The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Avoid litigation.

Nancy Adams
Sep 3, 2018 · 4 min read

The moon, the half moon, is right over the cookstove chimney at the cabin. The pond is empty of moon or stars now. Fish ripples cross it. A lone apple swims it. The pond held stars and Mars last night. A lone car in the distance measures the silence before, and after, and here. Judge and Annie have eaten. The coffee is brewed. The crickets and I and noise memories and ripple memories and weekend memories are here.

The other memories are here too. Judge, for instance is now following a smell memory in the vain hope that a bit of kibble has dropped on the floor. I am pursuing a Dad memory, though not with my nose, of course. Come to remember, though, The snuff had a smell. Snuff could be gently squeezed out of the mouth and into an empty beer can. By Dad. That smell memory is more in pursuit of me than I of it.

I took people around the ‘Tall House’ last week. A filmmaker in need of 20 or 30 hats, an old friend, and cousins visiting for the first time. It all got me looking for something, which I pursued, but could not find. A draft of something my great-grandfather had written. We had found it, and put it in a box. Out came boxes and into the boxes went I. Out of a box came a draft of something Dad wrote. I couldn’t find the other draft,

I can imagine the board meeting this draft of minutes came out of. I can hear Dad saying

We want his presence in the community.

Skip our board members.

We want planning.

He might have thrown his papers on the table as he said “Skip our board members.” He would have spat out “We WANT planning.” I hope he used his inside voice. Dad’s inside voice did not suffer fools gladly, but Dad’s outside voice stopped the fools in their tracks. Dad’s outside voice could stop a fight or sink a sub. He would be outside, on the bridge, and say

Rig for dive.

Check the gun access hatch.

Clear the bridge.

Dive, dive, dive.

The Pacific, of course, was no little pond with gentle ripples that did not move an apple in the water. Dad learned his outside voice there.

I was young and Dad drove me to the movies in Silver Creek, to the Geitner Theater, when it still was open. When I opened the car door, we could both hear a fight going on in the alley. Dad rolled down his window, and with his conning tower outside voice, not a yell at all, a voice of great volume,

Stop

That

Now

They did.

A September evening, before the time change, a magical warm September evening, it was light enough to play outside and I did. I went outside and discovered that a boy who lived down the street was being beat up. That boy was a scuffler and a fighter and went on to join the Marines and to re-enlist too. I will call him Jimmy Smith, though that was not his name. That boy would not have wanted me to do what I did, which is to go inside crying and ask Dad to break up the fight. Dad followed me out to the back porch.

Jimmy Smith

Come here

Now.

He did. The boys beating him up ran away. Jimmy Smith did not speak to me for a few years after that.

The old friend who I gave a house tour to handed me over a memory he had of Dad. Dad had not been the County Judge very long at the time. Dad was sitting in a corner of the bar up town. The friend was tending bar and it was late. The bar up town is pretty splendid, ornate with a mirror and ornamentation from the early 1900’s, bought from the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. The village is pretty proud of it. The bar tender was pretty proud of it. Dad was really proud of it. Dad, I am sure, was having a Genesee beer. He loved Genesee beer. Several rowdy trouble makers came in. The old friend told me their names but they are still around and I believe have mended their ways more or less so I will not name them again. They came in drunk and thirsty. They wanted to be served.

“I cannot serve you,” said the bar-tender.

“If you don’t serve us we will tear this place up.” They didn’t notice the County Court Judge in the corner.

“Go ahead,” said the bar tender. “Do you see that sign on the wall that it is against the law to serve an inebriated person?”

“Oh pshaw,”they said (or something to that effect.) They repeated their threat.

The bar tender said “If I serve you I am breaking the law and can be sent to jail. If you tear the place up you are breaking the law and will be sent to jail. We will get the insurance money.”

The local rowdy trouble makers left, still thirsty. Dad did not use his outside voice. He had not needed to. He said to the bar-tender “You have a tougher job than I.”

The sun is up and the light has just hit the pond, catching up boneset in a wavy reflection. Merv is pouring himself a cup of coffee. Judge and Annie are sleeping off breakfast. Good morning! The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Avoid litigation.

Nancy Adams
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