I was sitting at home enjoying the last Newport Storm we had on-hand in the refrigerator Friday evening — it was about twilight, and Earl was nowhere in sight — when I decided I really should walk down the hill and pick up another six-pack. Mr. Betty might want a beer when he got home, and it seemed wise to stock up for the weekend.
So, as I was walking along Spring Street past Trinity toward the liquor store (one of many), I looked up at a trio of arched & paned windows and thought, "That's odd. Trinity seems unfamiliar from this perspective." Furthermore, the biggest window seemed potentially exposed to the weather, i.e. flying objects, yet there it stood: unprotected. (Yes, I was in storm mindset, given all the Earl hype, etc.) Then I got to the corner and realized they/Trinity had taken precautions along the North side by boarding up those windows. It was creepy, actually, as the North side is also the cemetery side, and somehow it looked like they were taking precautions against the spirits.
Creepier still, when I came out of the liquor store — having bought the next-to-the-last six-pack of Newport Storm on a presumably stormy Newport weekend that turned out to be just about the more glorious weekend ever — I realized that the age-old "spirits" sign of the liquor store looks down upon the age-old cemetery. What's more, Trinity's steeple was glowing so benignly or beneficently or beatifically (whatever the best b-word) from above.
It was an odd sight — that's all. To me, anyway.
An odd juxtaposition, shall we say.
And it reminded me of a another odd sight at the end of one of those hothot days a few weeks (or maybe a whole month??) ago, when I'd taken a bike ride around Ocean Drive and spied a guy ghosting along in a three-hulled kayak of sorts. He appeared to be talking on a cell phone and making no particular effort toward getting to shore — he wasn't paddling; he wasn't sailing — but get to shore he did. And when I got home myself on that hothot day, I was sitting, relaxing, trying to cool off after my bike ride; it's hard to remember how hot it was then, but it was hot (remember??). And I was taking in a few sights on the home front: a relaxed butterfly, a relaxed baby bunny, a relaxed (too relaxed??) mother bunny. Everyone was moving in slow motion, just trying to cope with the heat. Whereupon Mr. Betty came out of the house with beer in-hand: something new (or just unfamiliar) he'd picked up at the liquor store. The perfect brew for the occasion ...
Sadly (really, it makes me very sad), we never saw that baby bunny again ...
