Reflections on the Sixth Week of Summer – A Tale of Two

Spence, Janet, and Lake Erie

On May 26, Spence flipped a cheesy omelet―his specialty in preparing company breakfasts. I sat at the kitchen table between friends who’d flown in from Oregon to celebrate Spence’s seventy-first birthday and, six days later on Presque Isle, our fiftieth wedding anniversary. I scanned Gene Ware’s A Walk on the Park. “Of the fourteen walks we haven’t done, four don’t include rutted trails or sand.”

Eric, Spence’s lanky friend from elementary school, chuckled. “Okay.”

Since his wife Kay likes to cook, I’d spent days deep-cleaning the kitchen before they’d arrived. She sipped coffee. “What are the choices?”

“Walk Number Two [ starts at Swan Cove―really the lily pond my dad photographed the year I was born.”

Kay, an avid researcher of her own and others’ family histories, looked up with a curious smile.

“Dad printed a black and white photo then painted it with water colors while he sat beside the bed where Mom had to stay because she’d bled when pregnant with me.” I pointed at the kitchen wall. “The picture hangs in the next room.”

“Everyone’s life has a story,” Kay said taking another sip of coffee.

Reading Gene’s description, I summarized the walk. “It’s two and two tenths miles. It follows a sidewalk along the bay to the water taxi landing, crosses Waterworks Park, then loops back on a multipurpose trail behind two beaches.”

“We went to the Waterworks all the time when I was a kid,” Spence said and set a plate with an omelet and bacon in front of Kay.

I squinted at Gene’s side trips list. “There’s a handicapped beach ramp nearby. We could walk along it and get a view of Lake Erie.”

“Sounds interesting.” Kay munched a bite of bacon. “Let’s do that one.”

Spence pulled out his chair and sat by the stack of presents and cards. “The weather forecasts rain. That could change.” He ripped the envelope on the first card. “Did you make a reservation for dinner?”

“For six-thirty at Bayfront Grille in Erie.” I grinned. “The food is great and the blood orange sorbet I had last time,” I rested my elbows on the table and my chin on my hands, “tasted like sugary sunshine―so divine even a President Trump superlative would fail to do the flavor justice.”

All three laughed.

I frowned and used my explaining-teacher voice. “A fiftieth wedding anniversary only comes once a lifetime so it should be special―like a fun day with longtime friends topped by a special dessert.”

“You’re right, dear.” Spence set a black and pink Friends Forever card upright on the table. “You can order two bowls of sorbet.”

So, after celebrating Spence’s birthday with a walk along Deer Creek, flower planting for the guys, flower pounding for the girls, and a cookout dinner with Kay’s homemade potato salad, Eric and Kay took a side trip to visit her friend in Ohio. They returned the night before our anniversary.

Eric and Spence

The morning of June 1, Spence lay on the sofa―his head on a pillow and his knees on three. “I feel awful.” Wheeze. Wheeze. “I didn’t sleep well last night.” Hack. Hack. “I kept coughing.”

Across our open space room, I opened a kitchen cupboard. “Stay where you are. Kay’s still sleeping. Eric and I can make our own breakfasts.”

Eric fried an egg, I poured a bowl of Cheerios, and Spence closed his eyes.

Late morning, Spence ate breakfast, set fire to papers in the burn barrel, filled groundhog holes with kitty litter deposits which encourages the garden-consuming critters to move, then crashed on the sofa.

Early afternoon, I called Bayfront Grille to cancel our dinner reservation, checked on sleeping Spence, and tiptoed to the porch.

Eric and Kay sat on the love seat. He stared at his cell phone. She glanced from a Douglas fir in the tree nursery to me. “I saw a bird earlier that has red on its head and stomach but a dark back. Do you know what it is?”

I sat in the wicker chair across from the love seat. “A downy woodpecker  has a red head and black back, but its stomach is white.”

Eric tapped his phone with a finger and showed Kay a picture.

She shook her head. “The stomach has red and the bird is smaller.”

A robin flew toward its nest by the porch steps, veered away, and squawked a protest from the grass. The robin would have to brave people on the porch to reach its nest or wait.

I walked inside to get one of our bird field guides and binoculars.

The robin squawked on the grass when I returned―it decided to wait.

