Happy Halloween to All!
Return of the Skeleton Crew
It’s that time of year again. As Halloween nears, our friend Slim, who engages in quiet meditation in the spare bedroom eleven months out of the year, comes out to play. His loyal pooches Fluffy and Champ are by his side and ready to frolic.
With Slim out and about, our family is blessed with another errand runner. And designated driver. We need more Halloween candy, Slim insists, so he’s off to the store. Kiko, ever the happy passenger, prepares to ride along.
Kiko reminds Champ to buckle up.
Be a good boy, Kiko, for Uncle Slim!
Here’s what Slim says: It’s the night before Halloween. Be ready for fun!
For last year’s photos of the Skeleton Crew, see here.
Our Fall Festival Tradition
Today, we’re back to sunshine. Yesterday’s continuous rain failed to wash away fall’s colors; it simply spread them around with an artistic flair. The weather is mild. It’s a perfect day to be outside, enjoying October.
It’s a day that makes me a bit nostalgic for my daughter’s younger years. If she were seven or eight, we might be heading to Cox Farms after school. This family-owned farm puts on a fall festival that really is fun for most ages. It’s one of our favorite local traditions. We discovered it with a group of friends we met through D’s preschool.
If you live in a suburban or semi-rural area, you probably have a place like this nearby. In Princeton, there was Terhune Orchards, which my husband and I enjoyed. If something similar existed in Atlanta when I was growing up in the 70s, we didn’t know about it. Lucky for me, I didn’t know what I was missing. Lucky for my daughter, she didn’t have to miss it.
Cox Farms is a low-tech, homespun, rough-around-the-edges place, just as a farm should be. As a preschooler, one of my daughter’s favorite “rides” involved rolling down a hill inside a big pipe. There are mischievous goats to feed, various baby farm animals to admire, a cow to milk, and lots of hand-painted folk-artsy plywood signs. Naturally, there are pumpkins, apples, cider and kettle corn. On weekends there might be a bluegrass band.
There’s lots of hay: hay mountains to climb, hay bale forts to explore and tunnel through. Of course there’s a hayride, during which aliens and assorted odd but non-threatening creatures appear. There are many slides, some of which are quite steep. When we first started going to Cox Farms, D was afraid to attempt any of the slides on her own, so we went down them together. That’s when I found out how much fun a fun slide can be. Apparently, I was slide-deprived (as well as fall-festival deprived) as a child.
Our daughter’s first-choice activity was the rope swing with a drop into a foam pit. One doesn’t often get a chance to brag on a child’s rope swing skills, but I must say she had excellent form and always managed to sail to a far corner of the pit. The two photos above are from consecutive years, the first in 2006, the second in 2007. Evidently D’s fall festival uniform consisted of a pink shirt and blue jeans.
For several years when our daughter was in elementary school, we had an annual fall festival meet-up with former preschool friends, a brother and sister, and their dad. It was one of the highlights of the season.
Our every visit to Cox Farms ended with the careful picking of a “free” patch pumpkin. D has always delighted in the perfect pumpkin.
It’s been several years since we’ve done the fall festival. But our daughter is now a regular attendee at “Fields of Fear,” held at Cox Farms on weekend nights for older kids and adults. It includes the Cornightmare, the Dark Side Hayride and the Forest: Back 40. As of this year, she and her friends can even drive themselves.
But at the end of the night, D still picks out a little patch pumpkin.
The Red Tree and the Legacy of Eugenia Brown
Today is the day for that steady, late fall rain that washes much of the brilliant color from the trees. In tomorrow’s sunshine, many branches will be newly bare. Gutters and lawns, though, will gleam red, orange and gold. One of the brightest patches in our area will be beneath this magnificent tree.
Located behind our church, it’s adorned with some of the most vividly red leaves imaginable. I’d always assumed it was a maple. When someone referred to it as an oak, I knew that wasn’t right. But in September, when Kiko and I were sitting in its shade for the Blessing of the Animals, I realized I was wrong, too. This was no maple. The leaves, still green then, were the wrong shape. And there were berries. Bluish-purple berries, like elongated blueberries.
