March 28, 2008
"All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared listener " --Robert Louis Stevenson.
A high school English teacher once told me that in order to become a disciplined writer one must be still and willing to listen to what your subject has to say.
Obviously, she never encountered Leonard, the "windiest" nonstop talker I ever met.
Leonard, the airport shuttle bus driver, loves to chatter. I met him on a recent trip and was his only passenger between the airport and the hotel. I had no choice but to listen to his life's story.
Leonard talked fast and lost me before first grade. I was not daydreaming either; I was trying to open a window.
I was too busy to listen intently because I was trying desperately to get some fresh air. The stubborn window vent would not budge and the smell of "sage" in the van was overpowering.
Some air freshener, I thought.
Meanwhile Leonard, a 60's throwback kind-of-a guy, continued his story by telling me that he is the living embodiment of every mother's worst nightmare.
"Wonderful," I am thinking. "Not only do I have a retro hippy bus driver who smells like a walk through Peace Park, but now he tells me he is every mother's nightmare. Terrific. Just terrific."
The darn window still would not open.
Leonard talked on, "Yes ma'am, I am a scary nightmare. Look at my eye."
He turned around and lifted his shades and pulled his long brown hair back so I could see his scarred cheek and visionless right eye.
"Just great. I am riding in a van driven by a chatty hippy who smells like something other than sage and I will not say what and he only has one eye."
I learned that when Leonard reached age 14 months his mother found him run over by a car in his own driveway. His head was squashed, and tire marks scarred his face. Luckily according to Leonard, a baby's head can be easily reshaped, and he lived.
I listened now.
So this is what he meant--finding your toddler hit by a car in your very own driveway is every mother's worst nightmare.
Oh.
Leonard chatted more, and I listened with rapt concentration the rest of the way.
He discussed spring baseball training, trades, and poor managerial decisions.
He talked of the NBA and the longtime Laker's feud between Kobe Bryant and Shaq and of how much he admired Shaquille O'Neal, who he deemed the better player and finer person of the two.
He orated about local vegetation, landscaping techniques, the renaming of the ballpark, the correct side of a nearby mountain to climb, and the perfect month of the year to visit the area, which was of course not this month.
Postscript: I never got the window open and am quite certain now the powerful scent was indeed a sage air freshener because the same odor was in the hotel elevator.
I wonder if Leonard mentioned the air freshener earlier?
Never mind.
