Potic Mountain Evening

Last evening as the sun reached a perfect golden spot, we received a phone call from our Greene County cousin Tom Judson, who had just returned from the Dutch Caribbean Island of Saba the day before. After I bored him with renovation updates, Tom says, with his usual exuberance, "Well I'm headed right over your house in a hot air balloon. Look to the west." The family and I made our way outside to sit watch, Jackson with his binoculars, while I imagined Tom swooping down from the sky. Last time I saw that was a 1970's film version of Pippi Longstocking. We waited, looking this way and that, but no sign of Tom in his hot air balloon. We did, however, find a lovely toad we promptly named Tom in honor of the event.