Enough of this maudlin whining.
Spring has finally come to Bland. Like in most other parts of the world, the smells are the true indicator of the season's approach. These past few weeks, several inches of rain fell, soaking the fields and swelling the creeks. The fragance of cherry blossoms floats on the breeze, reminding me of better days. Yesterday my father and I drove to Chilhowie, a small town near Mt. Rogers, Virginia's tallest mountain. Not to deviate too far from my topic, but this mountain is home to an island of taiga/tundra habitat left over from the glacial recession. I only found out about this a few years ago, and have yet to make it there.
Anyways.
The smells of spring were but a hint on the pungent roadway exhaust of the interstate. We made a right, and the artery faded into an arteriole near Chilhowie, then into a capillary after a few more miles, bringing supplies and resources to the few farms and houses in this area. The smells of the interstate were nothing but a bad memory at this point. The car rolled to a stop, and I found myself wishing for just a bit of that bad memory to come back. The building in front of us was a dried peeling mess of a structure, probably built around 30 years ago yet showing the age of a much older building. The smell of blood and death enveloped us as we entered through a heavy wooden door. The sign above us read:
JONES' SLAUGHTERHOUSE AND MEATPACKING
CHILHOWIE VA
SINCE 1975
We were here to pick up a beef we had sent off to slaughter. The lobby reminded me more of a hunting lodge or gun club. Diagrams of butcher charts for pigs and cattle decorated the walls, much like pictures of American Idols in a teenage girl's room. Cheap cigars gave a spicy aftertaste to the metallic blood taste lingering in my mouth and nose. The proprietor of the shop, Mr. Jones himself, greeted us with a hearty handshake, short a finger or two. The staff appeared to be mainly locals, the type of characters you see in roadside diners at entirely unreasonable times of night.
The necessary paperwork and formalities were conducted, and soon we were packing up our deep-frozen beef. It's amazing how much meat animals have once it's tightly packed into airlocked plastic bags. The receipt gave us a hanging weight of 552 pounds; this refers to the weight after the animal is dressed; hide, organs and other dross of a life well lived removed. Meat and bones at this point. The meat filled up the back of our Chevy suburban, with boxes packed with T-bones and ground beef spilling over into the first bench seat. We used the kids' car seats to keep the boxes from sliding around on these windy mountain roads. As I packed the last bag into its box, a beef tongue wrapped around a heart glared back at me; it would make a great tattoo with the right artist.
The veins and arteries of Eisenhower's eternal circulatory system pumped us back home, at the end of our capillary.
My dad sorted through the mail at our driveway, and handed me a postcard. It was addressed to me, sent out a few days before. The front side read:
SHEARER PHRENOLOGY
6667 WAYSIDE DR.
ROANOKE VA 24016
And the back:
THIS IS TO CONFIRM AN APPOINTMENT WITH THE DOCTOR ON MONDAY APRIL TWENTY SEVENTH AT FIFTEEN THIRTY. WE REQUEST THAT FIRST TIME PATIENTS ARRIVE FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLY IN ORDER TO COMPLETE THE PAPERWORK.
THANK YOU.
SEE YOU SOON.
An austere white postcard with a typeset that looked like Times New Roman, but written by hand. Immaculate, but not machine-perfect.
As I've said before, the details of my hospital visit are blurry. I remember nothing of phrenology, and indeed, the very word itself eluded me as we unloaded the meat into our freezers. The beast filled our chest freezer and our two stand-up freezers, and even forced uneaten and expired food to be left out to thaw. Afterwards it would fed to our dogs and grandmother's chickens.
Aha! Phrenology! The meditative aspects of loading the freezers allowed the word's meaning to float up from the depths of my conciousness, from the gap between phrenitis and Phyrgian.
"Dad, you know what phrenology means, right?"
"Well, yeah. That's the doctor that looks at your head, right?"
"Something like that. Does insurance cover it?"
"I imagine. Why wouldn't it?"
