The bicycle journey to deliver the books was six miles—in a car it would be called 15 minutes, but distance has no moral equivalent in time—and the way was generally uphill in that hollow to hilltop fashion typical of the Old Catskill Turnpike. I left midmorning, when the January winds were still well below freezing, and as I lumbered along watching the chain grow caked with salt I found myself indulging in a rather extensive repertoire of expletives and curses. My nose was raw-cold, my chest sweaty-clammy from exertion, my body odor faintly mingling with the exhaust of passing cars in an otherwise scentless winter morning. I glanced back from time to time to make sure the package of books, wrapped in brown paper, was secure atop the rear pannier, and each time I did so my suspicion deepened that I was victim of either an insult or a practical joke—probably both.
What we silly mortals do to honor a blank check.
As my resentment grew I pedaled faster and faster and found to my astonishment that I was gliding up the undulating rising road with euphoric ease—the hill was steep and the road lonely, like one from the Pyrenees, but nothing burns cleaner than the white flame of indignation and in this squall of anger and snow I cycled straight past my destination, and it was nearly half a mile down the road before I realized my mistake.
Having circled back round, I approached the mailbox of 1435 Swamp Oaks Road, and found there a man standing in the driveway. He was dressed all in wool and held a large wide broom with both hands. “Looks like you have a book delivery,” he said, smiling.
“That I do,” I replied, catching my breath. As the fog faded from my glasses I recognize the man as the same one from the booksale, Gronigen, and his calm, kindly air caused my anger to evaporate. He seemed genuinely delighted to meet me, and his delight was infectious. Later I would learn that almost everything delighted him, but it nonetheless always made me feel good, especially on a frigid January day, and I would come to always feel I could share his joy unjealously.
I stepped off my bike and began untying the package.
Gronigen demurred, softly waving his broom at me. “I bet you need some warming up. Let’s go inside and get you a cup of tea, and settle our account in there.”
I didn’t believe we had an account to settle, but tea and warmth were indeed inviting, so I gladly leaned my bike against a tree, removed the package, and followed him up the path.
The broom, he explained as we walked, was used during the Canadian Olympic trials in the 70s, in the sport of curling. Did I know what curling was? Was I a curler myself? No, I cannot say that I curled. Well! He used the broom for smoothing out this path here. Not for curling proper, you understand, but for keeping the substrate—the snow—a uniformly smooth surface one to two inches deep, perfect for registering animal tracks. In the woods, this time of year, the snow ran twelve to eighteen inches deep, and most animals had no choice but to plow along in ungainly way, and this made track identification rather difficult. It was a matter of great interest to him which animals passed by their home, and what they were up to, and this practice—smoothing out the snow each morning—was his way of staying in touch.
“Now to see what I mean,” he said, waving his broom in the air, “turn around and take a look.” And indeed we were well registered. The tracks of our boots made parallel lines, chiseled in the thin snow. His tracks carved a perfect, tidy narrow thread. How clumsy and sprawling and splayed my tracks were by comparison!—with each step my toes coughed up little showers of snow. You would think I waddled like a goose. I had never before considered that walking might not be innocent.
I blushed and acknowledged, as we walked on toward the farmhouse, that maybe I should take up curling, after all. He laughed and said he’d never yet met anyone for whom curling wouldn’t do some good.
