The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
- Carl Sandburg
That is today along the Lake. it has come in and out dozens of times giving an eerie presence in record-high temperatures.
I did a study of Chicago at age nine, with this poem and also about “hog butcher for the world” and a collage of Chicago photos. I don’t recall how I did on the paper, of course an A+ was expected and deserved. But there is a reason I remember this paper, for the poetry and for allowing myself to show that I’m smart.
Back then, girls couldn’t be “cool” if they were smart. This was when I was interested in horses and dogs, not boys. You can’t take shop because you’re a girl, so stop asking. You must take home ec with the other girls. So I read, a lot at home. And summers I took off my shoes and was a tomboy climbing 150 feet down to the creek every day and playing baseball with the two neighbor boys, ghost men everywhere!
And swimming. And brillo’ing my father’s 1964 red Buick Special coupe. I was working on his whitewall tires and saw tar on his doors so used the steel wool to buff it out. Man, was he upset! We’re now in a place where someone before us took steel wool to the stainless appliances. When we move out I’ll tell this story – it certainly wasn’t me as I learned that lesson at age eight!
It’s interesting, childhood memories. The fog is out again and it’s raining. I’ll never forget those poems. Cheers, Dee
