Driving through the Countryside...

 

In 1934 George Gershwin wrote the hit song, “Summertime,” for the Broadway musical, Porgy and Bess. The first lines (and you know them!) go like this, “Summertime, and the living is easy. Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high.” Whereas, we don’t have cotton we do have corn and a drive through the countryside proves that to be true. The corn is high and, according to my fishing son, the fish are biting.

This past weekend I took a drive through the countryside. Actually, more than one so that I can soak in the beauty of Indiana’s landscape. With my windows rolled down, I can smell August. Some months have such strong scents like April or October, but August smells like heat and then the blessings of the rain add to that. The sounds of August are different now too. In the spring the peepers give us a glimpse of spring, but now crickets are showcasing the August nights. Sitting out late on my porch, the crickets serenade my neighborhood providing a cacophony of night sounds.

As I mentioned last week, it is also the Perseid Meteor Showers. By Wednesday evening, you can expect 50-100 beautiful shooting stars an hour. If you see one, please make a wish on a falling star! You do not even need a telescope for this event, It is best to find a dark location and it takes at least 20 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. That is not the only celestial event for this week. In the early morning hours, (yes, coffee on the stoop) you can witness the aligning of these planets: Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The best time to view is an hour before sunrise. A total solar eclipse is also due on August 12. Unfortunately for us, the best viewing is in Spain. (You might be able to still get a flight, if you hurry!) As for those of us in the states, we might catch a small glimpse of it on Wednesday.

With all these beautiful events of August this week, I have thought a lot about the beauty of where we live. Sometimes Indiana gets shoved aside for beauty. I met a woman once on a ferry who asked where I was from. She was a lovely New Yorker with the strongest accent, and when I told her Indiana, she about fell of her ferry seat. She immediately called for her husband to meet me. They said they had never met anyone from Indiana or been to Indiana. It was all I could do to not say, “We even have running water and electricity!” I did think it, but I didn’t say it out loud. I see the beauty of my home state.

I also pay close attention to artists as they paint or describe Indiana. For the Bicentennial year, I was asked to develop a story on T.C. Steele (1847-1926.) He was one of the first, and probably most celebrated American Impressionist painters from Brown County. He studied plein air painting in Munich and brought it back to Indiana. By the 1890’s his work was exhibited from New York to San Francisco. His work still hangs in Indianapolis in the Indianapolis Museum of Art and in the Indiana State Museum. Fifty of his paintings still hang in his studio at “The House of the Singing Wind.”

At the same time James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), known for his Indiana poems and prose was putting rural Indiana front and center. We all know his most famous poem, “Little Orphant Annie.” You can access all of his work online at the Project Gutenberg. There is also a collection of his work, including manuscripts, personal letters in the Indianapolis University Library.

We owe both of these men a big thank you for recording our early history in art and in poetry. It makes a wonderful field trip to travel to Indianapolis to see the works of these men and then go on down to Brown County to tour Steele’s studio.

Even if you don’t get to Indy, it is that time of year when a Sunday drive is at its very best. Put on your best tie and overcoat, or your prettiest dress and take a drive. Keep the windows down and let your hand catch the wind. The August air is intoxicating. You could even pack a picnic lunch!

 And if your travel brings you home at dusk, the crickets will greet you.

My tribute to 9/11.

 

This is my story. It was a normal morning. I got up at 5:30, made my bed, made coffee, neatened up the house and then headed off to school. School on this day was Hamilton Community Schools. On this day, there was an in-service at the Special Ed Co-op in Kendallville and I was required to go. In-service days are usually a fun day and a nice day out of the classroom with thoughts of learning some new trends. There were always  coffee and doughnuts, and that is the best part!

I carpooled to Kendallville chatting as we went, chatting as I always do. When we arrived, I was right, there were more doughnuts and coffee. Everything was set out in the conference room for us including pencils and new pads of paper. The in-service began. I really cannot remember a thing about it, maybe we didn’t get too far into it when someone came in pulling in a television on a cart. We froze. I could tell by the look on her face that something awful was happening. She plugged in the television, and  we watched in absolute horror the planes going into the World Trade Center. It didn’t look real. It was like watching a movie, except it wasn’t. By this time United Flight 93 went down in a field in Pennsylvania. I had a personal panic attack.

