Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the faucet, so they could fill it with water and then dive off the faucet. Sometimes they liked to
put a coffee cup right next to the salad bowl, you know, for the smaller mice who might need
shallower water and a rim they could grasp more easily.
Clem looked serious, taking Lindsay at face value and holding the thought, like he needed
a minute to actually paint this picture on his brainpan. He finally got up and walked over to
his pack, where he retrieved a collapsible fishing rod with a small reel, a block of cheese and a
knife. He stretched the rod out and strung the line through the eyelets and cut a cheese cube
to bait his hook, and he cast it into the kitchen. We laughed, welcoming Clem to our world of
commitment to anything that might goof on reality. We were soon humbled by Clem's com-
mitment; he was dead serious on the vermin issue. So Marcia offered him a glass of wine and
a joint, which he stared at for a long moment and then accepted as if accepting the future as
Marcia explained to him the difference between varmints and critters, and the sameness of
critters to creatures, of whom the mice and we were one, demonstrating yet again that love
was all around us.
I remember the moment as microcosm of the age, an ideal verging on naiveté, yet given
the context it was an ideal that glowed in the dark or the light. Viewing the mice as social con-
temporaries was a wild step beyond Disney, a giant, blessed step that we embraced, and in so
doing became present in the 60s.
I don't wonder where Clem is now. I think often of Marcia and Kenny and that long, lovely
night as a rare interlude. The world lit up in wonder and amazement with magic at every turn
of every moment. The magic had been right there all along, waiting on the interface for a cata-
lyst to set it free.
