The bulletin board at the library had fallen down and broken one weekend when they were moving some shelves around at the library. This was the story Del was getting from one of the library staff who had been there when it happened a couple of weeks ago, their stack of books momentarily paused in the check out process.
“So, we were putting that table by the window so it would get some light, and moving that shelf that had been over there,” Del’s friend pointed to one section of the library, and then the other end, “over there, but we wanted to move it outside to dust it off first, since it’s not really a big shelf. But on the way out the doors, we caught it on the edge of the bulletin board, and it came off the wall, and fell, and the corner cracked.” Roe’s brother was there, now rehanging the repaired bulletin board. “Is it the same one, or did you build a new one?” Del asked him. He poked at the middle part of the bulletin board, while Del’s volunteer friend retrieved a box of fliers to put up. “Well” he said, “The frame cracked, so they gave me some wood from a tree at the library that blew down in that windstorm we had, and I cut that up and made a new frame. Then I cut the cracked piece of the cork away and made a smaller bulletin board.” Del looked over at it, with a bright new frame, “What did you do with the old frame?” Roe’s brother pointed outside. “One piece was busted, so we put it in the compost in the community garden in the park. The rest I put in the scrap bin in my workshop. Same with the scrap piece of the cork board.” “Cool!” Said Del, and walked with their friend over to hang up some fliers. “Did you tell Mac yet?” “Nope, you came to the library first.”
Del hung Mac’s writer’s group fliers back up, and some for read alouds to the younger kids, and some of the book clubs that some people in the neighborhood went to. There was a stack of leftover fliers whose date had past, that Trina, the volunteer, started to put in the recycling. “Hey, can I have some of the recycling papers?” Del asked. Trina smiled. “Sure.” And handed over a stack. “Hey!” Del called at Roe’s brother, who had packed up his tools and was heading back outside, “can you show me what kind of tree this used to be?”. He stopped, and waved Del toward the park and trail outside. “Sure, I can show you while we walk, if you’re heading back.” Del waved to Trina and walked out with Roe’s brother, Al. His name might have been Sal, but everyone except his brother called him Al, and Roe called him Almonds, which he disliked the flavor of, and he had long ago started rolling his eyes at this, shrugging, and saying, “its a good wood to work with.”
He had a longer gait than the long legged Del, who hurried a little to keep up, and he walked down the trail near the library a little and stopped near a birch tree. “This isn’t the tree that blew down, but this is a cool one, there’s a cool birds nest in it.” Del looked at the top, which did have a massive birds nest. “What kind of birds are those?” “Dunno.” He walked on. “This is the kind of tree that blew down, but it stayed up ok in that windstorm. At first when I see these trees, sometimes I think they’re apple trees because of the leaves, but its actually an Alder.” Del examined the leaves. “Does it also have some kind of fruit?” Del asked. “Nope, just leaves.” Al replied. “The one that fell down I had to use some differnt tools to make it shaped like boards and not a log. That plane I got from the rummage sale, and one to scrape the bark off called a spoke shave. Then some saws and stuff. I know you know what those ones are.” “You put all the bark in the compost?” He nodded. “Yeah and the leaves and the parts I didn’t make into boards when the tree fell. Now it the rest will be mulch for the garden.”
