Reflections on the Tenth Week of Fall

 

 

   I was horrified by a story on the radio Tuesday. Millennials gleefully described Friendsgiving, a Thanksgiving shared with good friends rather than relatives. ( https://hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/11/24/friendsgiving-sam-whitehead ) This year my celebration brought relatives in a slow crescendo.

   We started with three on Thanksgiving morning. Spencer Charles cut onions and celery for the stuffing. I rubbed olive oil on the skin of the fresh, fourteen pound turkey. Spencer Thomas split firewood. In the evening we relaxed with a quiet meal incorporating homegrown Wells Wood ingredients–highbush cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, onions for the stuffing, and strawberries and an apple in the pie.

   Friday Spence and I scouted where to dig the hole for planting the tiny, blue spruce with its burlap wrapped root ball–after it has served as our Christmas tree. Then Ellen and her husband Chris arrived increasing us to five. Because UPS and New Jersey in-laws will claim our offspring for Christmas, we opened Christmas presents, chuckled on the number of Sherlock Holmes related gifts, and reminisced about the Handfasting Celebration last October.

   The Pittsburgh Wellses drove through rain to make Saturday a celebration of twelve. Addy, ten months old, captured everyone's attention by squealing as she crawled after cats, running after step-step-stepping as she held Ellen's hands, and reaching open arms to each relative in turn. Laughter bounced through the house. The twelve of us ate a Wells-brother chili/tortilla meal. Patrick organized Mad Libs while I washed dishes and contributed the words “water,” “soapy,” and “wet.” The gang moved on to Karma, a crazy card game, then charades. Addy shrieked trying to stay awake. 

    I wrapped her in a blanket and carried her outside to the porch where the live Christmas tree stood in a wash tub on a table and glowed through the window. Addy reverently inspected the white lights and sand dollar ornaments. I rubbed her back and was thankful that as I age, the family grows giving me more relatives to enjoy. To me, Thanksgiving will always mean family.

Reflections on the Ninth Week of Fall

 

      There she was again. The woman I silently call “Chair Lady” fastened the strap on her black bathing cap as I arrived to change for lap swim on Monday. Standing, her long thin legs brushed against a white plastic chair with arms. In the shower room a similar chair stood sentry by the third shower stall–the stall she always uses.

      I could call her “T-shirt Lady” because she wears a white short-sleeved T-shirt under her black bathing suit, “Break Lady” because she makes frequent bathroom trips, or “Waltz Lady” because she wraps herself in a bath towel and practices waltz steps in the shower room. But I couldn't call her by name.

      That was silly. It was the middle of November, and I'd been seeing her at lap swim since March. I suppressed my shy side and turned to ask her.

She was chatting with two other women.

      I didn't interrupt. Instead I took a pre-swim shower and followed her down the wet tile steps to the pool.

      In the first lane, Jim, a hefty guy from the Deep Water Fitness class, swished Styrofoam barbells and pedaled his legs as if he were riding a bicycle. He turned toward us. “It's the Lisa and Janet show staring Lisa and Janet.”

      Lisa laughed.

      I smirked. Thanks to Jim, I didn't have to ask.

Reflections on the Eighth Week of Fall

   Over the years, I daydreamed of meeting Dav Pilkey to thank him for his books that delighted struggling readers: Captain Underpants; Ricky Ricotta; Dragon; The Hallo-Wiener; Dogzilla; and Dog Breath!: The Horrible Trouble with Hally Tosis. Saturday gave me that chance.

  At Loganberry Books in Cleveland, Ohio, a person inside a Captain Underpants balloon welcomed children and adults to a Dav Pilkey event. Dav held a microphone, showed photos, and said he'd had a happy childhood. Children giggled at the pictures of the preschool Dav. Adults groaned at the picture of the glum school-aged Dav. He said dyslexia and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Delightfulness) made learning to read difficult. He went home sad at the end of each day, but his mother encouraged him. “Something good may come from all the challenges.” She'd come to the event. Dav asked her to stand. Pride glowed through her loving smile. Everyone clapped.

  Continuing his story, Dav gave credit to his second grade teacher for the Captain Underpants idea. He'd drawn comics to manage his feelings in her class. His classmates liked them, but the teacher ripped them up and throw them away. One day she mentioned “underwear” which made Dav's classmates, and the children at the event, laugh. In a squeaky, complaining voice, Dav channelled the teacher's response, “Underwear is not funny.” His classmates laughed even harder, as did the children rolling on the floor at the event. The teacher banished Dav to the hall where he created a Captain Underpants comic strip. She ripped that too and said, “You'll never make a living writing silly books.” The second graders hadn't thought that was funny, but the event crowd roared.