I decided not to argue about it any more. I didn't even know phrenologists were still around, certainly not in this part of the world. Monday. Well, this should make a good story.
My numbed fingers were beginning to thaw as I warmed them under my arms. I crunched on some old popsicles from another summer as I thought about the implications of the word.
True story.
Anyways.
The smells of spring were but a hint on the pungent roadway exhaust of the interstate. We made a right, and the artery faded into an arteriole near Chilhowie, then into a capillary after a few more miles, bringing supplies and resources to the few farms and houses in this area. The smells of the interstate were nothing but a bad memory at this point. The car rolled to a stop, and I found myself wishing for just a bit of that bad memory to come back. The building in front of us was a dried peeling mess of a structure, probably built around 30 years ago yet showing the age of a much older building. The smell of blood and death enveloped us as we entered through a heavy wooden door. The sign above us read:
JONES' SLAUGHTERHOUSE AND MEATPACKING
CHILHOWIE VA
SINCE 1975
We were here to pick up a beef we had sent off to slaughter. The lobby reminded me more of a hunting lodge or gun club. Diagrams of butcher charts for pigs and cattle decorated the walls, much like pictures of American Idols in a teenage girl's room. Cheap cigars gave a spicy aftertaste to the metallic blood taste lingering in my mouth and nose. The proprietor of the shop, Mr. Jones himself, greeted us with a hearty handshake, short a finger or two. The staff appeared to be mainly locals, the type of characters you see in roadside diners at entirely unreasonable times of night.
The necessary paperwork and formalities were conducted, and soon we were packing up our deep-frozen beef. It's amazing how much meat animals have once it's tightly packed into airlocked plastic bags. The receipt gave us a hanging weight of 552 pounds; this refers to the weight after the animal is dressed; hide, organs and other dross of a life well lived removed. Meat and bones at this point. The meat filled up the back of our Chevy suburban, with boxes packed with T-bones and ground beef spilling over into the first bench seat. We used the kids' car seats to keep the boxes from sliding around on these windy mountain roads. As I packed the last bag into its box, a beef tongue wrapped around a heart glared back at me; it would make a great tattoo with the right artist.
The veins and arteries of Eisenhower's eternal circulatory system pumped us back home, at the end of our capillary.
My dad sorted through the mail at our driveway, and handed me a postcard. It was addressed to me, sent out a few days before. The front side read:
SHEARER PHRENOLOGY
6667 WAYSIDE DR.
ROANOKE VA 24016
And the back:
THIS IS TO CONFIRM AN APPOINTMENT WITH THE DOCTOR ON MONDAY APRIL TWENTY SEVENTH AT FIFTEEN THIRTY. WE REQUEST THAT FIRST TIME PATIENTS ARRIVE FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLY IN ORDER TO COMPLETE THE PAPERWORK.
THANK YOU.
SEE YOU SOON.
An austere white postcard with a typeset that looked like Times New Roman, but written by hand. Immaculate, but not machine-perfect.
As I've said before, the details of my hospital visit are blurry. I remember nothing of phrenology, and indeed, the very word itself eluded me as we unloaded the meat into our freezers. The beast filled our chest freezer and our two stand-up freezers, and even forced uneaten and expired food to be left out to thaw. Afterwards it would fed to our dogs and grandmother's chickens.
Aha! Phrenology! The meditative aspects of loading the freezers allowed the word's meaning to float up from the depths of my conciousness, from the gap between phrenitis and Phyrgian.
"Dad, you know what phrenology means, right?"
"Well, yeah. That's the doctor that looks at your head, right?"
"Something like that. Does insurance cover it?"
"I imagine. Why wouldn't it?"
I decided not to argue about it any more. I didn't even know phrenologists were still around, certainly not in this part of the world. Monday. Well, this should make a good story.
My numbed fingers were beginning to thaw as I warmed them under my arms. I crunched on some old popsicles from another summer as I thought about the implications of the word.
True story.