The City and the Country no. 27 – September 16 2014

From country goats – belonging to good friends who bought and then enhanced the lavish house we built in Woodstock, enhanced it to a startling & magnificent degree – to city sights. The goats are pygmy goats, a growing herd whose females have produced an alarmingly large number of boys this year. Goatkeepers have no use for males, since one will suffice to service a whole herd of girls, and they (the boys) yield no milk to justify their cost in hay and grain. They’re mostly bound for the pot, all around the world (goat meat is the most eaten meat, on Planet Earth), but in this case their owner has no stomach for the killing. And neither have I. (I used to do it, as a goatbreeder myself many decades ago, but it was no fun even then.)
The city brings a meeting with Louanne, a beloved friend of nearly 50 years’ standing, who comes to Manhattan to visit her daughter, Circe, and her Ethiopian grandchild, the dynamic Abush. And I get to catch up with news of Lu’s family elsewhere; this time I’m bringing my book to our brunch, and have the joy of dedicating it to Lu and her partner, Jeremy, a scholar of the ancient world who I hope will find things to smile at in my book with its feet in prehistoric caves and a teasing meditation on what might pass today for Stone Age shamanism. I meet Lu on a sunny morning in Union Square, home on a day like this to pick-up chess games, luscious market produce, and homelessness. Also home to flyers for every cause under the sun – including news of a coup against God, seemingly forestalled. Reaching my college, my day is rendered blissful and complete when I see reclining on a sunlit bench, en route to the swimming pool, Saint David Hedges, a dear, true friend and a true saint of the public school classroom. (I’ve watched him teach.) I call him a saint, though like me he’s a Jew; well then, a Jewish saint. I ask him how the classroom is, these days. ‘A land beyond love,’ he says, summing it all up, as does his wry expression.