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In the contributor's notes in "Story" magazine, George Saunders writes, "For two years I'd been driving past a house like the one in the story, imagining the owner as a man more joyful and self-possessed and less self-conscious than myself.
He painted a sign saying LOVE and hung it from the pole and another that said FORGIVE? and then he died in the hall with the radio on and we sold the house to a young couple who yanked out the pole and the sticks and left them by the road on garbage day. He ran lengths of string between the pole and the sticks, and taped to the string letters of apology, admissions of error, pleas for understanding, all written in a frantic hand on index cards. He covered it with cotton swabs that winter for warmth and provided offspring by hammering in six crossed sticks around the yard. One autumn he painted the pole bright yellow. We'd stop by and find odd talismans from his youth arranged around the base: army medals, theater tickets, old sweatshirts, tubes of Mom's makeup. Mom died and he dressed the pole as Death and hung from the crossbar photos of Mom as a baby. When an earthquake struck Chile he lay the pole on its side and spray painted a rift in the earth. He draped some kind of fur over it on Groundhog Day and lugged out a floodlight to ensure a shadow. Dad began dressing the pole with more complexity and less discernible logic. We left home, married, had children of our own, found the seeds of meanness blooming also within us. The first time I brought a date over she said: what's with your dad and that pole? and I sat there blinking. Birthday parties consisted of cupcakes, no ice cream. He hovered over us as we poured ketchup saying: good enough good enough good enough.
One Christmas Eve he shrieked at Kimmie for wasting an apple slice. We were allowed a single Crayola from the box at a time. The pole was Dad's only concession to glee. On the Fourth of July the pole was Uncle Sam, on Veteran’s Day a soldier, on Halloween a ghost. Super Bowl week the pole was dressed in a jersey and Rod's helmet and Rod had to clear it with Dad if he wanted to take the helmet off. Every year Thanksgiving night we flocked out behind Dad as he dragged the Santa suit to the road and draped it over a kind of crucifix he'd built out of metal pole in the yard.
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