TERRE HAUTE —
There is an old riddle that goes something like this: You throw away the outside and cook the inside. Then you eat the outside and throw away the inside. What did you eat?
If you answered an ear of corn, it might be because you’re pretty sharp, or because, like me, you have corn on the cob on the brain right now. Midsummer is when sweet corn is a hot-ticket item in these parts, and I will admit that I will be first in line to get it.
I just spent a little while shucking our Sunday lunch. Standing on the precipice that serves as my back yard, I worked my way through a dozen ears or so, knowing that a pot of bubbling water was waiting for me atop the glowing rings of our electric stove.
I am a corn man. I’m not opposed to carrots or broccoli or cauliflower or green beans at all — as long as the first three in that bunch aren’t cooked — but I have a special affinity for sweet corn, and this year’s crop has only fueled my addiction.
My friend, Joe, who wears the sawdust of his workshop and the chafe of his hayfields on his arms, serves as dealer for my sweet corn fixes; he delivers the goods in used, plastic grocery bags.
Joe grows his corn in patches all around his farm, planting it in the spring at various intervals, then pulling it as it ripens so that we can enjoy the stuff for most of July and a while into August. Year after year, he plants the same white-and-yellow variety that not only produces moderately large ears, but also the sweetest corn this side of the sugar bowl.
Like most Hoosiers, I suppose, my family enjoys sweet corn with a generous slathering of butter and a sprinkling of salt. I like mine with more than a little pepper, and I’ve been known to keep spooning the plate’s accumulated mixture of melted butter, salt, and pepper back over the ears as I devour them, not for the sake of miserliness, but because sweet corn isn’t sweet corn unless the consumer also wears a little of it on his chin, too.
It is my understanding that sweet corn has to be eaten fresh for one basic reason: The longer it remains on the shelf after being picked, the sugar in it begins to turn to starch. A few minutes invested in reading a pamphlet from the Purdue University Horticulture Department made me enough of a sweet corn expert to be able to tell you that 50 percent of the corn’s taste and sweetness is lost within 12 hours after harvesting. If it has to be refrigerated between the field and your supper plate, you need to keep it as close to 32 degrees as you can.
Sweet corn season was anticipated with great excitement in my childhood home, just as it was in my wife’s. When the corn was ready to be picked — my grandfather, who planted and cultivated it — came down from his hillside garden like an agrarian prophet to tell my mom and my aunt (she lived across the road) that they’d better be ready for a shucking party. On the appointed day, they and my grandmother, Blanche, would meet in the latter’s kitchen to begin blanching the corn, cooling it, then quickly cutting it off the ears, making it ready for the freezer.
Canning was a very big deal in those days; similar scenes could be found when the green beans came on, when tomatoes were going full bore, when the carrots were pulled, and when my grandpa dug potatoes. Much of our life revolved around his garden, and when he said things were ready to be picked or dug or shucked, we got busy. Three family’s basements were lined with canned produce, and I can still smell the scent of the onions and “taters,” and the glint of a bare light bulb on the hundreds of green glass Ball jars that lined my grandmother’s cellar. The sound of a rattling pressure cooker valve still rings in my head, and I can still see those three ladies all sitting in a semi-circle in the yard snapping beans and swapping stories and laughing through their labor.
I became a businessman at an early age, selling the surplus produce at a make-shift County Line roadside stand. Mostly consisting of a battered card table and chair, and a hard-to-read sign, I often sat at my sales kiosk for hours at the base of our hillside driveway reading books, counting cars and talking with people who pulled in on their way home from work to pick up part of their supper. “Give ’em a baker’s dozen on that corn,” my grandfather, Roy, always told me. “Some of the ears are a little small, and we want ’em to come back,” he’d add. For our customers that meant 13 ears for $1.
Our tomatoes and peppers and potatoes sold well enough, but the sweet corn sold best, which was just fine with me; I helped my grandfather till his sandy brown soil, plant the seed corn, and hoe the young plants every spring, and I was always the Director of Finance, too. That is, I carefully watched the money from our sales as it built up in our peeling red Roi-Tan cigar box.
I can’t say I miss the scratchiness of dew-soaked leaves on my arms while I picked my grandfather’s corn; I miss those times and those people, though. Eating sweet corn takes me back to those days a bit, as does the lack of conversation around our dinner table as each of us pauses to work our way down an ear like a beaver on a maple tree.
Our house is filling up tonight; my daughter is here, as is my son and his girl. My wife has been prepping garlic bread and cooking spaghetti sauce and making a dessert. We’re going to eat well, as usual.
“I suppose you’ll want some corn, too,” she says as she peers around the corner of the kitchen door into my office.
“Yeah, I want corn, too.”
Mike Lunsford can be reached at hickory913@aol.com, or via regular mail C/O the Tribune-Star at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. Visit Mike’s webpage at www.mikelunsford.com. He’ll be speaking and signing books for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 4 at Westminster Village in Terre Haute and at 6:30 p.m. CST Aug. 12 at the Marshall, Ill., Public Library.
