A moose has lost his way amidst the human element downtown, the old-timers waiting out January at the bar, the realtors and bureaucrats with their identical plumage (so that you must consult your Roger Tory Peterson) hopping up the steps of City Hall eating Hansel’s bread crumbs— poor moose, a big male who left his antlers somewhere in the woods. He keeps checking his empty holster …
People suffer the winters for this kind of comedy. Spectators climb the snowbanks, dogs bark, the moose lowers his shaggy head, his grave eyes reminiscent somehow of Abe Lincoln. Firemen, police, reporters, dnr, two cents’ worth from every quarter, till the moose lopes down Fourth Street toward St. Mary’s Hospital Emergency Entrance and slips into an alley.
Later, the same moose—it must be— is spotted farther up the hillside. It’s a mixed neighborhood; a moose isn’t terribly out of place. And when he walks calmly up behind one old man shoveling his driveway, the Duluthian turns without surprise. “Two blocks east,” he says, “Then you’ll hit a small creek that will take you to Chester Park, and right into the woods.” He adds, “Good luck, now.”
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