Lucy's Place

LIFESTYLES Lucy's Place__________________________ Dixie L. Thacker I glance down at the dashboard as I make the final turn, then look again as I pull to a stop in the turnaround at the end of the lane. The Cavalier's trip meter registers twelve miles. That surprises me because the distance between my home and Lucy's seems far greater. Lucy and I are, by nature and background, very different people, but the passion we share for mushrooming links us like sisters. Still, there is nothing in my day-to-day existence that prepares me for the beauty, or the ugliness, of Lucy's place. My own residence is a small box of an apartment in South Charleston, WestVirginia, and the pettiness ofthe manager's rules makes it seem even closer. Here, at Lucy's place, the land spreads out before me like a grandmother's skirt, and the only rules I must follow are God's. There is room to breathe now, and I inhale deeply as I get out of the car. Three lop-eared hounds, blue ticks Lucy calls them, snuffle towards me. As I step among them, theirbodies wag in a frenzy usually reserved for treed coons. I scratch behind the ears of the dog closest to me, then greet the other two as they nudge their noses into the palm ofmy hand. It's not easy to extricate myself from their exuberance. In the distance, rain clouds sag between the ridges of the mountains, like cows' udders just before milking time. The spring has been dry so far, though, and the path leading to Lucy's house is pocked and rutted. I mince along it, sidestepping small stones and crumblyedged chuckholes. The hounds sniff something just ahead of me, then go around it. I follow their lead and skirt a spill of ten-penny nails in the middle of the trail, my eyes scanning the grass at its edges for morels. A few yards on up the path, the land begins to fall away and the angle of it creates a deep ditch. At the bottom, white-capped creek water ruffles over its rocky bed like bridal lace. An ancient willow leans, weeps on the hillside, and spills its branches in an arc just above the creek's bank. Lucy's ginger-colored cat, contrasting sharply with the willow fronds, slinks forward flat-bellied on the ground as she prepares to pounce on them. The urge to stay in this spot a while is strong, but I start walking again. When I look back, a kaleidoscope of sunlight shimmers on the surface of the creek. The path widens into a dusty lawn, and one of the blue ticks sneezes behind me. Part way across the yard, one of Lucy's many grandsons pokes a stick through the chicken-wire mesh of his grandmother's rabbit pen. Two more half-grown males, wearing only cutoffs and grease, hunker over a pile of engine parts as they rebuild a vintage automobile at the perimeter of the yard. Closer in, the stench from the compost pile at the side of the house makes my eyes water, and poop from Lucy's Rhode Island Reds speckles the ground everywhere I look. It's not easy to walk here, and I watch where I step. I am grateful for the new fragrance wafting towards me and that the smell of the compost is lost in its headiness. By the time I reach the front yard, the scent of petunias spices every breath of air. There isn't actually a flowerbed, but to the left of Lucy's front door a rickety picnic table balances on three good legs and an orange crate. On top of it, parsley mingles with leaf lettuce and baby's breath in a galvanized bucket, assorted ivies vine out of cottage cheese cartons, and spikes of mother-in-law's tongue jut from a Maxwell House can. A profusion of purple and white petunias spills from an oak basket with a hole in its side. I startle from my reverie at a small noise and look up to find Lucy grinning down at me from a...