Dear Lauryth,

Even though it is Halloween, I do not intend to write to you about myths and legends. Quite the opposite. My observations of late have been not of things which aren’t but of things which are. Not of the unusual but of the commonplace. Commonplace things in the his and her world are quite strange enough for those of us who live beneath the level of the table. By the way, Lauryth, I’ve been wondering, how tall are you now? Not that it really matters. The level of the table is far more an attitude than an actual physical dimension. Still there is a relationship between height and attitude and I would not like to embarrass myself by writing out of one point of view and being read in another. But I digress. . .which is not unusual for a Chessie. Our interests are catholic, our capacity universal, and our indulgence legend. But then I digress from my digression. Back to the commonplace.

If one of her co-workers had asked the Mrs. what she did over the weekend past, she would have said simply, “Oh, we went to the dump and had my truck washed.” Sounds simple enough but already she has crossed out of the boundaries of the commonplace. How many secondary school upper level administrators drive a truck? While it is true that what she calls a truck is actually a small pick-up, it does have a diesel engine and it looks hardly commonplace among the Hondas, Fords, Toyotas, Chevys, Nissans, and occasional Volvo or Audi that occupy the administration parking lot. And the fact that she calls it a truck, with such emphasis, suggests that this gentle little woman has a side which speaks of strength, ruggedness, load-carrying capacity, a no-foolin’-around straight-ahead brain, beer drinking, and country music. She is qualified in every case.

Now going to the dump you may think hardly unusual, and I have to agree with you. Lots of people do it and, according to the Professor, too many of them on Saturday morning. Going to the dump for the Professor and the Mrs., however, is a philosophical exercise. It is a catharsis, a soul cleansing escapade by which they rid themselves of the junk in their lives.

“It’s time to get rid of some of the junk in our lives,” the Professor said one morning, and the Mrs. replied, “Oh, goody, I love it. Let’s.”

At first, I felt some personal danger, but soon discovered that they were talking about tree trimmings, rusted patio chairs, and old fans that don’t work. Katie, however, is not as secure as I and still runs and hides when they start gathering up junk. They always seem to accumulate a lot of it, and by the time they are loaded they have a truck piled high and yucca limbs over the top as a final layer. Then comes the tying down. The truck has cleats on each side and they lash a rope from one side to the other, pulling it down snugly. The Professor works on one side and the Mrs. on the other. She is not as experienced in tying down as he. They usually start with him throwing the end of the rope with a loop in it over the top of the load to her where she is waiting, Katie dancing at her feet. I stick with the Professor because all those years of tying down his boat have made him a good tyer-downer, and I enjoy proficiency.

“Can you reach the loop?” he asks.

“Where is it?” she asks in reply.

“I threw it over.”

“I can’t see it.”

“Want me to pull it back and throw it again?”

“No, there it is caught on a chair leg.”

“I’ll throw it again.”

“Not if I can get it. If I can just get by this yucca without getting my bosom punctured.”

“Good God, don’t do that!”

“I almost have it now. . . .Ouch!”

“Are you leaking?”

“Try to keep a decent mouth. You didn’t throw it far enough.”

“I’ll pull it back and throw it again.”

As he did so, Katie bounced around the end of the truck and said, “I think she punctured her bosom.”

“Which one?” I asked.

“Third on the left side.”

“His and her ladies only have two,” I told her.

“I have lots more.”

“Yes, but yours are very small.”

“Don’t be snide.” With that she scampered back to the other side of the truck where the Mrs. had finally gotten the loop end of the rope.

The Professor waited a minute or so, and finally asked, “Do you have it?”

“Yes, I’ve had it looped over the cleat for five minutes,” she said, a small note of irritation creeping into her voice.

“I have no way of knowing that unless you tell me.”

“All right, I have it looped over the cleat.”

The Professor muttered something I couldn’t hear, but it sounded a little like a badger on a cold morning. He pulled the rope tight, bent it around the cleat, and held it firm with a half hitch. Then he threw the remaining rope over the top of the load to the Mrs.

“Take it around the back cleat and half hitch it,” he said, using his best instructor’s tone. We could see the rope pull tight, then slacken, then pull up tight, and then slacken again. There was a lengthy wait and then the Mrs. seemed to be talking to herself. “Have you got it?” he asked.

“Just a minute.”

Another wait. “What’s the matter?”

“I’ve forgotten how to make a half hitch.”

“Well, just make a loop and lay it back on the bottom side of the top half.”

Pause. “It doesn’t have any sides. It’s round.”

“I’ll come and do it.”

“No, no, I can do it. Just give me a minute and I’ll get it.”

“I’m coming around.”

“No! I remember now.” The rope pulled up tight and after some rustling all was still.

“Did you get it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, throw the rope back.”

“I can’t. I seem to have tied my sleeve in the half hitch.”

The Professor looked at me and began to laugh without sound. He leaned against the truck and shook as he laughed. The truck shook as he laughed.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“No, I’m just petting Bun.” He squatted down and rubbed both my ears.

“I think you’re laughing at me.”

The Professor laughed harder. The truck is a small one and the Professor is a large one. The truck shook a great deal.

“You are laughing at me. I can see the truck shake.”

“It’s Bun,” he said. “He’s leaning against the truck and wagging his tail. You know what a leaner he is.”

“If I could get my sleeve free, I would come around to see if you are laughing at me.”

“Want me to come and get you out.”

“Don’t you dare.”

The Professor took my head in his hands and whispered to me, his eyes damp. “She’s all we’ve got, Bun,” he said. “She’s kind of warty and she isn’t much of a knot tyer, but she suits us fine and we love her.”

Katie bounced around the end of the truck at about that time. “Don’t let him drive away! She’s got her arm tied to the truck.”

“He isn’t going to drive away. Calm down.”

“She’s got her arm tied to the truck! I think it’s some kind of a protest!”

The Mrs. solved her problem by taking off her shirt and, with both hands to work on it, freed her sleeve. Completing the job, they departed, deciding to have breakfast on the way.

“It’ll give more people a chance to get a really good look at a well tied down truck,” the Professor said. “We can go to Aunt Emma’s and they can walk right up to it in the parking lot.” The last remark I heard as they drove away was the Mrs. saying that she didn’t want to hear anymore about tying down the truck.

They returned in about three hours laughing. They talked about the young man at the pancake house who had dribbled syrup in his long beard as he ate his pancakes, and the little man who ran the car wash yelling at the high school boys who weren’t working fast enough to suit him, and about the fact that the Mrs. now had the cleanest broom in all of San Diego County because she had left it in the back of the truck when it went through the car wash. I didn’t see anything especially funny about any of these things, but they did.

They came in the house, the Mrs. with her super-clean broom in one hand and holding the Professor’s hand with the other. I wondered if they went to the dump to get something out of their lives or to put something in.

Sorry I didn’t have anything really important to talk about on this Halloween, but that’s the way things are as I observe them from beneath the level of the table where I remain,

Your friend,

Bunbury