The Anecdotal Life Part. 90

JUST GOT OFF THE BUS-- Benzie County Bus takes you anyplace, nearly anytime for $1.50 including to Traverse City. I called this morning since it was pouring rain and my sister had to volunteer at the hospital and I ,therefore, couldn't hitch a ride to town and the new library. I realized full well they wanted me to call a day early but I hadn't thought ahead. Vacations are not for thinking ahead. Nevertheless, no problem. The answering clerk was fielding call after call and in spite of that, she said (rather cheerfully for a rainy day) "we have a bus waiting here right now! Are you ready to go?" Absolutely, I lied, and ran like heck to get everything I needed. What a difference. This is the same system that ferried my dad around all over Benzie County up in Northwest Michigan. Then it was for the handicapped and very elderly. Now you only have to be 55 and they have developed a full fleet of buses it is so popular. I took time to tell my sister later about one of gramp's (my father's generic name used by all) more memorable trips in earlier days. His heart and for that matter, entire system were pretty well used up and he had been fussing about fixing the gate.It was off its hinges as a lot of things can be around a cottage. People included. I let him know loud and clear that he was not to climb that infernal hill jeopardizing his health in this heat and worrying me to pieces. "No you are not! " I said emphatically. He listened quietly and wandered off. The next day was his bus day to make his ever-eternal round of errands. I looked up at the clock in the afternoon to see that he was late or the bus was late. I waited a little bit and when he didn't show, called the bus company. I really panicked when they said the bus was already back. I ran to the door to jump in the car and go looking. At this point he rounded the bend in the road at the bottom of the hill. I waited til he came up the steps, obviously exhausted, pale and carrying his tools in a little bag. "WHERE have you been? "I demanded. "Fixing the gate," he replied,- clearly no remorse there. "Well, I said, flabbergasted, DON'T DO IT AGAIN! "I won't. I'm done.", he said sweetly and skipped on around me.
I later realized he had hidden the tools as he boarded the bus and conned the driver into letting him off at the top of the hill instead of bringing him down the hill to home. He knew for certain I wouldn't help him.I got hold of the bus driver the next day and barely started a carefully rehearsed admonition when the bus driver just looked over at me from his seat behind the wheel, chuckled regretfully and said," Independent ol' cuss isn't he?"Apparently, nothing he had said made any difference either. I laughed as we all had laughed episode after episode as my father did exactly as he wished, skipping around the lot of us til he couldn't skip another step at 97. If you want a lesson in self-reliance, resilience, and intestinal fortitude, try messing with a Kentucky, born and bred, mountain man. Someone asked me once what he looked like since I'd used the term " mountain man". He was merely five ft. ten, wiry, skin browned to a brownberry color that never faded in the winter. Blue eyes that saw everything in spite of the fact he was blind in one eye. You could almost never pull something over on him. He could put the eye and life out of annoying squirrels with his rifle. We still have it somewhere. When I'm in a jam , I always ask my self, "What would gramps do?' It usually helps, though at certain moments, I wish I had the old 22. But then, I probably wouldn't be here to tell the story, would I?"