Generally speaking, my vintage trumpet, a Bach Stradivarius, has been an obedient, often delightful, and even comforting companion. She—no way around it, it’s a she—has never complained about being shut up in her case and ignored for days, or for being treated as carry-on luggage, or for resting bell down on a stand that sticks up into her gut… Just pick her up, jiggle her three valves, blow a few warm breathes into her mouth, and she’s ready to go. It’s true that on occasion we’ve had our little spats, disagreements over, say, triple tonguing (which she hates) or sorting out the low C sharp which stubbornly refuses to stay on pitch. “It’s not me,” she says, “it’s you!” To which I respond by flushing her out with soapy water.

It was quite a wedding, Aunt Tilley being fifty-three and as independent as a horned owl although that’s the wrong bird for this story because the whole day revolved around guinea hens, especially Maud, about whom later. They couldn’t find a church that would accept the guinea hens—there were six of them—as part of the ceremony, even when Tilley explained that each bird would be wrapped in bridal lace to protect the carpeting. Yes, they said, but what if one gets away and flies up into the croft and sets there, surely some poop will fall and all that. So they used the old bandstand next to the skate park beside the Y and that was fine, with the wedding party up in the middle and the guinea hens being carried by the bridesmaids and the Unitarian minister losing his place every time a hen let out a squawk.

Odd how a small thing can stir a huge memory. One Saturday morning, on NPR’s “It’s Only a Game,” the talk had turned to the versatility of a noted sports writer, who was not, said commentator Glenn Stout, “just a one-note pony.” My body jacked bolt upright in its recliner, my Ovaltine sloshed into my lap, and my mind barely choked off an expletive so crude that it is now commonly reserved for strolling gangs of teenage girls. One Note Pony? Who in the name of Gypsy Rose Lee would possibly remember!

Tuneful ponies are, of course, rare, and nowadays seldom noticed.

So I head for the MVA Express Office in Kenilworth Mall with my foot in a cast to replace my missing driver’s license and I get there at ten to stand in line just long enough to read all the signs: We Only Do Licenses Not Tags, Leave Expired Tags Here, Register to Vote Here, and No Smoking Food or Beverages, and that was okay, me no longer smoking food or beverages.