August 1, 2012
The Gusts of August

Our Book Tour…

Wonderful experience of Co-Creation at the Dell’Arte physical theatre school in Blue Lake. And we’re in preparation for our Eastern tour are galloping apace—see the schedule. Still a few open dates.

From Elizabeth…

For the trip back from Boulder at the top of July, I provided us with a take-along dinner to give us some comfort on the first day’s drive (900 miles is a long haul), and we stopped at Delta, Utah, for our picnic. This little town has created a pretty green park in its midst, complete with a climbable waterfall and a tiny stream. In the midst of alkali flats and murky wildfires, it was a joy, and we settled ourselves on a big concrete park bench to enjoy our meal.

Hours later, at a truck stop gas-up, I discovered that I didn’t have my bag. Wallet. Cell-phone. Money. Credit cards. Prius key (a $300 item). No idea where I’d left it.

After panicking, I zeroed in on the image that I’d had the bag when we roosted on the bench in Delta, and I remembered a municipal building facing the park that said, “Sheriff.” I sweet-talked the gas attendant to lend me his smart phone, Googled the appropriate county, and called the sheriff’s office. Hallelujah! They’d found the bag under the bench, and had logged its contents—nothing missing. They asked me to call them from home to verify my mailing address, and they’d send it.

It arrived on a Saturday, and though the postage was $15, when I called to say it had arrived they wouldn’t let me pay it. I emailed the sheriff’s office to ask if I might make a donation to the local firefighters’ fund in thanks, but the response was that my writing was thanks enough.

Sunday at our ritual coffee stop, Hardcore Espresso, I was telling this heart-warming story to Molly, the proprietor, who was sitting with another regular patron, Bill Fowler. Molly looked at Bill, and they exploded with laughter. Molly said, “Everybody at Hardcore knows about your purse.”

Before we’d left, we had made a last-minute post on a community bulletin board offering some free used deck boards and gave our cell number. Several calls came in, and the last one just hit voice-mail. So when the Sheriff’s department had found the bag, they tried to locate me by calling the last incoming number on the cell phone, which happened to be the last guy who’d called about the boards; he happens to have a heavy Swiss-German accent, and heard “Fuller” as “Fowler.” So he called Bill Fowler, one of his friends, to report that his wife’s purse had been found in Delta, Utah.

Nobody could make any sense out of this, until I got home and told my story. Hopefully this redeemed Bill’s wife’s reputation.

Other Projects…

Proceeding as usual. Most important, perhaps, is harvesting the vast droppings of our apple tree.

Part into apple sauce, part into dried apples, which crisp up fine in the oven that Elizabeth just repaired.

Peace & joy—

Conrad Bishop

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