HOMECOMING WEEKEND

Bill Burkett

Active member
Homecoming weekend

October 13, 1978—Olympia. Evening coming on: from my fifth-floor corner office I watch a trio of seagulls arc across a faded-denim sky, their wings touched with tangerine from the almost-vanished sun. A single leafless tree in the foreground is etched against the far featureless lavender of the Olympic Mountains, which stand on the horizon like a distant discarded stage prop. Dark fir-covered slopes slant down to Puget Sound, concealing surrounding neighborhoods. A lone chimney hidden in the firs puffs lazy smoke signals skyward.
Autumn again. There is a hush on downtown streets after Friday rush hour, and there is a hush in me. I'm back in the Pacific Northwest after a two-year desert sojourn and tomorrow is opening day. My blood, thinned by Arizona heat, hasn’t adjusted and it will be damn cold outdoors. My official government car was held up today in my workaday routine by a horn-blowing, balloon-waving parade of cars full of young people escorted by grinning motorcycle cops. It's like Homecoming Game back in my high-school days I told my government driver. The next car in the parade had a big hand-lettered sign: Homecoming Game.
Leafless trees, crisp mornings and the sound of car horns in the mild gold afternoon, youthful voices shouting; time shifts and blurs this gloaming moment with all those others stretching back through my memory. I am a year older yet strangely young again in that special closet of my mind where anything that passes between hunting seasons fails to lodge. Opening day is my high holy day, I joked today at the State Printer’s, talking to a kindred spirit.
Now, alone in my well-appointed bureaucrat’s corner office, first executive-style digs of my checkered career, quiet expectation of tomorrow's dawn and the season's surprises to come steals over me like a balm. I doubt I will sleep all that deeply tonight. I wasn't joking about this being my high holy day after all. Hunting season again in home country. Happiness this pure and simple cannot last. But it is a fine way to feel on the final Friday twilight before opening day.

AS THE SEASONS WIND DOWN, HERE IS A BRIEF GLIMPSE TO A PAST "OPENING-DAY EVE" FOR THOSE LIKE ME WHO TEND TO NOT FILE AWAY AS MANY MEMORIES OF NON-SEASONS. THIS IS FROM DUCK HUNTER DIARIES VOLUME TWO, ABSOLUTELY AMAZING EBOOKS.COM. 3.99 TO DOWNLOAD IT TO YOUR READING DEVICE IF YOU HAVE ONE OF THOSE THINGS. OR A COMPUTER WORKS. I AM SHAMELESSLY TROLLING FOR REVIEWS ON AMAZON.COM (YOU CAN GET IT THERE TOO) BECAUSE REVIEWS APPEAR TO DRIVE SALES. GONNA TAKE A LOT OF SALES AT THAT PRICE FOR ME TO AFFORD A DUCK SEASON NEXT YEAR ON FIXED SSA ;)
 
Back
Top