WINDED

   From the coast it runs, a hundred miles - probably a little more, until it brushes up against an eighty acre piece of Clackamas County that has been home to my family name for some hundred years or so. Sometimes it carries the turning taste of the Willamette, sometimes it brings the rain. Mostly though, it seems to hold a promise of change.

   "When the wind whispers your name, for bad or for better, there's a change in store for you," said an ancestor of mine one day, moments before a Westerly pushed an old pine on top of him. I've been told the kin folk scattered his ashes up a' yonder, overlooking the home place where the rest of our ghosts rustle up their haints and dance with the storms. They say it's him that taps the window glass, a sound I hear sometimes after the wind awakens me from a stir.

   Life of late walks heavy, creaking the porch boards across the afternoon's laziness. When I reach for my reasons it is often enough that I find nothing but gravity within my grasp, pulling down at the shadows where the Hoo Doo's dart from the corners of my vision.

   Summer has finally found us here in Oregon. It was still snowing at the two-thousand foot level just three weeks ago. Now the grass is green and the air is warm. Evening Post pictures of summer dreams I've never been able to catch. Do people really live lives like that? "You want me to answer that with a story?" He asks me.

   "Come on, Gramps. I've heard it all before. The snow never gets that deep 'round here, and why would you walk to school buck naked in the first place?"

   He chuckles some, then says, "thought we was talking 'bout the American Dream, not my illustrious childhood."

   "Seems most your stories end up in the snow, Grandpa."

   He scritches his stubly chin, his eyes falling to the wanderings of an old man's memories through a long life. When he finally speaks, his eyes are far away with the pictures in his head. "I'm looking for some swimmin' time in the pond," he says, "a bucket of coals and cornfed beef cookin'. Your Grandma's apple pie. Watching the day turn into night, maybe a pull or three on the jug while we argue some politics." His eyes focus on me when he asks, "what you lookin' for, boy?"

   I chuckle now. I guess being forty-two years old is still a boy when it's stood against his eighty-one years.  "I'm looking for some change, Gramps."

   He jumps up from his rocker and stuffs a calloused hand into his pocket. Extracting some coin, he begins a count.

   "Not that kind of change, Grandpa," I explain.

   "Do you see me on straws and diapers? I know what the hell you meant!" Gramps gets a little grumpy when senility is insinuated. "I want you to run down to the fillin' station and get me a Doctor Pepper," he growls, handing me the change. "When I start running around naked in the snow again, then you can question my sanity!"

   I regard the change in my hand. "I guess I'll walk," I say, "can't afford the gas for a soda. It'll give me some time to think."

   "You wanna think about something, think about taking a sack and picking up some cans on the side of the highway while you're walkin'. My prescription is due tomorrow."

   The first sweet breeze of summer rushes by us suddenly. It smells of Summer promises. Grandpa sees me smile.

   "I don't pay attention to the wind anymore. Afraid it might be sayin' my name." He heads for the front door of the house.      "Why you going in the house on such a nice day, Gramps?"

   "I don't want no damn tree fallin' on me."