There is continuity here. Plastic ducks are everywhere. : A Sort of Sad Goodby

I was pulling weeds in our yard the other day when it occurred to me that at my current rate of progress it would probably take the remaining days of summer to pull all the weeds that needed pulling.

By that time, I reasoned, it would be autumn. The rains would come and new weeds would grow, which would negate all the weed-pulling I had already done. I lay back in the grass and thought about that.

The ground at the weed patch slopes to a creek bed that winds through our yard, so that when I settled back I could look up through the branches of an oak tree to patches of sky.

Thunderheads that drifted in from the desert were towering over the Basin, casting the day in iron-gray tones that muted distant sounds to sighs and whispers.

I said to myself change is in the air.

Having reached that conclusion, I turned slightly so that I could also see the liquid amber tree I had planted years ago. Sure enough, its leaves were touched by traces of gold, confirming my instincts that something was happening, something was different.

A new season was approaching.

“Martinez?” I heard my wife call.

She was standing on the back deck, one hand shading her eyes from the pale sunlight, scanning the yard. She was fresh from a shower and her still-damp hair was in tight ringlets. She was smiling quizzically, as she so often does, wondering what I was up to.

“I know you’re out there, Elmer!” When I still didn’t respond, she said, “All right, I’m killing the dog!” and turned to go.

It’s a family joke rooted in marital conflict. We were arguing one day about whose turn it was to feed Hoover. It was not a confrontation of cosmic proportions but, as arguments often will, it was getting completely out of hand.

When it struck her suddenly how inane our fight was, she stopped shouting, leaned forward and said, “Why don’t we just kill the dog?”

The argument ended in wild laughter. We fed the dog and mixed a margarita.

“Don’t kill the dog,” I called from the weed patch. “I’m out here, working in the yard. It’s an ethnic compulsion.”

In a moment she was at my side, staring down at me.

“Thank God you can write,” she said. “You’d never make it working the fields.” She sat next to me. “So what’s with the lying-in-the-grass routine?”

“I was thinking about seasons.”

“You’re against them no doubt.”

“Change is in the air.” I brought a piece of paper from my shirt pocket and unfolded it. “ ‘All is change,’ ” I read. “ ‘All yields its place and goes.’ Euripides.”

“Very nice,” she said.

“Listen to this one: ‘Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.’ H.L. Mencken.”

“What’s that got to do with change?”

“Nothing, I just like the quote.”

She studied me for a moment and then, in a flash of insight, snapped her fingers. “Your column ends in suburbia! That’s why you’re talking about change!”

True. They’re taking me downtown next month to see if whimsy plays on Spring Street. This is the last of the Valley columns. In October I go full-run Metro.

Seasons.

“I’m trying to figure out what to say in a sort of goodby column,” I said. “I was pulling weeds when it hit me that autumn is coming.”

“Eventually, sure.”

“Well, it’s close enough to be used to define change. Symbolism is required here.”

“Use Labor Day. That defines change and it’s closer.”

“You can’t wax poetic over a weekend dedicated to barbecued chicken and Budweiser beer.”

“Actually,” she said, “you do have a problem. You’re not really saying goodby, you’re saying . . . just what is it you’re saying?”

I’m saying in a way that my focus will no longer be confined to the plastic ducks on the lawns of Burbank. I’m expanding to include the plastic ducks on the lawns of Pomona and Signal Hill. There is continuity here. Plastic ducks are everywhere.

“SC3 says I’m to put a face on the town,” I said.

“Who is SC3?”

“Shelby Coffey III, our new editor.”

“You call him SC3?”

“Why not?”

She sighed. “I give you six months in the big time, Martinez.”

A thought struck me and I sat up. “I hope they don’t expect me to be important. I’ve lost my instinct to pontificate.”

“Did . . . er . . . SC3 offer any advice?”

“He said to avoid scatological humor.”

“I think that means he doesn’t expect you to be important.”

I lay back down. The small branches of the oak tree scrawled lacy patterns against the thunderclouds. A slight breeze rustled the leaves. There was a pause between the dynamics of weather. It was a time of waiting.

“I have another Mencken quote I might use for a last column,” I said. “‘An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.”’

She said, “Let’s forget the last column and celebrate.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Wanna kill the dog?”

We walked toward the house.

“We might as well,” I said. “He’s old.”

Seasons . . . .