We got it in our heads that if we just kept
driving Darwin wouldn’t die. This was because he seemed to
be improving by the mile. Although it might have been our destination,
Ben reminded me — The World’s Largest Ball of Twine.
The
Vet said Darwin’s cancer was inoperable, gave him 3 months
to live. That was 6 months ago. I met Ben one day at the San Rafael
Farmer’s Market selling broccoli. It was a grey and blustery
afternoon, closing time, and he was having a clearance sale — 2
dollars a bag. I liked his sign:
Best Broccoli In The Market
End of Story.
He was right. It was great broccoli. Plus he was a funny
man. He moved in just as I was packing for this trip. The world’s
largest ball of twine,” he said, staring off. “Absolute
mecca for a cat. Tell me, if I were dying, would you take me down
to Greenfield — broccoli
capitol of the world?”
“Not Wisconsin, cheese capitol, home of delicious cheese sauces
to go over the broccoli?”
“Heresy,” said Ben sternly. “Good broccoli needs
no disguise.”
And so it went like that as we left the Golden
State and headed towards Minnesota. I took the wheel of the ‘83
veggie fueled Mercedes and Ben navigated. Darwin positioned himself
behind the backseat
and serenely watching the landscape recede.
“Now you know there’s some controversy about this ball in Minnesota,” said
Ben, reading from the guide book. “It was built by Francis
Johnson on his farm and weighs 17,400 pounds. After his death the
City moved it to a town park where they celebrate Twine Balls Days
on the second Saturday in August. Too bad it’s not August.”
“Didn’t think we could wait that long,” I said. “But
you never know. The Vet’s been wrong this long.”
“Apparently there’s another ball of twine in Kansas that weighs
over 18,000 pounds but it was a group effort, and not the Herculean
achievement of a single man with too much twine on his hands and
a burning desire not to unravel mysteries but to create them.”
“Imagine,” I said. “What would get into a person to one
day start doing rolling like that. I mean I’m trying to wrap
myself around that. What’s at the core of all that?”
“Well there again some controversy,” said my broccoli salesman. “Some
think it was a cigarette butt. Others say a golf ball.”
“Maybe Francis made it for his dying cat,” I said. “You
can love a cat that much you know. Cats love balls of twine and yarn
and string more than anything.”
Ben looked back at Darwin who
turned and gazed at us.
“That’s right, honey, we love you,” I cooed at
him in the rearview mirror.
We were on our way to the world’s
largest ball of twine. After that we’d
visit the World’s Largest Ball of Postage Stamps, the World’s Largest
Chicken, and the Grasshopper Chapel of Assumption. And we’d just keep going
like that. Maybe we’d set off to see the smiley faced water towers, then
Babe and The Blue Ox, and even the Desert of Maine. Sure, the car smelled like
french fries, and Ben had a funny little gambling habit of hustling kids out
of their basketballs while playing horse in their driveways (he had the most
unorthodox wrong footed hook shot I’d ever seen — my daddy was a
coach — but it went in every time and no one else could do it like that broccoli
salesman) but even he finally petered out at the Two Storey Outhouse in Belle-Plaine.
Darwin made it as far as the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices in The Twin
Cities. He was a city cat originally and I choose to believe that he had come
full circle.
But I just kept driving, thinking I might never touch ground again.
Why should
I?
End of story.
© 2009 Guy Biederman
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