Kicking a Stone

The rules for kicking a stone are simple and inflexible.

 

1.         You can't do a foot-shift before kicking. You have to arrange your stride in advance to be in the right position to kick with the appropriate foot.

 

2.         There's no re-placing a stone. If it goes into the rough (i.e., the grass or the gutter), you're out of the game.

 

That's all. And with these rules laid down, how long can you last, kicking a stone? Half a block? I used to be pretty good at it, but lately my aim is dicey. The stone is as likely to go to the right as to the left—and either of those is more likely than a straight shot that will send the stone forward on the sidewalk where it will stop and wait for my next available foot. A pine cone works in a stone-free environment. Don't use a stone so big that it damages your toe. Do I have to remind you not to kick a stone if you're wearing sandals?

 

 

Copyright 2011 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Swooning

I once spent an evening swooning. I was at Indiana Beach, a resort in Monticello, the "gateway to the lakes" about fifteen miles from my home town. It was a thriving resort that pulled in big national acts. I saw Stan Kenton and his band at Indiana Beach (Maynard Ferguson—remember him?--on trumpet). When I saw the Dave Brubeck trio, I spent the whole evening standing right beside the wooden stage (most people were dancing), gazing with adoration at Paul Desmond as he played his saxophone. Oh, he was sexy. Oh he was handsome. Oh, I was young. I felt that he would surely feel me staring at him and would realize that I was in love, and then he would . . . he would . . .

 

Would WHAT, little girl? You didn't know, did you, what can happen to foolish star-struck teenagers. Well, an angel watched over me (or over HIM) and ensured that he didn't even know I was alive. I swooned with impunity.

 

 

Copyright 2011 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

The Topaz Stone

I found a polished rock, shaped like a humbug. It definitely looked like hard candy, shiny and striated with gold. It was a bit too large for popping into the mouth, but perhaps some judicious tongue-stroking and sucking would reduce it to a more manageable size. And then eventually it would just disappear.

 

But no, this isn't candy at all. That's just a tease. This is a stone, polished in a grinder until it looks like hard candy.

 

When I see a silky-smooth, irregularly shaped stone like this, I want to go out and buy a rock polisher so I can make my own smooth stones. We used to have one. I bought it when the children were young, thinking to establish a family hobby. But when we realized that it took days of tumbling for the machine to do its work—days of hearing an incessant low hum—we all lost interest. Now I think maybe I should buy myself a rock tumbler after all. It might be worth the annoying noise if I could create smooth stones like this little mock topaz.

 

I could take a handful of polished stones with me wherever I went, dropping them here and there. Leave one on a subway seat. Put several in the children's sandbox at the park. Tuck a few in my neighbors' flower-beds for them to find when digging in the garden. The stones, silent testimony that the snow angels blessed them during the long white winter, will offer the miraculous promise of spring.

 

Copyright 2011 Ann Tudor
www.anntudor.ca