He could get the mail. Several times a day, he’d go to the mailbox, which was up the driveway, next to the road. Once a day, excepting Sundays, he’d actually bring something back. He’d put the mail on the counter, where I’d go thru it and sort out the good from the bad. Since the mail usually arrived around noon, I’d cook lunch while he read random snippets from catalogs, brochures, anything. From one flyer advertising a Hawaiian vacation he read, “Kobe Japanese Steakhouse,” “Easy Rider,” “Meteor Shower Night Trip.” Very serious. I don’t think he knew what he was reading. He was just impressed with himself for being able to translate letters into sounds. Words that were composed by an ad agency in New York were being recited with zero context in a farmhouse in Strattford County, Colorado. It was the opposite of poetry. The day after we rode the Rocket, Pa went to the mailbox and brought back the hospital bill. Of course we didn’t have any insurance.
