So the b.h. and I went out to the Nature Center a couple days ago to run the dogs. There are very few people at the Nature Center at any given time. This town only has 8,000 people, so it's easy to find your own space, but that place in particular just seems relatively quiet. Another thing to consider, for the purposes of this post, is that there is not a very large African American community here in Vermont. I believe that we ran the numbers and, based on the last census data, there are approximately 80 black people living here.
With that in mind, picture the two of us and our two dogs, making the rounds of various places at which you can enter the river on the trail through the Nature Center. Kilgore loves to swim so much that we basically stop at every possible entry point just so he can take a dip. It makes him enormously happy, and it also makes him tired, which when we have a disc of True Blood waiting at the house, makes us happy, since we know we can get through an entire episode without his constant whining. So we stop at the first spot, and Kilgore jumps in and goes crazy, and I wade in slowly, with Wyatt close by my side. We hang out there for ten minutes or so, and then move on. The second spot is a repeat of that scenario, and we make our way to the third spot, under the foot bridge. Moments after we arrive there, we hear the sound of loud, spirited voices. The language is foreign and as I am trying to decipher it, two men emerge from the brush on the riverbank. They are both tall and very dark and appear to be sculpted from stone. Neither of them is particularly dressed, and upon reaching the water, the guy with the dreadlocks drops his shorts to reveal another pair of (much smaller) shorts. (A banana hammock, if you will.) He slowly submerged himself, and then he began flapping his arms around and singing. I felt like I'd stepped into an episode of Northern Exposure.
Wyatt was having none of it, which was fine because I can only imagine how uncomfortable the b.h. must have been at that point. We smiled and waved and made our way up the bank.
I still don't know what language they were speaking.