When I went to visit Will on Sunday in Burlington, he took his accustomed seat behind the wheel of my car, and we set off for lunch. As I chattered away about radio programs I had listened to on my drive over, he maneuvered the car into a parking garage. We paused before a green John Deere machine of some kind with a blade on the front. "I drive that," he said. We rolled on up to the roof like a marble going backwards up a ramp and he pointed. "I push the snow up here and over the edge there."
We wound through Burlington and on over to Richmond, wheeling through parking lots where he plows during the winter or mows islands of grass during the summer. Machines were everywhere: crawlers and backhoes, and I remembered a childhood litany that accompanied his road building forays through the sandbox:"Loader, backhoe, dumput, excavator, crane, brrrumm, brrrumm." He had a favorite book featuring a stocky truck driver named Joe who drove tractor trailers, Peterbilt, I think. I got him to eat his peas because the fictitious Joe ate his. Joe ate spinach and butternut squash too. We went to Santa Monica when he was about 3 and as we walked the sidewalks he chanted, "Corvette, Volkswagon, sedan, Chevy, Lamborghini, four wheel drive, Mercedes Benz."
The matchbox cars he clutched in both fists became permanent appendages. We were going into Stein's Stationery on Long Island for a tiny shiny red fire truck when his big sister Katherine was hit by a car driven by a little old lady whose head barely peeked over the top of the steering column. The car was blue, a Ford Fairlane. Will and I rode in a real ambulance to the trauma center, while Katherine flew above us in a helicopter. As she lay immobilized in traction for several weeks, recovering from a spiral fracture of the right femur and a broken pelvis, Will drove his toy trucks up and down the sheet mountains on her bed.
When he was a freshman in college, he called to announce he was going to take flying lessons. My heart rose in my chest like a hot air balloon. I made a few inquiries at the flying school.
"No, ma'am, he'll only be a passenger. The pilot flies the plane," someone assured me.
"Mom! Mom! I flew the plane, a Cessna 172!" he exclaimed after his first flight. "The pilot said I had natural aptitude. Oh, and they told me you called. Don't ever do that again." He emailed photos of the instrument panel. I saw the plane once, silver wings folded like an insect's. He made touch-downs and executed fly-bys. As I pictured his cloud-skimming flights, my heart clenched and released. I let him go.
He calls from the cabs of really big machines. He cuts brush in the woods and carts it away by truck or skidder. He plants trees at UVM.
The matchbox cars he clutched in both fists became permanent appendages. We were going into Stein's Stationery on Long Island for a tiny shiny red fire truck when his big sister Katherine was hit by a car driven by a little old lady whose head barely peeked over the top of the steering column. The car was blue, a Ford Fairlane. Will and I rode in a real ambulance to the trauma center, while Katherine flew above us in a helicopter. As she lay immobilized in traction for several weeks, recovering from a spiral fracture of the right femur and a broken pelvis, Will drove his toy trucks up and down the sheet mountains on her bed.
When he was a freshman in college, he called to announce he was going to take flying lessons. My heart rose in my chest like a hot air balloon. I made a few inquiries at the flying school.
"No, ma'am, he'll only be a passenger. The pilot flies the plane," someone assured me.
"Mom! Mom! I flew the plane, a Cessna 172!" he exclaimed after his first flight. "The pilot said I had natural aptitude. Oh, and they told me you called. Don't ever do that again." He emailed photos of the instrument panel. I saw the plane once, silver wings folded like an insect's. He made touch-downs and executed fly-bys. As I pictured his cloud-skimming flights, my heart clenched and released. I let him go.
He calls from the cabs of really big machines. He cuts brush in the woods and carts it away by truck or skidder. He plants trees at UVM.
We had steaming bowls of mushroom bisque at The Ice House served by a tall young waitress with long dark hair and lambent brown eyes. "Do you want me to pay?" he smiled playfully, reaching for his wallet.
"No, I got it," I said.
As we drove back to his place, I asked him if he had plans for Valentine's Day. He shook his head.
"No, but I thought our waitress was kinda cute," he said. "Wonder if she's busy."
"No, I got it," I said.
As we drove back to his place, I asked him if he had plans for Valentine's Day. He shook his head.
"No, but I thought our waitress was kinda cute," he said. "Wonder if she's busy."
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