THE MISSING

It's still dark outside. The timers on the hallway lights in the apartment building are set for six o'clock, which means that there is a window of opportunity between then, and actual sunlight of about five or ten minutes to blindly crash into things when returning from an early morning perambulation of the neighborhood with a pipe. And walls, or stumbling. If one is old and blind and arthritic and not yet fully awake. Which I'm not. The first two, that is.
But the arthritis and not fully awake part, yes.

Luckily I am quite capable of feeling my way with my hands, and there are no pressing obstacles. So if you think that ghostly fingertips are touching your face in the dark, do not be startled. That's just a Dutchman returning from a walk early in the day. All over Amsterdam there are American tourists waking up screaming because they do not know this.
The ghostly fingertips, the darkness.

The Dutchmen.

They do not notice the faint reassuring whiff of pipe tobacco.

Virginia with a touch of Perique.
So comforting at that hour.
After first coffee.

Instead, they probably expect a giant scaly thing, as is common in exotic locales, which Amsterdam is.

This city would be vastly improved if there were more Dutchmen here. For many years I have thought that if there is one thing missing in San Francisco, it is Dutchmen wandering around the streets with a pipe at all hours of the day, but especially just before daybreak.

You've probably thought the exact same thing, yes?



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