"Can I ask you a favor?" said the man, standing on the porch in the brilliance of freshly restored metal chairs, gleaming like a Guards barracks ready for inspection. "Sure," I replied, quickly calculating cash flow, "What's the deal?"
The deal was this, to help my friend move from his bucolic rural retreat into the county seat grandeur of this thriving farming community.
So, unlike the wicked priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan, I stepped up to the plate and off we went. "Just a bed, a refrigerator and a microwave, yessir," that's all it'd be. It wasn't, of course, but that was alright, we made the haul in two trips.
Move
During a lull in the firefight, I stepped off to inspect the treeline and stood still, listening. You know what it's like, first a kind of null then hearing sharpens, senses begin to live again and the countryside comes alive. Right at that point I heard a slight rustle through the brush and out padded a grey fox.
He didn't see me at first, just picked his way with a doggish grin along the game trail. The occasional shot echoed out in the distance and I wondered at the fox; gunfire didn't faze him. He stopped, as if on cue, while someone's rifle sounded off in search of deer.
A Typical Gray Fox
I looked at the fox and the fox looked at me with his comical face, his amazingly full tail gently brushing away. Then he trotted off in search of the next adventure and I finished off the move.
Part of that meant bagging a weirdly large amount of lights that'd been strung around the small compound. I told the story of the fox and got a spirited reply, explaining the light show.
Cat!
"Yes! Seen grey fox and red fox, bobcat, coyote, all kinds. There's a black cougar, yes there is. These lights here see him off. Don't want that puppy, nossir! Bag that extension cord. Cost me 68 dollars. Not leavin' that behind for no black cougar."
We left, truck loaded down with half of a man's worldly possessions. Not much when you think of it, two short-bed, tailgate-down loads to account for a life. By worldly standards a failure but listen up.
Ford
"No luggage racks on the top of a hearse" and, in the Gospel, "It's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle."
Comfort one another with these words.
LSP
8 comments:
"Yes that's my truck. No I won't help you move".
Next day. "Do you have any more junk hidden somewhere?"
Ahhhhhh.....but how are those riches measured, Parson?
We don't have a lot of money, but we consider ourselves quite wealthy in other ways.
WSF, it was a one day affair, I hope.
That, drjim, is an excellent point.
Real worth and value isn't measured by a fat bank account. You have to be humble enough to walk through the eye of the needle (unburdening the camel) if you want to get to heaven.
Great country.
And God bless. :)
LL, just think of all the shockingly miserable rich people we meet and Cash's words spring to mind, "my empire of dirt."
Still, I won't lie, I felt pretty fortunate compared to the person I helped move. House, gleaming metal chairs, guns, a rig and all the rest. Was he less happy than me? Good question.
With that in mind, perhaps we need to unburden the camel to such an extent it's not even a camel anymore. Humility climbs to peace.
You'd probably like it out there, Linda. Rough and ready but not bad for all that. The fox was neat!
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