"It's OK, Amigo!"

 

            Maybe if they could have been watching like a sort of Matriarchal Greek chorus, Ralph’s mom, Wren, and her sisters, Poppy and Robin might have shaken their heads in motherly dismay. But what could they say or do as he usually came out on top, and he  had that virtual silver star in his forehead.
            Aunt Poppy might have counseled her sisters to watch and wait. She might have said, ‘You never know.’ I’m pretty sure that Wren could have said, ‘That’s for sure with that one. He is my first, and the one with all the wild notions.’
            ‘We know, Wren,’ Poppy and Robin could have said with indulgent smiles at their sister. Mothers are not above humble/bragging.
            Oh, you wonder what has these Motherly Souls taking some alarm? We’ll get there, but first some ground needs to be laid…
            Now, Ralph had enlisted Uncle Bob’s help in laying the slate floor in the Alder Tree House. It took them one whole day until nearly dark. First they had set up a kind of barrier, using pieces of slate all around inside of the circle of trunks. Then they spread the sand out and they walked it nice and even. Then, since Uncle Bob had kind of an artist’s eye for how things should go, he made the final decisions about how the slate pieces should fit together. When they were done it was a nice even slate floor. They walked around on it some more to make sure everything was packed in nice and tight. They were very pleased with their work, and rightly so. Ralph and Uncle Bob hoped that Leely would like it, that Twigg would approve.
            Looking upward, they could see that every day the branches were growing closer and tighter together. Very pleased, they wandered on back to the fire circle, where Ramona and Aunt Suzy had been making dinner for them.
            While Ooog thought up plans for finishing the house, Ralph and Uncle Bob had a few days off from the project. Ralph is a man of action, mostly, so with nothing to be done on the project, he was sort of at loose ends.
            Sometime previously to all of this, a western style hat company had opened in Milltown. Not only did the Amigo Hat Company sell hats, they also made them in an obscure metal building out by Payne Field, where many other things are also manufactured, quite near to the biggest building the world and all of that, if you go by footprints.
            As a lark, and a bit of advertising, Amigo made an extra super large cream colored “cowboy” hat. To build up a little interest in their hat company, Arnold, the boss, decided to call Millicent Price at the paper and offer the super duper sized hat to this mythical character she was always writing about in columns for the paper.
            OK. This is where things get a little far-fetched. Millicent told Arnold to bring his big hat on over to her office at the paper and she would make it, and Amigo Hat Company famous. So, Arold brought the very large hat to Millicent in person and she was suitably impressed. But her big window was also open because she was expecting Maeve to drop in that morning. Then she had to leave the room to talk to her own boss.
            Well, the wind was blowing pretty hard that morning and was feeling mischievous. The wind popped into Millicent’s window and nipped the hat off of her desk and blew it right out of her open window.
            It landed in the back of a Dodge pickup which was driven by a man who lived in Darrington and was heading home from some business in Milltown. The wind followed along, still feeling a frolic coming on. The wind is an agent of change, as we know.
            At just the right spot between Milltown and downtown Darrington, the wind whipped that big old hat so pristine and fine right out the back of the Dodge pickup, with the driver being totally unaware. It landed right smack on the edge of the Great Forest proper, caught about twelve feet up in the branches of a magnificent Douglas Fir.
            In the serendipitous fashion of Fairytales everywhere, Ralph found the hat! To say that he was pleased is to miss the point entirely. Ralph saw it there in the branches of the big tree and brought it down for inspection. He noted its size and its fine construction. He admired it greatly. He put it on his own big head. The stars aligned, it fit. Suddenly, Ralph was filled with that manly elation a man feels when he is wearing a great hat.
            He had just settled it on his head, correctly as it happened, and had turned to go show Ramona at home, when a kid of 8years, Toby, who had an iPhone, saw him from the backseat window of his mother’s SUV as she drove down the highway. Toby snapped one photo of Ralph just as he merged back into the forest. Toby showed his mother the photo when they got home. Mom was so excited about the photo that she in turn sent it to Millicent at the paper, since she was always writing about this Ralph character. But mom was cagey enough not to say where the photo was taken, and you can bet Millicent wouldn’t have either though she obviously knew.
            Honestly, Ralph looked just great in the hat. Can’t you just see him? 9feet tall, sable brown hair, clean and shiny, with the white streaks in either side of his beard, twinkly brown eyes full of amusement, all topped by the wonderful cream colored cowboy hat, which by some miracle fit him exactly. It was so perfect.
            Cherry saw him coming home from a long way off since she was up in the air a bit.
            “Mama, look,” Cherry said, pointing at Ralph as he approached.
            “Look, Mona! I found the hat,” Ralph called out happily.
            Ramona forgot what she had been doing and just watched him walk. She had to admit that there was something strangely glamorous in the whole effect.
            “Oh, Baby, it’s perfect,” said star struck Ramona.
            He didn’t wear the hat every day. But he did visit Ooog and Thaga to show it off.
            He wore it early one morning to show Rick and Dexter at the Ranger Station. It had a similar effect on all of these human people. They had to admit that he looked great in it, but were also sort of dumbstruck.
            After a couple of days Maeve spoke.
            “Boss,” said Maeve, trying to find the right words, but not finding them for once.
            “Oh, I know, Birdy,” said Ralph. “I can’t really keep it. But it was sure fun for a while.”
            “Do you want me to do something with it, Boss?” said Maeve.
            “Why don’t you take it to Milly! I bet she could write something about it!” said Ralph.
            “Seems like a good idea,” said Maeve. So the very next morning, a nice dry day with cloud cover, Maeve picked up the big hat by the back of its brim and took off, looking very strange up in the air. If anyone saw her, they probably thought they were tripping, and just let it go. Hopefully.
            Maeve flew the hat back into Millicent’s office window, but Millicent was out of the room. So after waiting around for five minutes, Maeve flew off again without talking to her.
            When Millicent got back to her desk and saw the hat, she just sat and looked at it for a while. It looked slightly worn. There was a sort of pinched area at the back of the brim, and it smelled like it had been in a forest.
            Then she went through her business emails and found the photo shot by Toby with his iPhone. It all started to make some kind of sense, but she could only guess about how it happened.
            Milly wrote up a heck of a story, illustrated with a large photo of the big hat and a smaller photo of Ralph’s backside disappearing into the forest. It was a great hit with both believers and amused skeptics, who wondered how she had faked the photo.
            So, back at the Matriarchal Greek Chorus, Wren, Ralph doting mother might have said, “See, Poppy, see Robin! I knew my boy would be just fine! He always is!” And the other two would have to agree. Ralph always comes out just fine in the end.

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