A smile and a wave

I hold a public office in a very small community. Most here are third, fourth, fifth, even sixth generation. Born here and never left. They are proud of being each other’s cousins. I count the inbreeding as responsible for the meanness.

If I were an ordinary citizen, just the ordinary “come here”, as opposed to “from here” of most others, I doubt I would notice. My friends are people I like, and I know I like people from both camps. As the town clerk I need to know a lot of people, and a lot of them aren't my friends. I attribute that directly to their meanness.

A large cloud of meanness has hung over the township for more than a year. Some days it’s more depressing than others, and today was one of those. Even the road guys looked like Joe Btfsplk under his dark rain cloud this morning, and I got a small dose myself.

I was thinking grumpy thoughts on the way home, but I did slow down by the lake to see if a heron was there, even though I had no camera. A little further up the road the police chief slowed and waved. The fellow who stopped the other day to see if I needed help, and scared away my heron. I smiled and waved back.

A couple of curves later Priscilla, another police officer drove past. Another smile and a wave. Priscilla let Mrs. Claus off a couple of years ago, when Mrs. Claus sped through town to get to the sleigh and wave to the children on the Polar Express. I like Priscilla.

When I arrived home and my sister pointed out a deer had sampled through the bulbs last night (grape hyacinths and crocus trimmed neatly to the ground) we laughed together; it must have been a very young deer just learning what tastes good. It will be in deer heaven when the hostas are grown.

A neatly trimmed grape hyacinth

Daffodil bed, unmolested

Two red anemones, a day from blooming