Generation Gap

A little more snow falls each day, but not enough to erase a day’s boot holes. My Saturday tracks from home to Sandy’s are easily traceable this morning. They follow my tracks from an unknown number of days. Only two or three other set of boot holes go this way.

Having few tracks to examine, I easily become a tracker. This one wears knobby boots—high tops, size 10 or so, longer stride than mine, feet not lifted much between steps, dragged through the top layer of loose snow, probably male and tall.

These steps I know—have tracked this one before—size 12 or larger, smooth soles with the slightest cross ridges, half-inch heel, stride considerably less than mine, boots barely lifted between steps. These tracks are fresh from this morning and they belong to Larry. He walks four blocks to Sandy’s, and today he has beat me there. I will see him at the end of the counter on his regular stool and will hear some friendly, but unpredictable greeting, like “I’ve been coming here fourteen years,” or “Used to be twenty-five below, every morning.”

But he’s quite today, doesn’t say much—good days and bad, he’s said. So I remark, “Sparks fly off the snowplow blade at dawn this morning,” and give a little laugh, like a child who has not seen such wonders before. “Christmas cheer,” I add, and get a rather bland “Yep.” Larry knows the seasons and the days and the sparks from snowplows. After finishing his sweet roll and coffee, he carries his dishes to the kitchen and makes a pot of coffee. Nobody gets service like Larry does at Sandy’s. “Love you,” Katrina says as he leaves.

There really seems to be no generation gap in this town. I saw a sixty-something sitting with a teen and learned they are not relate, just friends. And Katrina, who just graduated from college, talks to her fifteen-year-old brother as an equal, a buddy. He’s good kid, easy to talk to. I see him drive a snowmobile away from Sandy’s, hit a little hill and fly twenty feet across a ravine. Maybe I can ask him for a ride.