What was this tree? No one seemed to know. But mention “that red tree by the church” and everyone knew exactly which one you meant. I began an internet search. Googling “trees with blue berries” didn’t provide a quick answer.
Then I remembered my little tree book, which I’d recently brought from Atlanta. As I mentioned in a previous tree post, a neighbor gave me the book when I was a child. She encouraged me to look closely and appreciate nature as we saw it all around us. She was Eugenia Brown, a Southern lady with a Southern name, a proud graduate of Decatur’s Agnes Scott College some decades before. (Daddy thought she was too old to be talking so much about her Agnes Scott days.) Mrs. Brown was a wise woman, and I’ve only recently begun to realize the impression she made on me. She wasn’t particularly religious, but I can see now that when we examined leaves, acorns, pine cones, shells and flowers, she encouraged my sense of wonder for that vast and easily overlooked array of amazing little things God made. His little creations–those unique, tiny masterpieces of design–they have always brought me joy. For that gift, I thank Mrs. Brown.
I found the book, and sure enough, I discovered the tree almost immediately, recognizing it from the handy close-up painting of its red leaves and berries. It’s a Black Gum tree. Also known as Black Tupelo, Sourgum or Pepperidge. According to the concise text, “Black Gum leaves are smooth and shiny, turning brilliant red in fall. The dark blue fruit is eaten by birds and small mammals.” Bingo.
Yet again, thank you, Mrs. Brown. And thank you, God. Had I not known Mrs. Brown, had she not given me the tree book, I might not be able to find such solace in the beauty of little things and the God who made them. How wonderful it is that our God designed bright red canopies with plump blue berries to shelter and sustain His littlest winged and furry creatures! To paraphrase that old hymn, His eye is on the berry, and I know he watches me.
Fall: Still Here!
Early last week it appeared likely that the great beauty of the season had passed. I hadn’t been looking, and I’d missed it.
But my pessimism was unwarranted. Just look!
I understand how Ebenezer Scrooge must have felt, awakening after his ghostly visitations, to realize with elation that he hadn’t slept through Christmas. Scrooge hadn’t missed that momentous, holy day, and I haven’t missed this spectacular season. The sudden, gloomy cold snap didn’t last. Fall is still here, at least for a few more days. And recently, it’s been as brilliant and colorful as it should be.
I don’t have to drive to the mountains or down to the Valley to appreciate the show. Fall is playing just outside my windows. The view down the street, with the trees arching overhead, can hold its own next to any grand sight.
You probably have equally glorious views close to home, too.
Don’t forget to look.
The show is on now, but it’s a limited engagement!
Running Behind
It’s happening again. Another season is flashing by, like a series of blurry images from a train window, beyond the grasp of my full appreciation.
Summer and its dark green humid beauty came and went, without leaving much of an impression. Was it hot? I can’t really remember. Now it appears I’ve almost missed fall. I noticed today that the leaves of our little sassafras tree are past their yellow-gold prime. Some branches are already bare, and dry leaves litter the lawn.
Yesterday morning we awoke to a heavy frost. Even though I had the presence of mind to search out most of my cold-weather dog-walking clothes, they weren’t sufficient. Around noon, Kiko ventured outside and settled in a patch of sun-drenched pine straw by the fence. He didn’t last long. Soon he was back inside, in the warmest spot he knows, beside a heating vent beneath a sofa. Like me, he seems perplexed by, and unprepared for the sudden cold snap.
I’m not sure what has captured my complete attention recently. Nothing of substance, apparently. Mostly, I’ve been distracted by life’s tedious minutiae, which seems even more Byzantine than usual. Passwords need to be changed, credit cards updated. Familiar web sites are suddenly “new and improved.” (I don’t want new and improved; I want old and understandable.) Pin numbers, unnecessary before, must be created. In my volunteer work, simple emails are being replaced by drop boxes, google docs and Excel spreadsheets I can’t access. At every turn I need my daughter’s tech help. She’s rarely here, due to her junior year course load, drama commitments and social life. A trivial task that should take a few minutes somehow eats up most of an hour.
