Country Dwight and City Jim (second version)

City Jim came to the country to find maple syrup.

City Jim found Country Dwight fishing on the ice.

“Where can I find maple syrup?” asked City Jim.

“In the trees,” laughed Country Dwight.

“What trees?” asked City Jim.

“Maple trees!” answered Country Dwight, dropping another fish into his pail.

“What trees are maple trees?” asked City Jim. “They have no maple leaves now!”

Country Dwight showed City Jim how a maple tree makes buds and branches.

Country Dwight showed City Jim how to tap a tree.

Country Dwight showed City Jim how to pour the sap.

Country Dwight showed City Jim how to boil the sap.

Then Thelma made waffles for City Jim and Country Dwight.

“Waffles are good with maple syrup," said City Dwight.

“They certainly are,” said Country Dwight.  “Please come back next year!”

City Jim and Country Dwight (Version 1)

Sitting, fishing through fat ice, Country Dwight spied City Jim. Gripping his circling pail of perch and bass, soon to be stew, Dwight dragged his camp chair, quick shuffling, toward the frozen shore.  Then their backs to the lake, they stood together, eying twisting treetops on windy hills.

Dwight pushed his face into the damp pulses rocking and tossing highpointing twigs. His eyes scrunched up to the late February sun, too soft today for drawing up rootwaters, up behind rough grey bark, up through dancing black branches, up toward calling tightcoiled buds.

"Sap tomorrow," Dwight spoke. City Jim nodded friendlydoubtful seeing straining webs of branching boughs like networks linking white skylight to dark rootworks twisting under snows through jagged rocks crushed under by weighty glaciers long since gone.  He saw those weblines underground unfurl to their fishfull lake sealed shut beneath its fair cap of flat ice - and up to the greengrey hills rippling south and east toward roads and cities, spreading and mingling and developing and filling with divergent ramifications, fertile or dead ending.

Country Dwight stood shouldered to City Jim, fatherly but cigarless and without the bottle sway or whiskey breath. Shouldered to greypated Jim, Dwight felt again being taken small to hunt, to fish, to trap, to kill. . . to tap and drill flat frozen lakes or tall sumping trees.  When City Jim moved in with books and pans and tools and plans, Country Dwight, ever seeking ways to help, fell in.  And Jim fell too into ways first worked by ice-following tribes long before they were stifled under poxy spreads.

Trudging down trails, they found right trees by sighting shoot patterns shared by sugars, reds, and other maple breeds.  All through three Marches they drilled and tapped, hanging buckets, and Dwight would say "We want warm days and cold nights," and Jim would laugh and say Dwight was alright.

City Jim let Country Dwight check buckets and help pour them to containers for taking home.  And at Jim's house, they'd ladle sap into pans they'd boil on wood fires while they watched and drank coffee all day.  It took all day, but then there was syrup to put in plastic bottles and glass jugs.  And then, with more coffee and City Jim, Dwight would eat hot waffles made by Thelma, but today the February sun was not enough.

Spring Break

Dwight asked Dave if he was selling the house.

Dave looked at the big lettered sign and then back at Dwight.

Coughing and clearing his throat, Dave sighed and nodded slowly. "Yes, Dwight. Pam and I have had enough snow. We're getting a place down in Florida."

Dwight was sad. Dave and Pam were the first neighbors to look out for him.  Who would move into their house when they were gone?

"Alligators?" he asked softly, partially out of friendly concern, but mostly to keep things lighthearted. This meant a big change on the road.

It took some tries for Dwight to make himself understood, but Dave eventually grinned and told him not to worry. "They have these newfangled types of gator-repellent now," he explained. "One squirt on Maggy's tail makes her safe from everything 'cept sea sharks and land sharks!"

Dwight sadly spread the news. Everyone on the road was surprised, though not everyone completely understood.  Dwight was used to this kind of uncertainty.  Friendliness and help, mutually given, were what was important.

It took Sharon and Marbles to figure it all out. They'd been walking and had read the sign whose big letters spelled "Town Meeting". They let Dwight know.

After a week Fred agreed to take Dwight shopping. "Only if it's less than $50.00," he said firmly.

In the city they had to go to many stores. Finally they had almost everything for $67.89.

They drove back and unloaded Fred's truck on Dave's front yard.  Before they were done, Dave came out with Maggie and stood watching. Then he went inside to soon return wearing sandals, Bermuda shorts, and large sunglasses with lime bright green frames.  He did not own a Hawaiian shirt, but an old yellowed wife-beater seemed good enough.

Dave pulled some lawn chairs out of the shed.  They sat around, but it was cool enough to drag over the firepot and get it going.  Pam, after laughing from the window, brought out some beers.  She brought Dwight's kind too.

Joe and Chisel almost walked by. Seeing the pink flamingo facing down an inflatable alligator under a plastic palm tree, they reversed course and brought back some tiki torches which they took time to set up: three around the party area and one on each side of Dwight's lawnchair.

Julie from across the street remembered three plaster crocodile parts stacked behind the woodpile. Dwight helped her arrange them on the brown grass. "It looks like it's swimming," he said. And when they could hear him, everyone laughed.

Through the trees, between Dwight's little house and their very big one, Bob and Louise saw the torch glows. They brought over their granddaughter, and everyone vacationed on Miami Beach until it was just too chilly.

Pam brought out a cooler filled with ice and cans of soda and more beer.

She pointed a stern finger at Dwight and told him, "If Dave ever puts up another sign, let me be the one that reads it to you." She looked at Dave for a few seconds and walked back into the house.

Dave snapped open another beer. "Dwight," he said, "You are quite the feller! Ya know that?"

Dwight chuckled and nodded. Yes, he did.