My three boys, Adam, Aaron, and Abe had all just graduated from college. Yes, they were all in school at the same time. Following graduation, the twins drove to St. Pete, Florida to spread their wings. Abe went the other direction to Santa Barbara, California. None of them had good jobs yet. They were young, ambitious and curious about the world around them. I was happy for them to try new things, explore new areas all the while, I missed them terribly. Adam came home that weekend and had a flight from Indy to St. Pete early on that Tuesday morning. There was a quick layover in Pittsburgh. I knew all of that. I did not know which airline or the flight number.

I panicked. I knew his layover was in Pittsburgh. The newscaster didn’t know details, well, no one knew details, except the aircraft went down in a field in Pennsylvania. We didn’t know then that it was headed for Washington, D.C. and the aircraft was just 20 minutes from Washington.

Adam was on an American flight oblivious to any of this. The flight attendants and the flight crew said nothing. His first sense of something weird was going on was when the aircraft landed in Tampa from the North. Those runways are reserved for flying out and not in. The tarmac in Tampa was quiet too. As the aircraft landed, they were told to get their belongings and head straight into the airport to get their bags. Once he walked in, it was eerily quiet. No people. The monitors were still up and running, but everything had the word “canceled” next to the flight. The lights were dim and folks were leaving quickly…actually running to their cars. Later he found out they were one of the last flights to make it to their destination. One television was on with the news. He also watched in horror. Finding a pay phone, he made a few calls, one was to Hamilton Schools to tell me he was okay. They called over to the office to tell me. I wept.

We packed up and left; I picked up my car and went home.

What to do…what to do? No one knew. All I thought about was how can I get to my boys? No flights. No trains. No buses. Nothing. Nothing but quietness, and that is what I remember most in the following days. Everything was quiet. No planes in the sky to leave white smokey trails, no train horns blaring down at crossings.

What else do I remember? We were all in this together. We hung out our flags. We chatted with our neighbors. We baked cookies and shared. We slept with the lights on because of the darkness. We wept over the bravery of the men and women on Flight 93 who ended their lives to save hundreds. We wept over the lives lost and the brave firefighters.

 As Americans we were strong together, and we would get through this. We were united as a country.

On this day, the 25^th anniversary, we remember our stories together, as Americans.

 

Arriving home...

Arriving home from Charleston in the middle of the afternoon gave me a chance to check out my garden. It is the first thing I do after dragging in my suitcase. The neighbor boy watered for me so I knew everything would still be alive. (Those zinnias take a lot of water!) While in Charleston, I watered and spent some time in Abe’s gardens. Learning to garden in different climates takes a lot of work. When Abe lived in Phoenix, gardening was so different with the heat, and now in Charleston there is heat and humidity. The temperature was in the high 90’s every day, which is too hot for this Indiana girl. The kids were fine though. They came home from school, had a snack and then went out to play! 

Arriving home to blue skies, cool temperatures were amazing. I left my windows open, so my house was full of fresh air. I even added an extra quilt on the bed last night! In the cool of the morning, I had a chance to really visit my garden. I will be honest here. I start out so excited and plant everything. I don’t know what exactly happens between June 1st and the end of August, but lots of things are not how they were intended.

I planted a vegetable garden…like always. I called it my Victory Garden. Of course, I had no idea that my own lettuce and raspberries would be more valuable than gold, but here we are. I planted everything in that Victory Garden. However (yes, there is a however), the pumpkins, which I did not plant, decided to take over completely. It was out of my control. Seriously. I guess the seeds sprouted from tossing last year’s pumpkins into the garden. I do tend to toss all vegetation matter into that garden at the end of the season. It is great for composting, and that soil is very rich. All my garden soil is rich by just using my Mother’s Day compost from Aaron. I do not use any other fertilizer and nothing for weed control which is obvious.

I thought I had the garden under control, but I was wrong. Where is everything I planted? Underneath all the pumpkins? Will they come up next year? Will I forever have pumpkins? Don’t get me wrong, I love pumpkins. Years ago, when I had a garden space in the community gardens by Circle Hill Cemetery, I planted pumpkins for Jonah and Graham. It was so prolific that Kathy and I sat out there one night by candlelight waiting for the great pumpkin. An officer came by with his torch (flashlight) and said someone called in about the light in the gardens. As soon as he got closer to us, he said, “Is that you, Lou Ann?” Of course, I answered, “Oh, yes.” He asked me what we were doing. I thought it looked obvious! I replied, “Waiting for the great pumpkin to rise.”  With that he nodded, turned and walked away. 