Mike Lunsford
The Off Season: ’Tis so sweet to taste this summer’s corn
- Mike Lunsford
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A walk in the woods
I went for a walk in the woods one day last week after work. It was a warm and green afternoon, and a fresh blue breeze blew in from the west like a new spring friend.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘Dowsers’ provide hope more than science
My grandfather was a man of God. Many times I saw him, his right hand held high in the air at his Wednesday night “prayer meeting,” praising the Lord before weeping at the altar on his knees. And yet, he was a “dowser,” a “diviner,” a “witcher” who, as a favor, would grab a forked sassafras stick and find water for some poor unfortunate whose well had gone dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: As of today, it’s unofficially spring
Despite the calendar telling us not to rush things, I think it is all right to go ahead and say spring is here. The Ides of March has passed, Easter is coming soon, and I have already been out in my yard with a rake, getting my boots muddy. It looks like spring to me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Twain’s Sawyer helps us yearn for ‘wilderness of childhood’
My cousin, Roger, stopped in one day last summer for a glass of tea and a little conversation. Rog has lived an hour’s drive away for years and now, and besides summer reunions, I don’t see him nearly often enough. He’s a good man who has raised a good family, and he owns a healthy sense of appreciation for not only the life he has now, but also the lives we had years ago as kids.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Cheerful green of wheat fights winter blahs
There is a light drizzle of freezing rain tapping at the door of my cabin today. It is little more than a week before the words I am writing are due to appear on your breakfast table or work desk with your morning coffee and scrambled eggs. But I write when I can, and today, despite a full schedule of televised football games, and the stacks of ungraded papers in my briefcase, and a good book lying open on my nightstand, I am clacking away on a keyboard to the whir of a heater and the steady drip of my gutters.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On the simple joys of watching it snow ...
It began to snow about 20 minutes ago, as I write this, light, wind-driven flakes that fall silently into my woods as I watch from a window.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: On this day above all, ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’
More than a year after his wife’s death, the great American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote in his diary on Christmas Day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Remembering a Lefty Frizzell-kind of Christmas ...
My brother and sister and I sat around a Thanksgiving dinner table a month ago, shifting in our seats just enough to make our yet-to-be digested turkey sit a little more easily, and, as we often do when we get together, we reminisced about our childhoods for a while.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The wonders of wading in ‘The Iridescence of a Shallow Stream’
I have no idea how many times I have written a story that begins with the wistful phrase, “When I was a boy. ...”
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Little man who came to dinner changes feel of household
My 7-year-old nephew, Carson, came to visit us last week. That in itself isn’t earth-shattering news, for he often drops by with one of his parents or the other, the last time dressed as a ghoul for Halloween. But for a couple like Joanie and me, whose youngest child is now nearly two decades past Carson’s age, having a little guy like him in the house, even for a few hours, takes a bit of adjusting.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Reflections: a bit of red glass and our daily thanksgivings
I sat in the half-light of my old desk lamp a few nights ago, a chilly wind blowing in from the northwest that made me appreciative of my long-sleeved shirt and purring heater.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Growing up — and ‘old’ — with many mouths to feed
At our family reunion last summer, I asked my brother if I could borrow a pair of photo albums he had put together. Over the past couple of years, I have committed quite a few of our family’s old yellowing snapshots to newly cropped and digitalized lives, and I wanted to do the same with some of the pictures John has collected for himself.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Violets in October – a pleasant surprise
I guess I don’t pay much attention to the weather forecasts these days because it surprised me a bit when our furnace kicked on a few nights ago.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A library is a good thing — even a little, homegrown one
I grew up with libraries, and I can’t imagine there ever being a time when I won’t want to wander one exploring it like some bookworm-Balboa, finding an author or title that I never really knew existed before. Creating those “Eureka” moments seems to be a dying interest now that so many of us download and digest books electronically without ever really considering that there just might be some hidden gem we’d have liked even more had we simply stumbled upon it on a shelf by accident. I think those moments of discovery are not unlike kicking up lost treasure a mile from where X marks the spot.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The ‘soothsayer’ who came to dinner
I’ve had a good time opening my mail these past few weeks. Sure, I still received the usual junk about lower credit card rates and satellite television packages, but the genuine letters made me smile; most were about a story I wrote in late August.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: The agony of de‘feet’ has this writer on his heels
I don’t know if I can electrocute myself by using a computer and soaking my feet in a pan of warm water at the same time, but I am contemplating taking the risk. My feet, particularly the right foot, have staged a 10-digit rebellion over the past few months. After a half-century of commendable service, my pods are screaming to be taken in for repairs, a big inconvenience for a guy who works on his feet all day and whose “sole” form of serious exercise is putting one foot in front of another walking the local roadways.
