The Three Interesting People I Met This Summer

--Robert Langellier


Today I walked outside and realized I needed a jacket. Hell. Yes.

Summer is over. Autumn is here. It's my favorite season of all the seasons; bonfires, jackets, dead bugs, harvested corn, pumpkins, squash, stuffing, football, chilled air, crispy leaves, visible breath. It's a beautiful time. It gives me the official right to reflect on this past summer as if it were a thing of the distant past. It was, far and away and without a doubt, the best summer ever ever, but I want to get more specific than that. I want to introduce you to the three most interesting men I met this summer.

Not Eliot, Nick and Conor. Sorry, guys.

The first interesting man I met was named Harry. Once upon a time, I had problems, so I decided to walk them out - all the way from Springfield to Farmingdale. I wasn't planning on walking all the way to Farmingdale, but that's where I ended up by the time I turned around. About 2/3 of the way there, shortly after I decided Farmingdale to be my final destination, I got really really thirsty. It was a really hot day, and I brought nothing to eat or drink, so I stopped at some farmy looking place that had the word "Cuisine" on a sign. Cuisine = food, I thought, so I walked around the place looking for human life and water. After a while of looking, I spied an old man through a backdoor kitchen window, and I motioned him out. Turns out, he was a hired man doing some dishes while the owner was away. Cuisine = catering service, making me a creepy trespasser.

Luckily, I was forgiven of my crimes, invited to sit, and supplied with homey cup after homey cup of ice water. The man had a plump, round belly, and a scraggly head of wispy white hair and a thick gray beard. He looked like he could easily pull off Santa Claus at the mall if he dressed over the white wife-beater showing off rogue chest hairs. He certainly wasn't prepared for a summer formal, but he was friendly enough. He introduced himself and immediately launched into dirty joke after dirtier joke, to the point where I didn't think I should have been allowed to hear them at 18 years of age. They were funny though, but eventually he launched into dirty story after dirtier story. True stories. Like how he liked to walk around naked inside all the time, or how his friend and his friend's wife liked to put a ballgag in the husband's mouth and lead him around the house on a leash. I finished the last cup of water and didn't hesitate to leave, and he closed by letting me know that he goes to the Family Video on Macarthur a lot, in case I ever see him there. I haven't been to that Family Video since then, but for some reason I remember Harry fondly. At least he was friendly.

The second interesting man I met was named Will. I went into the wooded area behind my dorm one day to relax by the brook and do some homework. As I walked down the path to what I hoped would be a secluded area, I saw a shirtless man lounging on a rock. I waved hello, intending on turning and finding a new, lonelier location, but the man shouted a hearty welcome and beckoned me over to his spot on the rock. I obliged, thinking I would get along with this gentleman and get some good reading done in peace next to him.

The man was aged about forty, and was probably warmed considerably by a coat of light brown hair, enveloping his chest, rounded belly, shoulders, legs and face. His dark shorts covered but to his middle thigh, and his Burkenstocks clung to his feet as if desperate to cast a tan line somewhere on his skin. A faded old Confederate bandana held back the sweat from making the long journey down his upper-back length hair to his body, or from becoming lost in the short but thick beard on his face. He was well past the age of caring what the world saw in his appearance, which was kind of enviable.

“I am just the product of a woman,” he said, humbly but defiantly. With a male-dominant mindset of a classic sexist, Will went on to describe within a rigidly narrow frame the characteristics that all women share. First and foremost, they are all too ignorant to understand what they’re doing, which they compensate for with incessant complaining. Second, their ignorant, childish anger is nothing to be given much heed to, as they will always forget their anger and come running right back. Third, that, if they don’t come running back, it’s no real worry, because they are all replaceable in a heartbeat. He mentioned the three women who were currently upset with him, one of which would be returned to him by the next morning. He was either shamelessly cocky or wildly ignorant.

After absorbing more information than I needed about foraging berries on trailsides, sleeping in natural cave insets, and escaping DUI warrants, he eventually shifted his focus to the government. Within moments his speech derailed far from any semblance of free-spirited sanity onto a new plane of radical, wildly generalized tirades. People needed to die, he said. Somebody needs to revolt, he said. They’re watching him, he said. It was as if the wires that made up his thoughts were abruptly cut in mid-conversation. His political rants were entertaining, but nonsensical for the most part. Eventually, after missing my entire journalism class, I bid him byebye and went to lunch. It was worth missing a lecture.

The third interesting man I met was my uncle Marty. A few weekends ago I biked about 40 miles southward to Jefferson City, MO, where Marty and his wife own a farm another 20 miles from their house. I spent a large chunk of the weekend hanging with Marty, and he showed me the ropes on everything he could think of, whether I liked it or not. He was resourceful, peaceful, stoic, hardworking, and well-intentioned. His graying wisps of hair and aging body did little to reflect his work ethic. He always had something to do around the house or the farm, be it sifting corn he found on the roadside, hunting down pipe-clogging beavers, patching a canoe, or debarking some felled trees no one wanted. He was also highly intelligent in craftsmanship and in nature. He was a very practical-motivated man; all his smarts were focused in on things that improve quality of life. His practical knowledge is something college can't teach and a big reason why I want to spend a lot more time at the farm in the future. Consider him my favorite relative now.

It’s really super late at night now, and I can see my breath. Yessssss. As fun as summer was, I’m definitely looking forward to the fall months and the people I’ll meet now.