One year, however, the deer ate all the pumpkins so what was I do to? Easy. I went to the farmers market and filled Lola with pumpkins. Kathy and I drove them up to my pumpkin patch and rolled them out. That night Jonah and Graham came up to get their Halloween pumpkins. I thought it was such a smart idea until Aaron found one with a price written in marker. “Nice try, Mom.” Hey, I thought it was clever.

I do not know exactly how many pumpkins I have under all of those leaves, but something fun is brewing underneath with all those vines sprawling all over my yard. 

In all reality, I love a runaway garden. I love it when my morning glories come up in places I did not plant them or those lovely lilies that just pop up wherever they please. 

Take a stroll outside this week. The weather is just lovely, and there might be surprises in your yard as are in mine. August was perfectly lovely this year. I didn’t even use my air conditioner, my windows are open, my gardens are green even if they are a bit in disarray. Sit out under the August skies and watch Orion journey toward the winter Solstice, and, above all, be grateful. 

“Only a few more days of August were to run, and September seemed already to have claimed the gardens, the fields, and the skies.” Jeannie Gwynne Bettany Kernahan, 1906.

Once again, back to school.

 

I spend an hour searching for my school keys. I thought they were right where I left them. The problem being, the “right where I left them” was the first week of May. Lots of things have happened since the first week of May. Ah, finally, I find them and tuck them into my blue rolling suitcase. It is falling apart at the seams, but it is my trusty carryall, and I just don’t have the heart to replace it! I toss in my laptop and phone…a jacket and a box of Band-Aids.  I don’t know why I toss in the Band-Aids, but one never knows. Macbeth once said, “Is that a dagger I see?” Okay, enough of the drama, there is work to be done.

The parking lot at Trine is empty on this Sunday morning. The only car there is Dr. Hopp’s, and I figure he is writing in the HAC Lounge. I am right. The door is already unlocked, and he is working on his poetry. In case you didn’t know, Dr. Hopp is a really fine poet. Last year he presented to our writer’s group an epic poem about chickens. Seriously. It was brilliant. It is good to see Tim and to chat a bit before I go to my own room.

The photos from our spring show are curled on my door. Lots of summer heat and humidity as my room is by the back door. I find my keys and unlock the door. It is the moment I have both dreaded and looked forward to all summer. My room is the same, but different. My plants are dead. My twinkle lights are all burned out. Luckily for me, I threw in a new box of lights, but as for the plants? They were not so lucky. The room is clean, swept, dusted and even looks a bit sterile for my office. I keep my house pretty pristine, but my offices at home and at school take the beating. I smile as I look around at the neatness. It won’t last long.

I try to settle in to work, but I daydream a bit. All my theatre show photos, the ones the cast present to me on the last show date, are all lined up on one wall. They are not just pictures of shows gone by but autographed by each actor. I go from one to the other, smiling and laughing and definitely missing the students who have graduated and gone on. I always miss them so much. I try to go back to work. I plug in the laptop, give a sigh, and start. Once I start, the hours swirl by me. No one is there to chat or interrupt my work. It is quiet, but not lonely. I schedule, I plan, I print. Finally, at one point, I realize the twilight hour is fast approaching. How long have I been here? I wrap it up, take a look around, and close the door.

How many years have I been in school? I can’t count anymore, well, math was never my thing anyway. I do know there are a lot of years from the coal mines of Wilkes-Barre to Trine. I have always loved my work, and this year is no exception. Within a few weeks, we will be back in the rhythm, I will have fallen in love with students I have not yet met, and the world will still spin around us.

We have two teacher days and then a small break before classes next week. I am taking a quick mid-week flight to Charleston to see Holly off to school for her freshman year of college. Jonah starts his senior year of college. Graham is a senior in high school, Brianna is a junior and the twins will be ten. How can all of that be? Anyway, it will be great to see Holly and watch the three siblings as the parents do their thing and take her to school.

When Jonah was a freshman, I wrote an article about how to do great in college. I have requests for that often. If you would like a copy for your college student, just send me a note and I will get it right to you.

I will still try to spend a bit of time in my beloved gardens, but most of my time I will be cultivating minds of students, and that is a pretty good thing to do.

How to love August!

