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. 

 

Reflections on the Fifth Week of Fall

  A few years ago, I was curious so tasted a cranberry right off the highbush. I spit the sour taste continuously on the dash to the kitchen sink to rinse my mouth. I left the berries for birds and insects. But, they didn't eat the cranberries either. When multiple berries hung on the highbush this year, enough time had elapsed for me to try again. I researched on line for when to pick and how to cook. The “never eat a cranberry before cooking it with sugar” reassured me. I followed that web site's advice to pick the berries right before or right after the first frost. Unfortunately, our first frost was a hard freeze. I hustled outside to pick the berries before the sun rose and defrosted them. To keep the berries mostly frozen, I processed the little ice balls on the porch: rolling them on a terry cloth towel to clean; removing stems; and keeping the firm, smooth berries. Frozen berries, however, were hard, and thawed ones were soft. Unless a cranberry mushed between my fingers, I ignored the firm/soft guideline and judged by smooth or wrinkled skins. Falling leaves and melting ice drops pattered in the woods. Hawks called from the sky. Turkeys clucked in the valley. I took warming breaks when my fingers ached with cold. As I put a tray full of cranberries into the freezer, I imagined the flavor of a sauce made of cranberries, sugar, water, vinegar, cinnamon, gloves, and allspice–“The Taste of Christmas in a Jar.”

Reflections on the Fourth Week of Fall

     When guests arrived for Ellen and Chris' celebration at The Sanctuary on Penn, a whole pig was roasting in a smoker in the back yard. The pig was the inspiration of Chef Rosie, who had jumped up and down upon learning that Ellen and Chris were planning a medieval wedding. The pig sweltered through welcoming conversations, salad consumption, and the handfasting ceremony. Then four cooks rolled him around the sanctuary to the front door. The disc jockey announced “King Swine Vale” and played a trumpet voluntary. Revelers, dressed as pirate, peasant, woodsman, and monk, carried the pig into the great hall. They set the pig on the table to the applause of hungry guests. Rosie waved her knife, poured flaming spirits on the pig's back, and arranged fronds at his side. To keep his top in tact throughout the feast, Rosie dug meat from the underside. I asked for a bite of the apple. She cut one from the platter rather than the one in the pig's mouth. It was crisp. None of the apples had roasted in the smoker.

Reflections on the Third Week of Fall

      Over the last ten months, friends and relatives have asked, “Will you finish the quilt in time for your daughter's wedding?” Planning, buying, cutting, and sorting pieces for the quilt flowed smoothly. In January I said, “Of course, I'll finish in time.”

      Sewing sixteen different squares, rectangles, and strips into a stain glass block exactly 16 ½ inches wide was my first hurdle. Meticulous measuring, ripping, re-sewing and cheering-on from my friend Cindy brought success for creating forty-two such blocks. In April I said, “I can finish in time.”

      After sewing the blocks into seven rows, I placed one on the cutting board at a Mother's Day quilt retreat. With rotary cutter in hand, I stared at the blue, green, and purple row–too terrified to trim the edges. I felt like a protagonist who surmounted one complication only to meet another. Marcia, an experienced quilter, sensed my hesitation and said, “I can help.” I let her trim all seven rows. With the trimmed rows ready I said, “I might finish in time.”

      Most quilters in my guild would have sewed the rows together and paid someone to do the quilting on a professional machine–definitely finishing in time. But I was determined to sew every stitch. The question was would even one row would fit in my small portable sewing machine? I stitched pillow covers between muslin to make a test row.       That fit so Spence helped me layer backing, batting, and a row of stain glass blocks to make a quilt sandwich. I quilted–stitch in the ditch around sashes, Irish knots in squares, and Irish chains in rectangles. On September 27, two weeks before the celebration, I'd finished quilting all seven rows and said, “I probably won't finish in time, but I'm going to hustle anyway.”

      As I puzzled out how to attach one row securely to another while keeping the vertical lines straight, I abandoned the beans in the garden and settled for enjoying golden leaves against the bright blue sky through the window. After 328 hours of sewing, I left the quilt (with four of seven rows attached) on the sewing table, packed my bags for the trip, and said, “I didn't finish in time for the ceremony, but I will finish in the time it takes to meet my daughter's only requirement– 'Make a quilt you'll be proud of.'”

 

Reflections on the Second Week of Fall

 

   George's adventure started on the evening of the supermoon lunar eclipse. Spence and I packed our bags, jumped in the truck, and dashed to Cleveland. What we didn't know was that George was exploring the deck.

    When we arrived in Cleveland we got the first clues we'd left in too much of a hurry. Spence's bag–with medicine, computer, and phone–was still at Wells Wood. He borrowed my Nexus to work on a Nonprofit Quarterly article, but the Internet was down. With my phone, he asked an AT&T representative to restart the Internet connection–no luck–so scheduled a repair appointment. Was George scratching on the log cabin door for us to let him inside?

    We walked up Rinard past quiet houses to view the supermoon half way through the eclipse. The shaded side of the moon looked gray, but a few photos had a red tinge. At the time of the total eclipse, Spence was snoring. I tiptoed to the kitchen window and peeked at the moon through the trees. The moon was totally covered with a gray shadow so I didn't bother to walk up the street in my bare feet and nightgown to get another photo. Could George see a red supermoon through Wells Wood rain clouds? Where was he sleeping?

    Monday morning, we met with our handyman to review the contract for repairs which included leveling the sidewalk, pointing, and tearing down the game room paneling so that Spence could seal cement block cracks. The AT&T man reset the Internet and installed a new control box. Spence patched cement between the house and driveway then made a trip to Home Depot for supplies. I cut shrubs away from bricks that needing pointing, painted the trim around the garage door, and painted the inside of the French doors to the porch. Was George talking to Emma through the sliding glass door on the deck?

    In the truck on our way back to Wells Woods, we headed toward a dark cloud bank in the east and ate bag dinners. What was George eating?

    As we drove under the Pennsylvania cloud bank, the skies grew dark and mist hovered over the road. Spence parked in the driveway, climbed the porch steps, and said, “What are you doing here?”

    I imagined a raccoon or squirrel on the porch, but a long merrrrrrow answered. George had been on the porch over twenty-six hours. Holes in long green leaves answered the question of what he'd eaten.

    A quiet Emma met the three of us at the door. Usually tetchy after George's short absences for vet appointments, she calmly sniffed George and let him lick her head. She accepted our hugs and purred.

George nibbled food, sniffed toys, drank water, and settled on a piece of cardboard.

    Spence told the cats, “You were brave.” He told me, “ We aren't going to leave in such a hurry next time.”