May 07, 2010 --- 1:23 PM
I saw it on my way back up the trail.
I say "it" but it was could've as easily been female or male. Perhaps both. Who can say in these godless times? I made up my mind right there and then that I'd do my best to speak to him as a friend the next time I saw him.It had rained all weekend. Not the type of spring shower that's typical for North Alabama, but the kind of rain that flooded folks out of their homes with no notice at all. There were advantages to living on a hill, I thought as I walked out to survey what damage had occured. We'd been lucky. Other than the rose bushes tilted at a forty-five degree angle off the front porch and the ground that could've been easily mistaken for marshland, my mom and I had survived without a scratch.
But whatever the sex, I saw a pretty salamander with a blue tail, snaking his way up the steps next to my redneck vegetable patch. He snuck a glance over what passed as his shoulder and scuttled away like his life depended on it.
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