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Mike Lunsford: Summer’s hidden beauty worth the wait
The great naturalist John Burroughs once said that nature teaches more than she preaches. I can’t recall a summer where that rings true more than this one, for that old sun of ours truly taught us a thing or two these past three months.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time to redefine the concept of ‘assisted living’
Although it has been nearly two months now, I can’t forget the few afternoon hours I spent on a hot June day this summer at a local “assisted living” facility in town. I had been asked to speak to a group of men there about Father’s Day, but for most part, the wonderful old guys who came to listen certainly made my day more memorable than I did theirs.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Observations on smooth stones and blue-green water…
It was raining when I began to write this. Although no one could rightfully call what we got this afternoon a “downpour,” it was nice to have my windows open to hear the steady drops of a passing shower tapping on my dry-as-dust deck and hard-as-concrete yard.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: This summer has us recalling the heat of ’36
It was “only” 99 degrees one afternoon last week when I decided to work on a backyard deck. With a jack and a drill and a little more sweat than I wanted to invest in the project, I went about the business of leveling its sags and dips a bit. The sun pounded down on my head and shoulders like a thug’s blackjack, but as I packed my tools and drank a glass of cool water under a big maple tree a few hours later, I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I’ve been these past few dusty and drought-stricken weeks. I have worked under this summer’s heat lamp for only a few hours at a time, but God help the roofers and utility linesmen and firemen, and so many others, who are out in it day after long hot day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: We had no better friend than Andy Taylor
The world is a sadder place now that Andy Griffith has died, but at least we still have Andy Taylor.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Wading deeper into the subject of Blue Herons
Like a relative who has worn out his welcome, the hot, parched weather of this young summer has already overstayed its visit with us, so my wife and I have found ourselves walking our road later in the evenings to keep our feet cool and our backs dry.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Thanking two dads whose gifts have never stopped coming…
It is nearly a week until Father’s Day, but I have had my dad, and my father-in-law — a second dad to me — on my mind today. I wrote about both men just a few weeks ago, but I have set my mind to write about them again anyway. I don’t want this story to be sad; they both loved to laugh and wouldn’t want that. No, I just wanted to tell them hello, and to thank them again for what they still do for me.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Raising a flag for my father, veteran or not
My daughter, Ellen, and I stood at my parents’ graves on Mother’s Day a few weeks back and talked about how it couldn’t possibly have been so long since we lost them. My dad, for instance, has been gone for 16 years, and that is nearly unimaginable
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Time to become one of the boys of summer again …
Besides writing for a living, I teach school, and I’m not ashamed to tell people that I still love my classroom. I’ve been a teacher for 33 years, all of them in the same school district, and virtually all of them in the same building. But I also have to tell you that if the next few weeks don’t slide by pretty quickly, I may just let loose of the last thread of sanity from which I have been dangling for a while now. There are a lot of teachers out there who feel the same way.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: It’s time for us to get the real lowdown on dirt…
I have had my hands in the soil as of late. Two Fridays ago, I planted a viburnum bush, three chrysanthemums and a yellow poplar, not because it happened to be Earth Day, but because it was sunny and warm, and I had the whole afternoon to myself. The dirt I scraped out of and back into the shallow holes I dug near a backyard picket fence smelled good, and when dampened with a few sprinkles of water, it soon found its way into the deep wrinkles of my knuckles and under my fingernails. For the most part, I have nothing but good things to say about dirt.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Make big money: Raise worms at home for fun and profit…
When I think about all of the crazy things my brother and sister and I did just to make a few dollars when we were kids, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for teens this summer as they try to find jobs in what is supposed to be a very tight market. Money, to say the least, was a rare commodity when we were growing up, but you have to at least give us credit for trying.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d…’
Had white lace curtains been hanging in the west window of my cabin, I would have had a perfect Wyeth painting to watch last Thursday. A gentle breeze was wafting through my screens, and the sunlight of a warm late March day was fractured by the window sill as it poured onto my legs and feet. I could catch the scent of lilacs as it was carried in by that wind, and it and the subtle melody of the chimes that hang just outside made me as lazy as an old cat.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: A report from the country as a new season brings sense of renewal
Regardless of what the calendar may yet say, spring has happened. It couldn’t have come too soon, and it wasn’t just last week and its windy 70s that have convinced me. I have been keeping a journal of sorts in my head for a fortnight now, stashing away reports of birds and buds and sounds in the crammed cabinets of my mind, all in a file marked, “The New Season.”
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Feeding time at the homestead draws a host of new guests
I stepped outside into the warmth of an unusually mild early March morning last week to do what I always do just before I grab my briefcase and book bag and lunch bag and head off to work. It’s nearly always dark when I leave, even as the sun gets up earlier and earlier in the late winter, so I often go about the business of feeding our cats with porch lights on and a flashlight in hand.
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