I’m surprised to look out the window and see the sun low in the sky, the lawn in shadow. I could go finish some project or other. I should probably start dinner.
What I’d rather do is cuddle up with Kiko, now snoozing warmly among the sofa pillows. Maybe it’s a good thing that winter is nearly upon us. Winter is the time for hibernating, and that strikes me as most inviting.
Coney Island, June 1993
According to the Farmer’s Almanac and calendar no-it-alls, it’s still summer, for one more day. The autumnal equinox occurs tomorrow, September 23, bringing with it the first day of fall. I’d thought the summer had slipped away, but it hasn’t quite. A couple of months ago, I’d intended to write several posts on summer places. But the days passed, filled with other preoccupations. On this very last day of summer, I’ll try to make up for lost time. First up, Coney Island.
I was about five years old the first time I heard of Coney Island. It sounded magical and exotic, an ideal, seaside summer place. Neighbors of my grandmother in Kentucky had just returned from there, and they spoke of it in glowing terms. It was way up north near New York City. There were roller coasters, carousels, and a huge Ferris wheel right on the beach. I’d never seen any ocean then. I’d been no farther north than Ashland, Kentucky, and no farther south than Waycross, Georgia. (Daddy’s job in public health occasionally took him to Waycross, and Mama and I went with him a few times. While it sounds like small peanuts, I remember it as a very cool place, home of the Okefenokee Swamp, a great Holiday Inn pool, and crumbling antebellum mansions.) Anyway, that family’s Coney Island experience made quite an impression. I vowed someday I’d see it for myself.
By the time I was living in New Jersey, twenty-something years later, Coney Island sounded decidedly less magical. But I was still intrigued. One Saturday in June before I moved back to Atlanta, H and I drove up for the day. 
We were in H’s enormous 1968 Chevy Impala SS (last car on the right, above). I’d gone with him to Trenton in the spring to buy it for $450. Battered and well past its prime, it was the perfect car for Coney Island in 1993. Like the faded amusement park, it could be seen to possess an inimitable air of tough deadbeat cool. We parked right next to the old Thunderbolt roller coaster; there were no vast, well-maintained parking lots as at a typical Six Flags. The Thunderbolt, opened in 1925 and out of use since 1982, sat decaying behind a rusted chain link fence. At first I thought it was the famous Coney Island Cyclone. It didn’t look safe at all. But, on the bright side, there was no crowd.
Then I spotted the Cyclone, across the way. In comparison to the decrepit Thunderbolt, it looked positively spiffy.
The above photo shows the Cyclone from the top of the Wonder Wheel. The classic white wooden coaster dates from 1927. It’s not especially tall. It doesn’t look particularly impressive if compared to sky-high roller coasters of the twenty-first century. There are no full loops. The cars don’t hang upside down. It doesn’t go backwards. It’s associated with no blockbuster movie franchise. But it is one memorable, absolutely thrilling ride.
On that sunny summer Saturday, the queue for the Cyclone was surprisingly short, almost nonexistent. At H’s insistence, we waited out one run so we could get the front car on the next one. As a little boy at Seabreeze Amusement Park in Rochester, his grandfather taught him that for the complete coaster experience, one must ride in the first car. We got in. When the safety bar came down, I thought there must be some mistake. There was way too much room between the bar and my lap. In fact there was space for someone several times my size, or for me and a couple of friends on my lap. I was afraid I’d fly out on the first dip. I anchored my elbows forcefully into the worn vinyl padding of the bar.