  Dav now lives in Japan where he draws and writes on a beach. Sometimes monkeys come to watch, pick up his pens, and put them in their mouths. Children in the crowd mimicked the monkeys, but Dav isn't happy about the monkeys putting monkey juice on his pens. To get away, he paddles his kayak to a cave where he builds a fire and works without the monkeys. Adults aahed at the image of working in a cave away from distractions.

  In addition to his photo presentation, Dav gave everyone stickers and “Reading Gives You Super Powers” capes. He drew cartoons and asked children questions. “What are George and Harold's last names?” Children waved hands and Dav's Japanese friend selected a boy, who said, “George Beard and Harold Hutchins.” Dav gave the boy the cartoon sketch, a present, and a $100 gift certificate for Loganberry books. “Wow!” the youngster said. “I can buy ten books!” Dav kept drawing. Questions got harder. Children spouted answers and thanked Dav for the increasingly generous prizes. After he awarded the last one, he signed books.

  I waited in line between two moms, each with the first Captain Underpants book. The woman in front of me held her twenty-four year old son's original copy. The one in back had bought a new copy because her twenty year olds' copy was lost. My first copy had fallen apart years ago and ended in the trash. I held Dav's most recent book, One Today. Dav had drawn illustrations for the poem Richard Blanco wrote for President Barack Obama's 2013 Inauguration.

  A half hour later, I finally reached Dav's table and said, “I'm a retired teacher of children with learning challenges. Thank you for all your books that let them enjoy reading.”

  We chatted a bit. He signed my book and asked how I liked retirement.

  “I love it,” I said. “This book is a gift to the school where I volunteer.”

    Dav flashed a satisfied grin, handed me the book, and said, “Thank you.” 

 

 

Reflections on the Seventh Week of Fall

      During a week dominated by bright blue skies and sunshine, the phrase, this isn't November weather, looped through my mind. We had three seventy degree days in a row. In Meadville, coeds wore short shorts, and red roses bloomed in a friend's yard. At Wells Wood, a bare chested farmer drove his pickup past the log house, maturing pea pods hung on straggler plants, and pansies flowered on the deck. Spence trundled around the garden on his Mahindra–making new compost piles with shredded leaves, mulching the onion patch, planting kale and bok choy. 

      He also paddled the kayak with me on Lake Wilhelm. Warm water splashed my bare shins. Blue jays, quails, and hawks called, but migrating cormorants, osprey, and great blue herring were absent. A flotilla of oak leaves floated on glistening ripples. Low water exposed tops of snags. We returned to the launch site as a kayak approached from the other end of the lake. Spence secured the kayak to the truck. I loaded paddles and life jackets. Dressed in camouflage shorts, the chestnut haired paddler, landed, raised his arms to the sun, and said, “Can you believe this is November?” 

     I did the math to check if the weather was measurably warmer.

First Week of November	Range	Average
2014	Low 40s – High 60s	Low 50s
2015	Low 50s – High 70s	High 60s

Was this change just a fluke or a sign of climate to come? 

 

Reflections on the Sixth Week of Fall

      Halloween morning, Steve Curwood, of the Living on Earth radio show, enticed me with “In a moment, a walk through a living cemetery.”

      Living cemetery? Did he mean spooky spirits rising?

      The story featured Mount Auburn, a garden cemetery in Boston. As birds sang in the background, naturalists John Harrison and Kim Nagy discussed resident hawks and owls. Historical novelist William Martin said, “Stories are everywhere . . . Beneath every marker and atop every monument.”

      Steve inspired me to see what life and stories I could find in a cemetery on Halloween. Spence volunteered to walk with me through Milledgeville Cemetery.

      Spruce trees, bushes, leafless cherries, and bare maples edged the grounds.  Blue jays called, and a flock of small birds, too high to identify, chirped. Partridge berries, moss, lichens, hardy green plants with long pointed leaves, and freshly cut grass grew among the gravestones. Only plastic or marble flowers bloomed.

      Looking for stories, we ambled among early settlers, Civil War soldiers, and Millennials. Johnathan, who died at nineteen in 2013, rested under guitar and computer carvings, wind chimes, a can of Guinness, and two empty bottles of Yuengling Lager. Turkeys and deer posed on the rural scene carved on Ted's gravestone. Had he been a hunter? Wedding rings and years of marriages connected couples' names on stones from the second half of the 1900s. Headstones from the 1800s listed the death date and death age in years, months, and days. Doing the math, we discovered a lot of infants and that many wives and sisters had died younger than husbands and brothers. I suspected childbirth, but Spence speculated the women had led hard lives. With a 1799 birth year, Sarah was the oldest with a readable headstone. Carvings on older stones had faded. Weathering also tilted markers, twisted stones on bases, knocked ornaments off monument tops, and added lichens.

      Spence and I didn't find as much living as Steve Curwood had on his cemetery walk, but we'd found more stories. Instead of spooky Halloween spirits, we'd met former Milledgeville neighbors who'd walked the same roads and fields as we now walk.