In life, I mean, for a living, I’ve been, I was, a bartender.  I may have helped contribute to the happiness of many people, not that happiness is a lasting thing necessarily.  Perhaps I should have been a policeman, but maybe that wasn’t really me.

In observing the elderly, I trust a good mood less and less.

Mom wants to for a drive.  I go out to the parking lot, opening up the windows, bringing a paper bag with bottled water and a sandwich wrap from the earlier trip to the Stewart Shop for a NY Times.  I got up early, going for a walk in morning wind around seven.   After the convenience store I went out back and did my yoga as the sun was just coming up over the poplars.  Then I took a shower, dressed, got ready for taking mom out in the rental car.  I come back in.  She has intestinal issues, she tells me, so we hold off for a bit.  We go check the mailbox, but the mail hasn’t come.   Then, she is ready, so I bring the paper bag back to the car.

We are driving slowly toward the lake, through the 20 mph street that takes you around the university campus to the drive to Rudy’s with the lake view, and the motor homes and the cabins.  There are three crows just by the side of the street, picking at something interesting and agreeable to them.  So I slow down more and give them a wide berth.  They take off, calling as they do, and then from around the curve comes a university police car.

He turns around, and we’re going along slow and I’m talking to mom about what we might see today, but I know he has pulled in behind me and the lights go on.  Sure.  No problem.  I pull over, gently, stop.

License and registration.  Sure.   It’s a rental car.  Just the license then.   Sure. Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?  You were in the left lane.  Yes, I’m sorry, there were three crows by the side of the road.  Mom’s a birder, she’s retired from the SUNY...

The policeman is kind, and almost chuckles. Oh, I didn’t see any birds.  Yeah...  Any problems with your license?  No, sir.

And five minutes later we are on our slow way again.  Chastened.  Slightly nervous.  I go along with our little ride.  Past Rudy’s fried fish stand like a diner, picnic tables by the lake, then out past where the wind picks up the water in spray as the waves crash the sea wall, then out past the pond, eventually turning around and coming back.