June 1, 2003 ~ Laughter and Giggles

Sunday.

All afternoon the laughter of the neighborhood children has been drifting through the windows, more than it usually does. The huge old oak tree twenty feet away from our house, at the end of this dead-end street, has a new tire-swing hanging from one of its sturdy branches.

Yesterday, I watched two of the neighborhood fathers putting it up. I was out watering the plants on the front porch. The two men made small talk as they worked, occasionally moving over to their truck to get a tool or some other useful thing. They had the truck radio playing.

At one point, the man next to the truck shouted to the man reeling in the rope (once again after missing the branch he was aiming for), "Hey! They caught Eric Rudolph! They finally caught 'im!" "No way!" "Really! They did!"

Eric Rudolph has become almost a legend in these parts. Surviving for years in the woods in these mountains, evading millions of dollars worth of FBI searches for him, to some he's become superhuman. When people find out that I often hike alone, they sometimes ask, "Aren't you afraid Eric Rudolph will get'cha?" (Seriously.)

So, he's caught, and Morgan tells me that downtown is swarming with news anchors and TV crews and journalists. They're bringing him to Asheville's courthouse for a hearing tomorrow, and everybody's buzzing.

The kids though, they are laughing and playing and having a grand time with that new tire swing. I keep sneaking glances out the window to watch them play. Laughter and giggles, it's a welcome change.

Footnotes:

weather: Clear, cool. Beautiful day.

bookmarked: Ah. Didn't do as I'd promised myself. Ended up getting caught up in a bunch of projects around the house instead.

writing focus: None.

observation: A thrasher taking a dust bath out back.

watching: Finally saw the old fantasy classic, Legend, though it was the European version, which is apparently longer and has a classical score, rather than synthesizer music, like the American version. It's a beautiful movie, even if the acting is kinda corny. As Morgan said, "You really should have watched this when you were a kid."

online journals:

"Okay, lots of tourists do that. I'm gonna get a picture of one getting gored yet, I just know it. Whenever I see people doing this, I get the camera up and wait. Someday I'll get the shot."

~ Grouse in this entry of Grousin' in the Sage.

John, in this entry:

"They were meeping. Can't be doing with meeping cats."

"Other people's cats meep about practically all the time."

"Yeah, well, that's other people's cats. Our moggies are not allowed to meep, not on a lovely sunny day, they're not. Besides, it works... Look at Harry now."

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