The cars lurched, and we were off, chugging slowly up the first hill. At the top, there was that suspense-filled pause, and suddenly we were hurtling downward. Thrillingly, alarmingly. The first descent is banked precipitously, and I hunkered lower, dug my elbows in harder. We were back up, rounded a turn, and then we were headed down again, screaming, laughing. It was exhilarating.
At the end of the ride, when the little train arrived at the platform, we were laughing and wind-blown, like all the other riders. H’s shirt had become completely unbuttoned. My bra had come unhooked. We had been warned to secure all valuables. According to the attendant, false teeth, glasses, jewelry, wigs and even underwear had been found on the tracks. I can see why.
Back then, you could stay on for another ride at no cost if you chose. We both wanted a repeat, but we needed some time to collect ourselves, to button up, to recover from the thrill. To prepare to be thrilled again.
Reliving the memory, I think, as I have many times over the years: we’ve got to go to Coney Island with our daughter. Not surprisingly, she’s a roller coaster fan.
Next: More Coney Island
Wild Trumpet Vine Turns Four
Four years ago, I wrote my first Wild Trumpet Vine post. Like the plant for which it’s named, Wild Trumpet Vine perseveres. There are dry spells, but it hangs on. It’s grown deep roots, and it keeps me rooted to the real, keeps me on track in a world of smoke, dead ends, and mirrors. Life is fragile. Let’s look, live, and love while we can.
Thanks for reading! For more on why I write, see here.
Where Did the Summer Go?
It’s happened again: another summer has vanished in a blur. It doesn’t seem possible that nearly twelve weeks have elapsed since the school year ended on June 18. My daughter’s homemade chalkboard hasn’t been updated since then. It still looks like this:
But it’s September 7. While the weather remains hot and humid, it’s beginning to look like fall. Yellow-gold leaves are fluttering down from our neighbors’ cherry trees.
Here in Northern Virginia, it’s the first day of school. My daughter begins her junior year. Junior year! Really? She, my husband and I all feel unprepared.
If I were a kid, faced with writing one of those dreaded first-day What I Did Last Summer essays, I would sit, staring blankly for a while, wondering, What did we do? Seems like I wasn’t paying attention.
I remember the last half of May, however, with a sort of surreal clarity. My father had emergency arterial bypass surgery, and I flew to Atlanta. One minute I was dawdling contentedly over a late breakfast and talking easy nonsense to the dog. The next I was amidst a teeming crowd at Dulles Airport waiting to board a plane. Waiting. Anxiously waiting. Still waiting. If you’re in a real hurry to reach a sick loved one, you can count on extra-long airport delays. I arrived at Piedmont Hospital late that night, just after Daddy was wheeled to his room after several hours of complicated surgery. He had a nubby cotton blanket loosely draped around his head and shoulders, giving him the appearance of an old shepherd from a live nativity scene. His face was frighteningly pale and drawn, but already he was talking, joking. He was lucid, he was funny. He was my sweet Daddy, upbeat and happy. What a relief.
Mama wouldn’t leave Daddy’s side, except very briefly, to get a bite to eat or take a quick shower. She slept on a narrow pull-out chair beside his hospital bed. Evidence of the truest of true love, after nearly sixty years of marriage, doesn’t get any clearer than this. I spent days with my parents in the hospital, and nights alone in the house I grew up in. What an odd feeling. I can’t remember spending a night totally on my own there before. During those rare times in my teens and twenties when my parents left town without me, it was a good excuse to have friends over. There may have been one night when it was just me and my childhood dog, Popi. He’s been dead far longer than he was alive, but I still hear his soft footsteps, or his nose pushing open a partially closed door. I heard him last May. As the old, familiar house creaked and groaned around me, I wished he were there with me again.
It was slow, slow going, and very scary at times, but Daddy got better. For a couple of weeks before the surgery, he’d complained of leg pains. Turns out he’d had almost no blood flow in his lower legs; he was lucky he didn’t lose one foot, or both. He left the hospital after nine arduous days, still quite weak. Being home was a great relief to my parents, but it meant Mama would be mostly on her own to care for Daddy. There would be visiting nurses and physical therapists, but her duty would be full time, non-stop. A daunting prospect. Fortunately, kind and loving neighbors made it possible for me to return to my Virginia family, who were missing me by that point.