They kept walking, pointing out birds and trees. “Check out that one.” Del said, pointing to a blue jay. “Whoa, that one has some bright feathers!” They rounded the corner in the path by the convenience store. “I’m gonna go get some more colored pencils.” Del said, and waved goodbye to Al, then turned back around. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot, what’s your name again?” Al laughed. “Almonds.” he joked, and they both laughed, and he waved and walked off towards his workshop. Del went inside the convenience store. Gina came to the front when the bell dinged, she had been in the back unpacking some boxes. “Hi Gina, I’m gonna grab some colored pencils.” Gina pointed to the far side of the store, “I just put some over there.” Del walked over and grabbed a bright package of twelve, then walked back to the counter for Gina to ring up. “Hey, what’s Roe’s brother’s name, is it Sal or is it Al?” Del asked. “I hope it’s Sal, because that’s what I always call him.” Gina and Del laughed. Just then the door dinged and Mac walked in with Cheese close behind. Cheese was wagging, wearing a green neckerchief, and Mac had a similar one stuffed in his back pocket. “Hey Gina! Are the new colored pencils in? And also can I please have a piece of jerky for Cheese and one for me?” He waved at Del. Del waved back and pointed to where the colored pencil were at. “There are some twelve packs over there.” They said. Mac went to go get a package, and Del helped Cheese pick out jerky for he and Mac. “Do you guys like BBQ flavor or Garlic flavor better?” Del called over the bin to Mac. “BBQ I think.” Mac said walking over, examining the jerky bins, and selecting a couple of pieces. They both emptied their pockets of bills and change onto the counter for Gina. “Hey, I was just at the library, and they changed the bulletin board around. I was talking to Trina about it, they have kind of a new one that Sal fixed because the old one broke. Me and Trina put your fliers for writing group back up on it.” “The old bulletin board broke? Who’s Sal?” Del shrugged, “Is his name Al? Roe’s brother? He fixed the old bulletin board, it accidentally got knocked off the wall.” Mac handed a little piece of jerky to Cheese who had been intently staring at them since they went over to the jerky bins. “Roe’s brother? You mean…Almonds!” He laughed. “Is his name Sal?” Del shrugged, “I dunno, I asked him and he just said Almonds too.” Gina laughed. “I guess we’ll never know.” Mac handed Cheese another piece of jerky, “They already have the new one Almonds made up on the wall and everything?” Del nodded. “Yeah. But I was thinking, he told me how he fixed it and stuff, and he has some leftover pieces from the old bulletin board, and I thought me and you and Roe could make a small one, and put it outside Cheese’ house or the workshop, or by the trail or something. We could put some comics there.” Mac gave the rest of the jerky to Cheese, and wiped his hands on his bandana. “I like that idea! We should go talk to Roe and Almonds.” Del laughed. “Are you just going to keep calling him Almonds?” “Yeah, I think so.” Mac smiled. “We should ask Roe where a good spot for it is.” Mac shrugged. “Maybe I already have a list of places I wanted to put some comics.” Del smiled too. “Awesome! Then let’s go ask Almonds if we can have the leftover pieces of the bulletin board, and see if Roe wants to help.” “We have some paint leftover from painting Cheese’s house.” he said and paused walking to scratch Cheese’s ears. “I’ve been saving up some cool pushpins and stuff when I find them.” Mac looked quizzically at Del. “Where do you find pushpins?” Del shrugged. “Sometimes on the ground, or by the road, or if I find a button or something that’s like one, or I made some with the hot glue gun.” Mac nodded. “Those sound cool. I burned my hand one time on a hot glue gun. I didn’t know you had one. I always get that hot glue stuff all over.” “When it gets all glopped over stuff, its fun to pick off.” Del said. “That would make a cool pin.” Mac said smiling, “Just a bunch of glued together gloppy glue pieces.”
They stood outside the workshop. “Hey!” Del called. Sal, or Al, or Almonds, poked his head out, safety glasses covering his eyes, longish hair covering his safety glasses. “Oh hey. Long time no see.” He said to Del. “Hey. Can we use the leftover stuff from that bulletin board.” “Sure. Let me sweep some stuff up real quick so Cheese is safe in here.” He closed the door momentarily. Del squated down and patted Cheese. “What color do you want to paint it after?” they asked Mac. “Maybe stripes.” He said, “really bright ones, and people will want to come look and see what it is.” “We should put it in the middle of that path back to the library through the bushes, like whoa! a bulletin board!” Del stood up again and Cheese shook off then shoved against them for more attention. “I like that. But we don’t want comics or anything to fall off and get lost in the grass and bushes, where people might forget to pick them up. Or I don’t. Maybe you hate bushes.” He laughed. The door opened and Mac jumped, surprised. “Nah” Almonds said, “Del likes the plants.” then waved them inside with one hand still holding a broom, which he placed out on the patio. He pat Cheese on both of their way inside. “Hey there little bud, now no splinters for your feet. This dude, walking around barefoot everywhere.” He opened up a desk drawer, which had a picture of Mac and his brother taped to the outside, and pulled out a rope pull chew toy. “Your work in progress.” He handed it to Cheese, who went to a well worn cushion in the corner to chew on his toy.
