TERRE HAUTE —
A few of the hummingbirds that make our trees their summer cottages have lingered around our place, even as we see October get under way this week. Like the summer itself, it seems to me, the little buzzers must not have gotten the memo that the heat and geraniums and incessant dryness are all old hat now and that sooner than later they’ll have to yield the floor to sweatshirts and chrysanthemums and wood smoke. After all, most of their friends packed up, threw sheets over the furniture, and headed south last month.
The poet Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that even in August he could tell that fall was on its way, and that by September a single yellow leaf reminded him of a “first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many.”
I’ve noticed those first gray hairs too, not only in my own head, but about the countryside I wander on foot and see from a speeding car. At night, I hear the grain bin dryers of my farmer neighbor down the road as they push air through corn I figured was already dry enough to pop on its own. As early as two weeks ago, our view to the west opened up all the way to the horizon as the fields were mowed down and gulped into massive hoppers. Just this morning, I saw a huge yellow tractor pulling a chisel plow through the dry, dusty earth, making it ready in anticipation of a spring that seems too far away to even think about.
I have wondered whether our trees will get much color to them this fall. Our leaves have been dropping steadily for weeks, desiccated, crunchy anemic-looking things that have already been piling up in places where the wind can’t get to them. Only the rain and cool and longer nights can help them now, so I still yet hope that I’ll be putting a rake to piles of gold and red in the weeks to come.
Our first full day of meteorological autumn was a hot and parched affair. The ground was bone dry, and the air was cooked under a microwave sun, a steady breeze wafting over us like a clothes dryer. Even the weeds in the ditches along the road looked tired and bedraggled, and I lingered in the house until after supper. The sun was almost ready for bed before I headed out to tackle a few chores and take a needed evening walk to clear the sawdust out of my head.
It was then that I realized that even the moaning weatherman and hot weather complainers, like me, were taking things too far. The landscape was changing, and the huge Harvest Moon-a real one this year in even the most technical sense-began to paint the countryside in a reddish glow. My few outdoor tasks done, I headed to the crossroads to get a walk underway and immediately saw my summer walking partner, Venus, off to the west, nightlight bright above the tree line that sits a half mile off into the distance.
My sore-footed wife hasn’t been making the rounds with me in the past few weeks, but if she had that night, I am certain she would have remarked that the rustling green-that became a rattling brown-tunnel of the road that ran between two long cornfields, had simply evaporated; it was eaten by the combines.
There was a different feel to the air too, and the familiar yap of a neighbor’s hound hung in the air a little longer than usual. It seemed to me, even though I know I am wrong, that the crickets seemed to be chirping their last. Odd, how something so maddening when hidden behind a loose baseboard or tucked away in a corner of the house, can be comforting and wanted when calling from a fencerow or weedy ditch.
On the return trip, I noticed Jupiter-as close to Earth as it’s roamed in nearly 60 years-tucked neatly under the moon to the east. I always find it interesting that distance seems to make even the biggest of the planets sit on equal terms with the smallest, that even our punky little moon dwarfed the giant of the solar system, at least from where I stood. For the next few months, Jupiter will be the brightest thing in the sky-besides our moon- and, I am told, I can even see the big boy’s four Galilean moons myself- that is, if my binoculars and my patience are good enough.
Not long before I arrived home, I passed a tree that stands alone in a soybean field; it is as familiar to me as an old shoe. Silhouetted in the sky by the full moon, it always reminds of an Ossawa Tanner painting I once saw, “Abraham’s Oak.” I was thinking of that when I turned into my drive in time to startle two deer that stood ramrod straight in my front yard. With a snort, both bolted and shot past our garden into the woods, their reverie, and mine, unsettled for a while.
Now is the time of year for putting things in their places; my wife is itching to buy pumpkins, wants to know if I have a few bales of straw in the barn to sit under our yellowing tulip poplar. I drove to the orchard the other day to buy apples, and I have begun to empty the scruffy dregs of summer flowers from their pots, slowly getting into the groove of stowing away and putting up. The goldenrod is golden, the ragweed is ragged, and the sassafras trees are dyeing themselves orange
Throw a blanket on the bed; get used to the feel of corduroy and the comforting rattle of a blowing furnace. After a long hot summer, it is finally fall. I am ready for it.
You can contact Mike Lunsford by e-mail at hickory913@aol.com or by writing to him c/o The Tribune-Star, PO Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. Read more of Mike’s stories at tribstar.com/mike_lunsford, and visit his website at www.mikelunsford.com to learn more about his books.
Mike Lunsford
The Off Season: Ready for the ‘first gray hair amidst the locks of beauty’
- 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.
- More Mike Lunsford Headlines
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Police Ram House to End Hostage Standoff
First Person: Baby Falcons on a New York Bridge
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Today in History May 22
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Shakira's Shocking Talent
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DWTS Crowns a Winner
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Anthony Weiner: I'm running for New York City mayor
Kate Middleton's Dress Flies Up
VIRAL: Baby makes epic soccer goal
The Hangover Baby All Grown Up