Maybe because Daddy’s surgery and ongoing recovery has loomed so large in recent months, other events have seemed less substantial, less deserving of my complete attention. When I look back over my calendar, I see proof that we were busy: there were neighborhood parties, doctor appointments, church meetings, Friday night dinners out, a first-time ever solo trip to Florida for my daughter to visit a friend, our annual Cape Cod vacation, a busy week of Vacation Bible School, and the transformation of our little-girl playroom into a more grown-up TV/entertainment room. In late August, my daughter had all four wisdom teeth extracted, much against her will. Given her choice, she would have preferred to postpone indefinitely and take her chances with future pain and inconvenience. She felt far more miserable than I had expected. I went through the same thing at fourteen, but have forgotten my level of discomfort. It couldn’t have been too extreme, because I recall being out with a friend’s family and attempting to eat a Varsity hotdog only a couple of days later. Once my daughter was feeling good again, summer was over.
And now, the last minutes of this first day of the new school year are ticking down. My eleventh grader will be home before long. I know better than to ask about her day in a cheerful tone. I’m bracing for a litany of hardships and grievances. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Spontaneous Squash Garden
This summer, the compost pile in the remains of our maple tree stump has found new life as a squash garden. No planning or intentional planting was involved. Last fall we deposited many squash seeds in the compost, and evidently squash loves compost. The decaying wood of the old tree was quickly hidden by fuzzy, thick vines sprouting large green tri-lobed leaves. Tightly curled, wiry tendrils of vine anchored themselves to the grass, gaining ground. And then the bright yellow blossoms started popping up. The last time the tree stump played host to anything this interesting, it had been a lichen extravaganza.
I wondered why most of the blossoms never bore fruit. I thought it was something to do with a deficiency or an excess in our spontaneous squash patch.
But that’s not the case. I recently learned that squash plants produce both male and female blooms. Only the female blossoms, if visited by bees carrying pollen from male plants, will develop into squash. I noticed that the bees didn’t typically flit quickly from flower to flower in the squash patch. They immersed themselves, heads down, in the depth of the blossom for long periods, seeming to luxuriate in an abundance of pollen. Sometimes two or three bees would settle in at the same flower. There seemed to be plenty of the good stuff to go around. When they finally emerged, they moved lethargically, a bit like over-served drinkers stumbling from a bar as dawn breaks. The dark form in the photo above is one such seemingly contented bee.
It’s easy to tell the difference between male and female squash blossoms. A plant produces far more male blooms than female. The males sprout from long, thin stalks in the upper parts of the plant. Female blossoms appear near the base of a thick vine. They seem to grow from a small, bulb-like proto-squash. These are partially visible in the two close-up photos above.
Two male squash blooms, one fresh, one wilting, appear in the photo above. Now that I know I won’t be sacrificing future squashes, I might try harvesting a few boy blossoms to cook. Although, maybe not, because I hate to deprive the bees.
I thought I recognized the big leaves in our squash patch. They resemble those of the acorn squash the squirrels planted among our black-eyed Susans last year. There are now two dark green acorn squash hiding under the foliage. I’m hoping they remain overlooked by local wildlife so I can let them stay on the vine to ripen for a while yet. As I’ve learned, stuffed acorn squash makes a tasty fall meal.
The photo above shows spirals of thin, pale green threads, like wire wrapped around a pencil, that sprout from the larger vines.
There were two kinds of leaves in our squash garden. From a vine with somewhat smaller foliage, there has appeared an elongated oval variety I’d simply call a pumpkin. It’s gone from white to pale yellow in the past week and is now about the size of a typical grocery store eggplant. I’m hoping to see it turn bright orange and join us for Halloween.
Of course, by that time, the compost may have something completely different in mind.