Heaven Scent

The heavens work in mysterious ways . . .

Pouncer, beloved SB cat for 20 years pounces for the last time . . . rat decides to take Pouncer’s place in the garage . . . scent shouting from said garage hints that rat too has probably breathed its last.

If odor is allowed to persist, Mrs. SB’s kindergartners (and their families), due for their annual visit to our Mesa farm, are not going to be able to taste the ice cream.

Detective/Coroner SB (me) is called upon to excavate the boxed layers of SB history to find, remove and relocate the rat’s remains.

And so I extricate bicycles and boxes and boogie boards and $#%$! to the driveway. Rat trails and nests and “oh-that’s-where-that-bag-of-peanuts-for-the-scrub-jay-family-disappeared-to!” are discovered.

Once the garage is cleared, I go box by box. Halloween costumes. Starr King art projects. Grandma sweaters. Baseball hats. Seeds saved. School reports. Mimeograph masters.

Still, no rat.

Then, I open an unlabeled box and a single sheet of paper floats — yes, floats — off the top and onto the driveway.

Kinda like Forest Gump’s feather in reverse.

Double sided, perforated, pin fed, used-to-be white paper. Dot matrix Geneva font. Looks like 12-point.

I sit down in the driveway and read:

My Stoker Isaac and Me

“Daddy, Daddy, do mountains ever die?”

How come Isaac always asks— well almost always asks — his questions on the uphills?

I’m huffing and puffing and reaching for a lower gear while, from the rear of our tandem, with his turtle-helmeted head rocking from side to side, my 4-yr.-old partner is waxing philisophical?

“Do mountains” — gasp — “ever die, Isaac? . . . Well . . . well, let me think . . . on this uphill . . . I’ll be able to talk when we get to the top.”

Isaac hummed Take Me Out to the Ballgame, as we scaled the hill leading from Hendry’s Beach into Hope Ranch, while I thought about mountains. Nearing the top and catching my breath, I finally, in all my parental wisdom, said:

“Isaac, I don’t know if mountains die or not. What do you think?”

“Daddy, I asked you first. I wanna know what do you think?”

“Well, Isaac, plants and trees die on mountains, so maybe you could say that mountains die . . . “

“But, Daddy, Daddy, I don’t mean the plants and the trees. I mean the mountains!”

“Daddy, Daddy.”

My silent reply didn’t last long before Isaac continued.

“Daddy, rocks fall down from the mountains onto the road and into the ocean. That could be how mountains die.”

“You know, Isaac, you’re right. Rocks and boulders do fall off mountains. Maybe that is how mountains die.”

“Daddy, Daddy, look at the hang gliders!”

At the top of the hill, two hang-gliders were soaring just above cliffs. While Isaac reached out and tried to touch them, I continued to think about the death of mountains.

Las Palmas flew by with philosophical queries replaced with requests for water and more speed on the Hope Ranch Beach downhill. I should have known the questions would resume as we climbed towards Laguna Blanca.

“Hey Daddy, is anything faster than the sun?”

“Gosh, Isaac, I don’t know. Do you think anything is faster than the sun?”

I hoped some active listening would get us to the top this time.

“No, Daddy, do you think two jumbo jets is faster than the sun? Do you think ten drag racers are faster than the sun? Do you think anything is faster than the sun?”

“Isaac, I don’t think anything is faster than the light of the sun. I may be wrong, but light is the fastest thing I know of.”

“Not even a trillion turbo rockets are faster than the sun?”

“Not even a trillion turbos.”

So far on our Sunday ride, Isaac had dabbled in geology and astronomy. Just after Leaving Hope Ranch, he decided to branch off into physics.

“Daddy, Daddy, what does ‘twice as fast’ mean?”

As soon as I tried to move my lips in response, my brain locked up. And this time we were coasting along the downhill.

“What does ‘twice as fast’ mean?”

“Yeah, Daddy, what does ‘twice as fast’ mean”

“Uh, 4 miles an hour is twice as — No, if we go twice as fast as Mom and Jacob, we’ll get home in — No . . . Uh, Isaac, you know what? I can’t explain what ‘twice as fast’ means. I’m sorry.”

We rolled home past La Cumbre Jr. High, hanging our usual left on Mission and then left again on State, up into the driveway in front of our house. As Isaac paused in the middle of his dismounting routine, the look on his face told me he had saved one more question.

“Hey Daddy, what are you going to do when you grow up?”

Making sure I didn’t drop the bike with him still on it, I didn’t tell Isaac that his last question was my favorite of of all. And even though, unlike my responses to his earlier questions, I know this answer and knew it immediately. I didn’t say anything. Lifting him high into the air, I hope my hug and kiss gave my answer away.

by John Seigel Boettner, Isaac’s Partner

Later that night, after rat was found comfortably decaying in a bed of old hats, transfered to the trash . . . after floor was scrubbed, and history returned to our garage museum, I read My Stoker Isaac and Me one more time.

Before heading to bed, I decided to check my new computer to see if there was any facebook or instagram news from the SB boys in Kenya where they were trying to shine light on World Bicycle Relief and the power of the bicycle there.

Believe it or not, this is what I found:

Right at the top.

And when I get a chance to ride with Isaac and Jacob again, where Lynn and I now ride behind them, I’m going to have to ask my (older now) stoker what he thinks about mountains ever dying . . .

And how light travels . . .

And if he asks me what I’m going to do when I grow up, I’m going to tell him I’m going to let him and his brother — and the heavens — lead.