"It's Been Two Years" - Part Nine - "The Medicine Spoon" - (A) - "I Hate That"

"It's Been Two Years"

Part Nine

"The Medicine Spoon"

(A)

"I Hate That" 

            At this precise... seated in Cadence’s shed doorway AT the old Captain Snow mansion... moment... I step WAY, WAY away from that moment... a moment where I am promised to reach further my hand into my “WHY?” of my antiquarian intrigue... of old New England homes and ...tilt the reader’s head back and DOSE YOU with this “WHY?” I reach for and... I am calling THIS (“THAT?”) out as medicine?  It is convenient for me... to do ‘that’?

            It is, WE understand do we not that... it is... my “WHY?” and MY trail that gets me to THAT and THAT TRAIL is MINE too and so... that means VERY FEW have I seen on that ‘this trail’ and THAT includes the... Bangladesh... (as a descriptive adjective)... of MY ‘did not suffer fools’ along MY way and I

            SIT (on Cadence’s porch with her there)

            WHERE

            NO ONE... seeking a searching of old New England homes...

            GETS TO

            “Easily”

            With this

            Meaning... “no one” “else” is... in my common experience... “ever there” and...

            IN THIS CASE... NOT THERE... last Friday

            Sitting in Cadence’s

            Shed doorway.

            That allows my “ME” to tell MY ME TALE (TAIL?)... MY WAY.  And that means I can say... for I will be saying that very soon anyway...too...:  “Don’t bug me when I’m high.  I am writing something down”.

            WHEN... I was thirteen years old... I “hated” the “BOOK” “LITTLE WOMEN”.  I’d ‘got there’ fair and square by a public school system forced reading of ‘that book’.  MAYBE I WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD but more likely TEN years old and I could have been TWELVE YEARS OLD but more likely ELEVEN years old... I figure... sort of ...for... “who knows?” is a safe default ...at “eleven years old”.  By age thirteen I had qualified “LITTLE WOMEN” (the book) as “I HATE”.

            Right there then... I remind that I... ‘was already’ and ‘antiques dealer’.  I have written of these funny moments of my truth and destiny... and plan to write more.  The old tale (blog post) of “The Old Antiques Store” and the gathering of short stories of my youngest days as an antiquarian and antiques dealer... under the collection (blog subject) label “Damnation Delights In Details”... pontificate upon this ‘very young to be doing this’ antiques TRUE STORIES.  Here... I adjust my “hate” for LITTLE WOMEN by REMINDING that I ‘was already a dealer’ TOO when I... TOO... “HATE” LITTLE WOMEN.  I was... buying and selling... antiques... THEN.

            Now... it should be reasonably obvious why a thirteen year old boy crawling around in old Maine barns gathering ‘stuff’ that was becoming ‘antiques’ to “SELL”... cared little for “LITTLE WOMEN” and... well ...anything off in that direction ...including such as ‘knowing who the author is’ and:

            I HAD READ... TOM SAWYER... and ‘liked that’.  “LIKED THAT” means that I had already, by age thirteen, acquired a deep, deep, deep... mystical... foundation level... invincible... appreciation of... “THAT BOOK”... and its ‘follow-up book’ that... I have now “HAD TO” read at least a dozen sit-down-and-read-it-HARDBALL times ‘ever since’; Huckleberry Finn; The adventures of.  I, too, even “LIKED” Becky Thatcher.

            After ‘growing up’ at ...age sixteen... with that ‘growing up’ being the allowing me to “DRIVE”... LITTLE WOMEN and my hate of it began a long travel-a-trail... together.  Somehow, way away way up in Maine I ‘heard’ ‘about’ ‘a place’ called... “CONCORD”.  It had, I heard... order... “in order”:

            The American Revolution

            The Battle of Lexington and Concord

            The... guy who lived in the hut... there.

            The pond where the hut was... there.

            The... “you can go there”

            The... “place is full of antiques”

            The... ‘there is a museum there”

            The... “Famous authors” “LIVE THERE”  It is actually “lived” but... what did I know.

            Right?

            THE... OK:  Things start to scatter to the wind here as these “The” become little tiny snippets of “I heard” and therefore “THINK” that was actually a very supple ‘feel’...sort of.... “I”:

            Didn’t really get the idea that I could connect the famous set of four “PRINTS” by Amos Doolittle of THE BATTLE... with... ah... “Bronson” ah... like... LITTLE WOMEN.  I mean... WAS THAT HOUSE (the Bronson Alcott house) THERE THEN... with a musket ball stuck in its clapboards TOO?

            BUT:  I was gathering a storm of MY “WHY?” about this “CONCORD PLACE”.  Even including ‘American Literature’.  Example?

            “AH LIKE HE WROTE ABOUT THIS GIANT GEM STONE YOU CAN SEE SHINNG IN THE SUN ON MOUNT WASHINGTON I’D REALLY LIKE TO FIND THAT and HE DOES THIS STORY ABOUT A GUY WITH A BLACK CLOTH ...draped over his face... LIKE FOREVER”.

            Hey:  You weren’t around to help me with my studies:  YOU WERE NOT THERE.

            You were not in Cadence’s shed doorway last Friday.  I am ‘got there myself’.

            Soooo... after a while I found out about “Louisa May Alcott”.  And her house “YOU CAN GO THERE”.

            So I did.

            So... ah... what?

            Well... the problem was... and IS... that... to my primary eye; my antiques eye... that Alcott house... “TOUR” showed the... THE PROBLEM... that THAT HOUSE of the “I HATE LITTLE WOMEN” book was... and I hate that; having to say that... this...:  That house, as public-let-in TOURS go... is ...particularly... of attention as to the house-full-of-objects... is... VERY... VERY ‘right’... especially for that ‘the stuff’ ‘in there’ IS ‘the original stuff’ ‘undisturbed’.  (They; the curatorial, DO move ‘the stuff’ around but... I actually LIKE THAT... because ‘that’s the way it really was’ TOO).

            So... ‘in tour’... one goes upstairs to the front bedroom and there... is... where... she wrote

            That.

            And I’m like back on the banjo clock and diamond point EAPG (early American pressed glass) compote downstairs and the... “THAT” and the “THIS” and the GOD DAMN trove of elementary school children being tethered around with their idiot “QUESTION SHEET” and... I... ah...

            LOVE... MY EVER SINCE THEN I PAY admission HOUSE TOURS of

            Louisa May Alcott’s

            BEDROOM

            WRITING

            POSE.

            And...the book...LITTLE WOMEN

            That she wrote

            “Right there.”

            “WHY?”