North of Boston

THEY aint much happened sence the last riting. The other afternoon I got fed up with the phone and the intercom yapping in my ear. I set the seat of my pants into a flying machine. The air was quiet and solid, so I give the ship her head. Pretty soon there is a lake with a long sandbar making out, shining gold through the blue water.

I saw her off, come downstairs, set on, taxi onto the bar and light.

There is just me and the ship and the lake and the mowntings. A woodpecker starts up his mill and a red squirrel swears at him. I see where a deer has went by and a coon has come down to look things over.

Way, way off they is two dots of sound in the silence, when some gunner lets go. Pretty soon three black ducks go by full throttle. I would of give five bux if I could have had a copy of Bill Bryant's "To a Water Fowl" to read right then.

The sun sinks and the lake is a mirror for the mowntings that come down to meet it. I close my eyes and I can see and hear and smell Fifth Avenue and State Street and LaSalle Street as they are right at that moment. I am awful glad that I am where I be.

Then I snap out of it, climb into the ship, yank the commencer and go elsewhere very sudden, for twilight landings aint good on glassy water for amateurs—things is liable to come apart with a very loud noise.

I wisht wun of you fellers could of ben with me—you might of liked it.