Flinting with Andy


I remember going flinting with Andy, and Lyman and Pedro Frau one day - down 
the Hill and across the bridge over the other side of the Kokosing.  The 
field there had been recently plowed, and it had rained the week before.  
We'd gotten almost across the entire field without spotting anything, and 
he'd just said it looked like we wouldn't get anything - when I saw an edge 
sticking out of a plow ridge.  I pulled it out and Andy looked it over - a 
dark greeny-brown arrowhead, with just the very tip off of it.  A beautiful 
thing, and one I was grateful Andy had persuaded me to go looking for.  

Of course, I then went looking for flints  in many places, with indifferent 
success.  The few bits and pieces I accumulated - that noble arrowhead, some 
chips, what might have been a hammerstone and core - my mother tossed that 
summer, thinking they were just rocks.  When I went to pick up the box of 
flints, I felt the way my oldest sister did when she came by to pick up some 
of her stuff, and found that our mother had thrown away all of my sister's 
Beatles memorabiliia - all the stuff from when she first joined the Beatle 
fan club in the summer of 1963, when we lived in England.  My mother did save 
the records - of course, she threw away the record jackets and sleeves, too.

So, what can I say?  I do have photos from Kenyon - of the notable day when 
Lyman, Andy and I went wandering along the Kokosing with a bottle of white 
wine, some smokes, and a camera.  But the best photos, of the heron that we 
surprised - and of Andy looking at it as it swept along and away from us over 
the water - were destroyed by the person who was developing the negatives for 
us. 

Photograph by Andrew H. Hess; click here for another photo of Andy.

Here's an Andy Hess nugget that Bob sent me:

"Once upon a time, in a far off land, there lived a transsexual bleeding heart liberal pacifist migrant farmworker-turned Washington gigolo-turned schizoid 42nd street masseuse suffering from mild affective disorders and ingrown facial hair, who in a drug-induced manic, experienced a severe but remarkable ego displacement with his dog, Doo-Doo"

Not exactly William Shakespeare, but if you knew Andy, you'd appreciate it.