Against the wall leaned an assortment of different lengths and types of wood, scraps of disassembled doors and windows, old panes of glass, hinges, and many other fun things. Del spotted the broken piece of cork and picked it up. It had broken into kind of a lopsided pentagon shape. the back door was open, and the smell of wood came through on the breeze. Mac looked over, “Where is the best wood for a frame? In here or out back?” Almonds looked at the cork piece, and measured it quickly with a measuring tape, then waved at the back door. “You might check outside. Roe was already here, he’s practicing with the spokeshave and the plane. You should see if he has any pieces ready that he’s proud of that he would let you use. If not, that stuff against the wall will work just fine.” “Cool!” Mac ran to the door then stopped short so as not to surprise someone working with potentially sharp tools. He walked outside. “Hey. Is that the plane you got the day we went to that concert at the park?” Roe looked up from sanding and smiled. “Hey! Yeah I think so. Or maybe its a different one.” Del came over to the door too, “Did you make any boards?” they asked looking around. He nodded, and stood up, moving aside some newspapers and an old tarp to reveal a few boards. “Check these out! I made some boards out of a piece of firewood my uncle brought over last winter.” They stood around together examining the board. “It looks good.” Del said. “I like how swirly the inside of the wood is.” “We’re building a bulletin board.” Mac said, and Del held up the pentagon piece. “Want to try using some of your boards?” Roe held up a board to the side of the cork, and tilted his head. “That would look pretty cool. Sure!” Del left the cork piece outside and went back inside to get a pencil and measuring tape, scratching a chewing Cheese on the way. “Can you please grab that small saw off the bench too?” Mac called inside. “OK!” Del added it to their pile and came back outside.
They lay the board under the cork piece and traced around it to get an idea of the length they would need. “This was a good size piece.” Del was sitting on the cushion with Cheese, rubbing his tummy taking a break from sawing and measuring. “Do you have a brush for him?” They asked Al. He looked in the drawer and pulled out a dog brush with tape and nail polish on the handle. “Here you two go.” And went back to whatever he was working on which involved a compass, calipers, and a French curve. Del began brushing Cheese, who wiggled in closer to the already fur-coated brush, pushing it around in Del’s hand with his nose. “Hey Mac, do you brush Cheese’s nose?” Del asked, gently scratching Cheese’s nose with their fingernails, and brushing his back as he wiggled around. “I kind of just brush him where ever I can reach, he always wiggles around, and tries to grab the brush and run off and play with it.” Mac replied from the pile of wood. Cheese, nosing Del’s hand, started to lick Del’s hand, then lick the brush, then chew on the bristles of the brush. Del laughed, and gave him back his rope toy.
Mac had found an old protractor on the worktable, and he and Roe were trying to figure out the angles on the tilty piece of bulletin board so they could cut the wood boards Roe had made. Roe measured, then Mac remeasured. “Hey Del, would you come recheck this so we can make sure this will fit?” Del patted Cheese on the head again, and walked over to look at the pencil markings on the wood boards and took the protractor in hand to triple check. “Looks like it’s all good.” They said after several minutes. “Can you hand me that saw?” Roe handed Del one of the saws they had outside for them to start making the cuts. Mac turned, looking for a pencil he had put down, and found a wagging Cheese right behind him. He jumped surprised. “Look who came over again to start getting these wood scraps to chew on.” Al looked over and laughed. “Nah, that dude doesn’t want mouth splinters, he just wants you to play with him and his toy a little.” Al walked over and picked up the rope toy, and started jumping around Cheese while Cheese jumped after him in happy circles.