Through the binoculars, I spied a goldfinch, several sparrows, and a pair of cedar waxwings. None was Kay’s small red bird, but I passed her the binoculars to enjoy the waxwings.

She stood, lifted the binoculars to her eyes, and oohed. Then she swung to the right and scanned the field. “There they are! Perched on the wood shed.” She gave me the binoculars.

Before the birds flew away, I focused the lenses. “Purple finch.” I passed the binoculars to Eric and leafed through the bird guide. “Yep. Purple finch.” I showed Kay the picture. “Why they’re called purple finch beats me. Probably the same reason a red-bellied woodpecker got its name even though the red is on its head not its belly.”

Eric waved his phone “We found a Giant Eagle in Meadville with our GPS.”

Kay rested her hand on Eric’s shoulder. “We want to make you and Spence dinner for your anniversary. We’ll drive to the store for ingredients then make zucchini spaghetti with the spiralizer we sent you after our last visit.”

Since Spence planted zucchini, I never bought it. We either had a surplus or none. “It’s not zucchini season. Will the store have zucchini now?”

Eric chuckled. “They have zucchini year round.”

Last summer was a year zucchini didn’t thrive at Wells Wood so I’d stored the spiralizer in the cold cellar. Could I find it? I clomped downstairs, unearthed its box under a bag of sunflower seeds, and brushed dust off the box before carrying it upstairs. Then I checked the kitchen cupboards for canned tomatoes and tomato sauce. Plenty.

Kay wrote other ingredients on a list and asked, “Is there anything else you want at the store?”

“Sorbet?”

She wrote sorbet then they left. When they returned with four small zucchinis and other treats, Kay cooked sauce.

Eric taught me how to use the sprializer. “Push that lever to anchor it to the counter.”

I pushed.

“Cut the ends off the zucchini. Place it in the center of the dial. Turn.”

I cut, centered, and turned the crank. Spaghetti-width strings of zucchini piled on the plate Eric hastily placed at the end of the machine. “Ooh. Magic!”

When we finished transforming the zucchinis, Eric took the plate to Kay.

She dumped the raw zucchini into the pot of tomato sauce and stirred.

After wine and water toasts, the four of us dug into the special anniversary dinner. “This is the best spaghetti I’ve ever had,” Spence said around a mouthful. “We’ve got to make it when the zucchinis come in.”

Glad he’d recovered enough to enjoy dinner, I agreed. “We have to pick the zucchini young though―before they grow seeds. You can’t spiralize the seedy ones.”

Since Giant Eagle didn’t have sorbet, Eric and Kay bought two kinds of non-dairy ice cream―frozen banana raspberry and coconut milk. The raspberry tasted like concentrated fresh-off-the-vine red raspberries that Spence’s Mom had planted at Wells Wood, and the coconut milk resembled sweet, vanilla flavored cream. I savored a scoop of each then spooned out seconds.

At dusk, the four of us traipsed to the gravel driveway. I pulled sparklers out of plastic bags.

Spence struck a match. It snuffed out. He lit another and another and another until finally one flamed and ignited Kay’s sparkler. We lit our sparklers from hers and held them aloft.

Golden sparks sputtered.

Red flames flared.

Gray smoke rose.

I giggled, waved my sparkler, and watched glowing streaks undulate against the dark. “The sparklers seem smaller than the ones we had when we were young. Are they really?”

Eric chuckled. “They could be the same size. We just remember them bigger.”

A gray cloud lifted off the field and floated over the treetops.

Fireflies lit the field with their yellow flashes.

What a delightful day―not a walk on the park, but the company of good friends, bird observations from the porch, a dinner both Spence and I could eat (a rare occurrence due to aging-health diet restrictions), an evening light show, and healthy ice cream nearly as tasty as Bayfront Grille’s blood orange sorbet. Feeling thoroughly celebrated, I grabbed Spence’s hand and squeezed it while we walked back inside.

But, Eric and Kay viewed the day differently. In a letter that arrived a week later, they wrote,

. . . We enjoyed our stay at Wells Wood very much. It was good to talk about old times and it was nice to see you . . . Our one regret was not being able to take you out for your 50^th wedding anniversary. We got you a gift certificate so you can go when you are able . . .

End of Part 1

Sparklers