Living Between the Lines: Seasons in the Sun

By Frank Saponaro

Part 1:

Even tethered to his high performance fire-engine red Jeep Cherokee wheelchair, Kenny was a force of nature. His spirit and zest for life made his shenanigans and antics even more laughable. There was nothing that he couldn't do, and he did everything with style and panache. His teacher, Mr. Sap, was Kenny's biggest fan and advocate. When Kenny was growing up and becoming his own person, Mr. Sap realized it was time to let him go.

Part 2:

The forest and grasslands in the western part of the United States were ablaze. Sap and the Ground Pounders of the Southern Colorado Wildland Firefighting Crew were called to action to the Beaver Mountain ski resort in Logan, Utah. Together with the combined efforts of the Lone Peak Hotshot Prisoner Crew from the Department of Corrections and the Rosebuds Native American crews, the mischief of the fire was managed. Soon the healing of the land would begin, and Sap knew that it was time for him to let it go.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889602866

Book preview

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Living Between the Lines

Seasons in the Sun

Frank Saponaro

Copyright © 2023 Frank Saponaro

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88960-284-2 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88960-286-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Part 1

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Part 2

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

About the Author

We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun

But the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time.

—Seasons in the Sun, Westlife, Rod McKuen/Jacques Brel

Part 1

1

Shakira high stepped it as she strutted with self-confidence through the unique aquatic flora and fauna of her Pleistocene Era environment. She was delighted to be serenaded by the abundant small-bodied tetrapods, the Anurans, also known as those without tails. These frog-like creatures broadcast a bass-like bellow that resonated in her disproportionally dainty mammoth ears, prompting her to eat to the beat.

She flaunted her thick chestnut brown hair, which glimmered in the morning sun. As she rhythmically pranced onward, her luscious mane swooshed from side to side with every graceful stride. She was a teenager in her prime, and she and the herd of female Columbian mammoths nonchalantly grazed on the steppe grasses and flowering herbs that thrived in their prehistoric home.

Tens of thousands of years ago, the desert valley of San Luis, Colorado, was covered with large lakes and rich plant life—excellent habitat for a mammoth that needed to eat over seven hundred pounds of vegetation each day. The sweet smell and abundance of succulent food and her blissfully innocent point of view of the world prompted her to exuberantly trumpet with joy and contentment.

2

As the embers begin to die down on a chilly fall evening, you look around the campfire at your extended family group. Everyone has had their fill of the mammoth meat. You toss the bone aside and begin to drift off to sleep in your nomadic hunting camp. You dream about the successful hunt several days earlier, when you and your stealthy clansmen stalked the herd of wooly mammoth. Before any of the animals were aware of your presence, you brandished your atlatl, launched a lethal eight-foot dart made of river cane, tipped with a razor-sharp flint point, and made the kill. You and your band of brothers of the hunt ambushed at least forty-nine bison, hopelessly trapping the herd in a blowout sand dune.

3

His baby blue Chevrolet C10 Stepside pickup truck was completely trapped in a sand dune. As a seasonal employee of the Great Sand Dunes National Park, Sap was well versed on how to drive on the dry sand masses of the San Luis Lakes. He knew to reduce his tire pressure to about twenty psi when the sand is dry and soft. He knew that it was essential to have a functioning four-wheel drive truck to navigate the obstacles of off roading in such a hostile environment. And he knew now that his ill-equipped two-wheel drive vehicle was hopelessly stuck, high centered, and out of commission. His blunder landed him near a cattle guard along the road between the sleepy town of seven hundred ninety-one residents of Mosca, Colorado, and the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Archeologists have identified this location as the Stewart's Cattle Guard Archaeological Site. This site represents a late summer or early fall bison hunting camp occupied by Folsom peoples in the Paleo-Indian period (before 6000 BC).

The site was discovered in the late 1970s and excavated by the Smithsonian Institution's Paleo-Indian Program from 1981 to 1996. Stewart's Cattle Guard is the most extensively excavated Folsom site in North America. But on this day, it was a very lonely place to be stranded. He turned off the overheated engine, switched on the AM receiver, and tuned to the Colorado Rockies baseball game on KOA radio.

4

G o two, go two, Sap commanded. He stabbed at the wildly wayward throw as it sailed past his second-base position and out into the weed-infested right-field fence line. As the batter chugged around the bases, nine hustling Manassa Mauler defensive softball players, including the waddling catcher, sprinted in the general direction of the errant throw. En masse, players, spectators, scruffy junkyard dogs, and a man selling churros scrambled to retrieve the now motionless grass-stained ball. A chaotic scene ensued, and a rugby-like scrum broke out. He gallantly attempted to untangle the ever-mushrooming dogpile, but he succumbed to the undertow of the swirling mass of humanity and found his face hopelessly mashed against the chain-link outfield fence, like a Colorado Avalanche hockey player taking a body check up against the boards.

In the throes of the melee, Sap was able to discern two distinct and recognizable voices originating from the spectator peanut gallery in the outfield stands. An angelic voice queried, Sappy, is that you and the second, a more offsetting squealing tone proclaimed, Dad, that's my teacher! That's the Sap Man!

Sap shaded his eyes from the merciless glare of the overhead ball field lights. He followed the outstretched arm and the oversized Denver Broncos orange-and-blue number 1 foam finger attached to the slouched body leisurely sitting on the throne of his tricked-out fire-engine red wheelchair. There, among the carnival-like chaos, the boisterous blathering of bystanders, and the rowdy San Luis Valley folk, Sap focused his gaze onto the impishly smiling face of his youngest student, Kenny May.

You're not doing it right, he said flatly.

5

Y ou're not doing it right, echoed in Sap's ears as he attempted to bottle-feed the recently orphaned lambs. Befuddled, Sap turned his head in the general direction of the proclamation, looking for his student, Kenny May, only to discern a hodgepodge of unruly and rowdy four-legged ranch residents. Sap shot a quizzical look at Wilson and Spalding, the twin feline cats known for their softball-sized heads and athletic prowess. He continued to scan the scene, focusing his attention onto the herd's vigilant watchdog, Igor, peeping with amusement.

With his matted mop-like dreadlocks drooping downward and covering his eyes, it was eerie to think that the beast of the corral, a stout-shouldered Hungarian komondor sheepdog, was giving him advice. Through the coloring of the new day, he heard a Jedi Master proclaim, "Sappy,