Scrap wood fell to the side, revealing what would be beautiful frame pieces once they sanded them. Del put the saw down. And handed some pieces to Mac who had the piece of bulletin board. “What do you think, does it fit?” He assembled it all together, without loose pieces or gaps. “We did a pretty good job measuring.” Roe said, putting the protractor back on the workbench. Del poked at the semi-squishy cork, and looked up toward the jar of nails and screws they had. “I don’t know if nails will work on this. I think we might need to use some wood glue to hold it together.” Roe adjusted the joints, looking at them closely. “Yeah, maybe we can glue it, and then put in a nail in each corner just for the boards.” “Hey, Almonds, can you please reach the nails for us?” Mac pointed up to the top shelf. Del looked over skeptically, as the older sibling got up to retrieve the nail jar for them. “Is your name really Almonds, or were you just messing with me?” He handed Mac the jar, and laughed. “It’s not really Almonds, but you can call me that if you want.” He told Del.
Mac had found the glue on another shelf, and pried the stuck lid off, only spilling it on his hands slightly. The three of them knelt down down by their project with the glue, the bottle open, smelling strongly. Almonds looked up. “I think I’ll take Cheese to play in the front yard while you finish that since it’s so smelly and sticky and he likes to help get into things. Come find us when you finish so I can see how it turns out.” He wiped his hands off on a rag, and grabbed Cheeses rope toy, going out front with him, jumping and playing.
Del and Roe took turns carefully holding the irregular pieces flat together to make a tidy frame for the little pentagon, and Mac carefully poured wood glue into the seams and then found some old metal clamps on the workbench to held the pieces together steadily. The stood up, and got another rag, and some soapy water in a bucket from the hose, and started cleaning up the drips of glue before they could dry, then swept up scraps and sawdust. “It’ll take a couple of hours to dry, lets got play with Cheese in the yard.” Roe suggested. They all carefully rinsed and wiped off their hands, and walked around to the front, to find Cheese and Almonds, running and jumping, and playing fetch.
“Hey, did you all finish up your bulletin board?” Almonds asked, pausing in his chase of Cheese with a stick. “It just has to dry now.” Del said, and Almonds nodded, throwing the stick for Cheese to run after. Now there were so many friends outside to throw the stick, the ran around and around to them, forgetting to drop the stick, wagging his tail, darting between them, putting the stick down, and picking it up again. They laughed each trying to get a chance to get Cheese’s stick to throw, and he would bounce back and forth, seeming to go away, then come back, pick it up and run to another of his friends, wanting them to throw it. Roe found his Rope toy on the ground and waved it. Cheese placed his stick on the ground and stood on it and barked at Roe, wagging his tail. Almonds laughed. “He hasn’t been able to decide between just running around, tug of war, keep away, and fetch. He’s having fun.” They all laughed, and he bolted towards Roe and the rope toy, then kept going, missing the toy, and veering back around to grab his stick. Roe tossed the toy to Mac, and Mac tossed it to Del, over the head of Cheese and his stick, running and pouncing around, wagging his tail. “My favorite game is pet him when he runs by” said Almond, as Cheese ran around his legs, and he reached down to scratch his back quickly as he darted off again with his stick, tail wagging, happily racing in a circle.
After snacking on some carrot sticks from in Del’s bag, and some water from the hose, they decided to walk around and look for a good spot to put up the bulletin board while it dried. “I was kind of thinking about outside Cheese’s house.” Del said. Mac nodded and smiled. “Me too, but I have a couple other spots I want to look at.” They walked down the road together, Cheese trotting along with him, stick in mouth. “What about over by Gina’s? There’s that field across the street, and we could put it there.” Roe nodded back towards the workshop, “My brother and cousin and some of their friends like to play frisbee over there, its a pretty good spot to hang out, I bet people would read a bulletin board.” Mac thought as they walked. “I like both ideas. Now I wish we made two of them.” “Lets go look at the field, and see if Cheese wants to run around.” Del said as Cheese zig zagged back and forth around their legs.
