One..... Rhonda

     Because kindergarten ran half-days my sister had to wait for the bus without her older brothers. But she didn’t wait alone. Our mom had brought us kids with her when she took up with a dairy farmer, and he had a pair of geese on the farm. They were implacable idiots, their heads filled with nothing much more than an irrational hatred of us kids. And every day when my sister went down the long driveway to meet the bus, they’d follow. The hen was about the same height as my little sister, the gander, a little taller, and they took pleasure in terrorizing her every school day morning.

 

    They couldn’t waddle fast, but trying to outrun them was generally a bad idea. If she tried, she’d hear a patter of webbed feet behind her accelerating to takeoff speed. Then they’d close the distance fast, with their necks outstretched and their big goose wings flapping just off the ground. The hen, being lighter, would lift off and reach my sister first, patting her head on her way by with a wingtip as if to say, “Trying to run, dear?” before making an awkward and honky landing some few yards ahead. But the gander wasn’t interested in a landing, honky or otherwise. 

 

     He’d arrow straight in like a cruise missile, and my sister would get knocked over by a malicious, and strangely soft and barn fowl smelly bowling ball. She’d get bitten for trying to flee, and beaten with wings, and become reacquainted with the sharp claws that tipped those ridiculous orange webbed feet. 

 

    And stupid as they were, she couldn’t sneak past them either. Goose brains are small and mostly useless, but they do have a knack for timekeeping and routine. They knew when the kindergarten bus was coming, and they knew when the little girl they detested would emerge from the house to meet it without her brothers, undefended. 

 

    I had been equally terrified of the geese but had recently experienced a double epiphany. First, I realized that I had somehow grown taller than the geese. And second, that Mr. Gander looked a lot like a bagpipe. The Lawrence Welk Show had just featured a bagpiper the night before, and I’d been smitten by the instrument’s wheezy dignity and the pomp and novelty of the bagpiper’s traditional dress. 

 

    Without thinking, my left hand shot out and seized the gander’s throat just under his chin. I scooped him up off the ground and pinned his wings under my free arm, then put his bill between my teeth and blew. I pumped an elbow, squeezing him a few times to ‘prime the pipes.’ Then I marched, imagining myself dignified and magnificently attired in kilt and plaid, and hummed the classic ‘Scotland the Brave’ kazoo-style into the gander’s bill. He struggled and his little feet windmilled and ran uselessly, while the hen flapped and honked a cacophony behind. 

 

     The music we made, as you might expect, was nearly indistinguishable from real bagpiping. With his bill held firmly between my teeth, the gander’s protests were reduced to plaintive nasal whimperings- almost perfectly reproducing the undertones so unique to bagpipes. I learned to produce different chords by varying the intensity and duration of my squeezes to the gander’s body. We had regular practice sessions for a while and were becoming passably listenable. But the gander eventually absorbed the notion that to be anywhere within arm’s reach of me would get him bagpiped, a humiliation he compensated for by intensifying his attacks on my sister. 

 

    Our parents were either too busy on the farm or couldn’t be bothered to bodyguard a kindergartner at the bus stop, so Rhonda took an umbrella with her every day. With the umbrella opened she could shield herself against repeated charges, and sometimes even take offensive action by parrying into the gander’s chest with the pokey part. When the bus arrived, she’d make a strategic retreat, backpedaling to the open jib door, where she’d collapse the umbrella and hop onto the bus. 

 

    This infuriated the gander further because he couldn’t make the jump. He’d push his chest against the bus’s first step and lunge at her with his long neck, like a hissing and striking cobra. My sister, with a double-handed grip on the closed umbrella, would brain the gander whack-a-mole style from the top of the steps until she could force a retreat and allow the bus driver to get the door closed. 

 

    That gander is long gone now and my sister and I aged adults, but that old goose comes to mind whenever I see bullies, who, I think, should all be bagpiped. Their power to intimidate isn’t from any innate strength or virtue they possess, just a willingness and unfortunate ability to abuse. All we really need against bullies is a flimsy umbrella to defend ourselves with. Just temporarily, until our bus arrives. Then we can hop on, turn around, and brain them with it. 

