Why Didn't You Knock, Sir?

I’m spending the week in Rural Hall, NC at a friend's Old Holler farm. The main cabin was build in the 19th Century. There's a mounted walrus head from a North pole expedition, a 1897 Holy Bible next to a mysterious miniature oaken coffin inlaid with the Camel cigarettes insignia and the initials R.C.H. I’ve been handling bellows and swords, gourds and barometers. I wrapped two sweet gum balls around the backs of my ears. We drank Lagavulin and posed ourselves ad hoc with a fake doe, her flocked velvet fur like nettles. Crystals tied to branches dangle from the ceiling. A ship's wheel is a chandelier. Framed prints decorate the walls: of Appaloosa show ponies, of water-color beagles in profile and a German Shepard named Major Von Tannenberg. To the right of the kitchen doorway is the serrated rostrum of a sawtooth fish. I wander from room to room, poking and prodding curios, smelling atlases, tasting the lips of old pipes. Everywhere: pictures of nattily dressed men in skinny ties and G-Men glasses, like UFO salesmen. A snakeskin in a milk urn: was it found outside and thrown away, or did the snake crawl indoors to shed in ceramic dark? I flip to the middle of an obscure local author's memoir --Why Didn’t You Knock, Sir? -- and study black and white photos of a man clearing a high school track hurdle and directing cannon fire in Germany. I know none of us will ever read this book to learn who didn’t knock and why it was so important. Instead, our clothes grow smoky. We strum ukuleles and guitars, compose impromptu ballads about ex-lovers.