When my brother and are were kids, Mom would take us to Cooperstown to visit the Farmer’s Museum. While there we would find a spot near some water where a family of ducks swam. We’d throw them some bread and delight at their proximity. It was my favorite part of the trip. I didn’t need the boredom of the Baseball Hall of Fame or the dull agricultural history lessons of the Farmer’s Museum, or even the barnyard of animals in their working village. All I needed were a few simple ducks, waddling along and wading into water, where they took majestic form and found their metaphorical footing on a cloud of liquid. We always wanted to stay there longer than we could.
The memory came back to me when taking a couple of fun rubber duck photos in front of our current pool situation. Ducks have been a motif around the pool this crazy year, in various forms as our pool goes through various incantations. Maybe 2020 will be the nightmare from which we all awake like Bobby in the shower on ‘Dallas’. That dates me, and to be honest I know more about it from reading about it years after it happened. I wasn’t even watching ‘Dallas’ then, aside from the opening credits. My, what a wandering along memory lane. I’m losing track of where we even are. Maybe that’s for the best. We are all itching for an escape.