 

    My sisters's latest “bullies” to face down are of a more metaphorical type. It started with catching Covid before vaccines were available and spending a week in the ICU with it. Then a vertebral disc that made her legs nearly unresponsive and pain that made sleeping impossible. But the hospitals were overflowing with pandemic patients, so the surgery she needed was put off.  Then, she caught Covid again. She’d been vaxxed by this time, and a trip to the hospital wasn’t needed. But her back surgery, which had finally been scheduled, was postponed. 

 

     Her second bout of Covid wasn’t as bad as the first, but it seemed to linger. At first, she thought maybe she had Long Covid but when she felt pressure on her chest and pain radiating down her left arm, she knew it was more. A hurried trip to the ER led to another stay in the hospital, tests and consultations with a cardiologist. New medications, diet restrictions, and exercise regimens were prescribed. The exercise regimen was especially irksome and grueling with the problematic ruptured disc still in her back. And her heart condition, of course, forced yet another delay for her back surgery. 

 

    She fought her way back to tolerably good health, enough to get her back surgery finally, and the cessation of chronic pain was almost immediate. She is able to sleep, work, and walk again without gritting her teeth. And she’s made the comeback by herself, just as she’s always done, armed only with determination, persistence, and maybe an old flimsy umbrella.

 

     Rhonda had always dismissed her personal needs as whims or fancies. Still, I thought, talking her into leaving home to walk with me in England for two months was worth a try.

 

“You should walk with me. I’m telling you, when I did the PCT I lost a bunch of weight, and my blood pressure and cholesterol went back to like I was a teenager. And to be honest, most of that happened in the first five hundred miles of the walk. This one will be just over six.” 

 

    “It sounds like it could be fun,” she said, “but what happens if I can’t walk as far as you or Matt do in a day? I’m on beta-blockers.” 

 

    “Well, it’s all nearly sea level and not a lot of elevation gain each day,” I told her. “Besides, it’s not exactly wilderness. You could take a bus or a taxi to the next camp whenever you needed to. You know, you deserve some self-care time.” 

 

    “Yeah, yeah.” My admonishment prompted her to cut me off, a familiar pattern. “I have my treadmill time.” 

 

    “Look,” I said. “It’s not just about the miles, like you can do on your treadmill at home. It’s the novelty, the adventure, all the little surprises you get on a long walk; it’s all those things. It’s being away from home and your routine responsibilities that really makes the difference. I’m telling you; I truly think the long walk I did added five years to my life. It turned the clock that far back.” 

 

    “Hmm.” 

 

    “You know that donkey you see in old movies, hooked up to a turnstile and just walking around in a circle day after day to run some gristmill? That’s you. You could let someone else step into the harness for a while. Really, you’re not the only ass to put in the gristmill.” 

 

    “No,” she laughed, “but I’m the biggest. So how would you get there?” 

 

    “I’ve been looking at that. It’s a lot cheaper to fly out of Canada than it is to fly over from here. You could come to my house, then we’d take the Amtrak from my place into Vancouver, then fly from there to London.” 

 

    The phone went quiet. I let it stretch as she considered. “Look, I’m going to my granddaughter’s birthday party. I won’t miss that for anything. Then I’ll come over to your place. So get the tickets for then.” 

 

    “Really? You want me to buy plane tickets?” 

 

    “I’m pretty sure I just said so, didn’t I?” 

 

     All the people I could meet, all the possible conversations I could have, any insights I might gain, and all the sights I’d see or the adventures I might have while walking the trail in England; all of them now took a step back on the long list of things I was looking forward to. Because being able to hang out with my sister had just taken the top spot. Walking around Cornwall with me would take her away from home longer than she’d ever been away before. This could be something major, possibly a turning point. This walk could be transformative, maybe even get her stress levels and health back on track. 

 

    ‘Some good things will come from this, things she’d only get with a good, long walk,’ I thought. I bought the plane tickets with a heart light and warm. ‘She’s not the only ass for the gristmill,’ I thought. 

 

     Three weeks later, Rhonda sent me a text message. ‘Family isn’t happy with me being gone all summer. Will be cutting the trip short.’ 

 

    Dammit.