They stood before the wildflower overgrown lot, and Cheese ran off, temporarily leaving them to watch his stick, as he sniffed, and ran, and dug little holes here and there. Del and Roe examined a pile of fill dirt that had been left next to the road where Gina, and her friends left some lawn chairs and a couple of frisbees facing the lot. “This might be a good spot. But we should ask Gina what she thinks.” Mac dug into the dirt with his toe. “It would be pretty good here for a post, I think the bulletin board would stay up.” He whistled for Cheese, who came zipping out of the bushes in front of him, and they headed off to talk to Gina at the convenience store. Cheese had run back around behind him and retrieved his stick off the ground, and was now trotting happily in front with it in his mouth as they walked. “Maybe that will keep him distracted from the jerky when we get there.” Roe joked. “But I want some!” Mac said, and laughed.
They eventually arrived at the convenience store, Cheese having walked with purpose for once, and everyone else having walked a little more slowly, picking up leaves and flowers and interesting rocks for pockets as they chatted about how cool the bulletin board had turned out, and whether or not they thought Gina’s frisbee spot was a good bulletin board spot, and what kind of things they wanted to put on it first. Del already had a lot of ideas: “I think I’m going to do a bunch of drawings of the kinds of rocks on our street, they have really interesting colors when you look at them, and then I’ll make a little book about the kinds of trees that grow between here and the library that Almonds showed me. I got some recycled paper we can use to make some stuff if you guys want.” They did in fact want that, and they planned the various books, drawings, and fliers they intended to make as all the way up to the ding as they walked into the store. “Hey Gina!” all three called at once. Cheese ran around to the side of the counter, and carefully putting his stick down for her. “Aww, thanks buddy.” She said, patting Cheese’s head. “What’s everyone up to now?”
“I was wanting a little bit more jerky.” Mac said heading for the bin, and Gina laughed. “We also wanted to tell you about a bulletin board we built.” said Roe. “Del was here talking about it with,” Gina paused, “did we decide we’re calling him Almonds?” Del nodded. “Del and Almonds were telling me about that a little bit earlier.” Mac came to the counter with a few different kinds of jerky. “Do you play frisbee with Almonds? We were wondering if it was ok to put the bullitain board up at your frisbee spot.” He dug around in his pocket for some coins. Gina shrugged. “He plays with us sometimes out there, but a few weeks ago he kind of twisted his ankle trying to do a fancy catch. He was ok, but he said he was gonna take a frisbee break for a couple weeks to make sure his foot was ok.” Del winced, imagining it. “We let Cheese do a little digging over there earlier, we’ll remember to cover the holes back up so you can play frisbee safe.” Gina smiled. “Thanks! That would be great! There’s plenty of little animals that dig around over there, but a couple less holes would be a couple less worries.” She scratched Cheeses ears. “Anyway, it would be fine with me if you all put up your bulletin board over there. Is anyone allowed to use it? It will be cool to see how it turned out.” The three looked at eachother. “We had a lot of things we want to put up, but if other people have drawings and fliers for frisbee or whatever things they have, that sounds ok.” Roe looked at the other two who nodded. Gina smiled widely, “I’ll be on the lookout for it then!” Mac waved bye to here from behind his jerky, and grabbed Cheese’s stick on the way out. Outside, he gave Cheese a piece of jerky to gnaw on as they walked.
“Let’s go get a shovel, and a post, and we can put up the bulletin board, and cover up the holes we left, and then start on the art we wanted to put up!” Del grinned. Roe laughed a little, “I can tell you’re gonna have one of those stay up listening to music and drawing nights.” he said, and they nodded. “I’m excited about all the ideas we came up with. I liked looking at all the trees and stuff, its been a really nice day.” They all smiled as they walked together back towards the workshop, Cheese zigzagging after them on the dirt road in the bright and happy afternoon light.
Continue reading “Bulletin Board and a Fistfull of Jerky”
Storyteller Doll 