piano. The red piano in the garage. I know. Sad. We are thinking of moving it into the den. Now that will be a long term project. I wonder if we should paint it another color or if that would take away its magic.

I am not complaining about the cool weather; it feels odd, however, to be sitting in a sweatshirt with the heater on my damp-feeling feet in July. It reminds me of the Ohio River Valley at Cincinnati in November.

We have been waiting for predicted rain all day. At first it was supposed to be at noon, then two, and now, maybe at 4:30 pm. It is good for Fair Week, though; the animals are cool and the rain has held off for the 4-H’ers. I don’t know what is planned at the grandstand tonight, but at least it has a roof.

That’s what we are doing at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse, sitting around talking about the weather and not much else. We are in our old man mode, though we are not chawin’ and spittin’.