How we solved the mystery of the man with the stick: Every so often an unusual looking man passes our house. He is older but walks tall and erect and with a slight bounce. He has a cropped white beard and wears loose white cotton pants, a similar loose cotton shirt, and from the same fabric a frock on top of it. On all the cotton fabric, he wears a bold black vest. He wears this every single time. His head is always covered in a white head covering that resembles the Hasidic shluf-kapel. And he always holds a stick, a regular piece of 2x2 that seems to have been taken from a construction heap. He never leans on the stick. He just swings it as he walks by; sometimes waving to us with the other hand. Seth and I have been waving back, but we’ve been coming up with all sorts of theories as to why he carries the construction paraphernalia. In one of my more fantastical theories, the man is the Prophet Elijah himself, and he is guarding our house in his mystical gettup. Although both of us loved to entertain this thought, neither of us believed it. So today as we were waiting for the school bus, our Elijah walked by again. And on impulse I decided to ask him. So we hopped off the porch and ran to the end of the yard and waved him over. He smiled and came, bouncing, said Salla I think. It was definitely a shalom that reflected a different Semitic language. I asked “do you mind if we ask what purpose the stick serves?” He looked at me blankly. So I pointed: “Stick. Stick. Why?” “Ahh! I walk… walk… bad duck. Bad dook.” He showed me how his stick swatted stuff away. Seth said to me that he meant a dog. A bad dog. Then he pointed to Seth and said “son?” and cooed and patted his hand and asked “I picture?” He wanted us to stand by the hedges and pose for him. Seth was in his fresh school uniform, I was in drenched wet workout clothes; a pink pomegranate face. I wasn’t sure what we were expected to do, but I said yes. He drew a digital camera out of one of the many pockets of his cotton robe and took a picture of us. Then he left happily, waving with one hand and swinging the stick in the other.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 14:22:19 +0000
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