 

In 1934 George Gershwin wrote the hit song, “Summertime,” for the Broadway musical, Porgy and Bess. The first lines (and you know them!) go like this, “Summertime, and the living is easy. Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high.” Whereas, we don’t have cotton we do have corn and a drive through the countryside proves that to be true. The corn is high and, according to my fishing son, the fish are biting.

This past weekend I took a drive through the countryside. Actually, more than one so that I can soak in the beauty of Indiana’s landscape. With my windows rolled down, I can smell August. Some months have such strong scents like April or October, but August smells like heat and then the blessings of the rain add to that. The sounds of August are different now too. In the spring the peepers give us a glimpse of spring, but now crickets are showcasing the August nights. Sitting out late on my porch, the crickets serenade my neighborhood providing a cacophony of night sounds.

As I mentioned last week, it is also the Perseid Meteor Showers. By Wednesday evening, you can expect 50-100 beautiful shooting stars an hour. If you see one, please make a wish on a falling star! You do not even need a telescope for this event, It is best to find a dark location and it takes at least 20 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. That is not the only celestial event for this week. In the early morning hours, (yes, coffee on the stoop) you can witness the aligning of these planets: Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The best time to view is an hour before sunrise. A total solar eclipse is also due on August 12. Unfortunately for us, the best viewing is in Spain. (You might be able to still get a flight, if you hurry!) As for those of us in the states, we might catch a small glimpse of it on Wednesday.

With all these beautiful events of August this week, I have thought a lot about the beauty of where we live. Sometimes Indiana gets shoved aside for beauty. I met a woman once on a ferry who asked where I was from. She was a lovely New Yorker with the strongest accent, and when I told her Indiana, she about fell of her ferry seat. She immediately called for her husband to meet me. They said they had never met anyone from Indiana or been to Indiana. It was all I could do to not say, “We even have running water and electricity!” I did think it, but I didn’t say it out loud. I see the beauty of my home state.

I also pay close attention to artists as they paint or describe Indiana. For the Bicentennial year, I was asked to develop a story on T.C. Steele (1847-1926.) He was one of the first, and probably most celebrated American Impressionist painters from Brown County. He studied plein air painting in Munich and brought it back to Indiana. By the 1890’s his work was exhibited from New York to San Francisco. His work still hangs in Indianapolis in the Indianapolis Museum of Art and in the Indiana State Museum. Fifty of his paintings still hang in his studio at “The House of the Singing Wind.”

At the same time James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), known for his Indiana poems and prose was putting rural Indiana front and center. We all know his most famous poem, “Little Orphant Annie.” You can access all of his work online at the Project Gutenberg. There is also a collection of his work, including manuscripts, personal letters in the Indianapolis University Library.

We owe both of these men a big thank you for recording our early history in art and in poetry. It makes a wonderful field trip to travel to Indianapolis to see the works of these men and then go on down to Brown County to tour Steele’s studio.

Even if you don’t get to Indy, it is that time of year when a Sunday drive is at its very best. Put on your best tie and overcoat, or your prettiest dress and take a drive. Keep the windows down and let your hand catch the wind. The August air is intoxicating. You could even pack a picnic lunch!

 And if your travel brings you home at dusk, the crickets will greet you.

Welcome August

 

Emily Dickinson once wrote, “She sweeps with many colored brooms…” Of course, I think she is referring to the beauty of October, but on this lovely day in August, it could be our late summer gardens.  Everything is bursting with color and with flavor as I look around my garden this morning. The morning glories are literally dancing in the sunlight, the sunflowers are almost ready to bloom, tomatoes are ripening fast, and my pumpkin patch is now spilling over the gate and into the yard.

 

Let’s take a look  at August, our 8^th month. August is named after the first Roman Emporer, Augustus Caesar. We simply think of the “dog days” of summer, vacations, lazy afternoons reading in the shade of the old oak tree. One of the first celebrations (although already past) is Lammas Day  on August 1^st which marked the annual wheat and corn harvest in Britain. In days of yore, folks  celebrated early harvesting which brought about much singing and dancing. It is also the cross-quarter day between summer and autumn. Watermelon Day along with National Aviation Day and ending the month with Women’s Equality Day  which celebrates the19th Amendment of our Constitution, are also celebrated in August.

The birthstone of August is peridot; the flowers of August  include gladiolus and poppies. August also brings about the Perseid Showers. I love sitting (or lying out on sleeping bags) outside to watch the show. One year I sent out an invitation to anyone who wanted to join me. Please arrive at 1:00 a.m. to share in the beauty, I said.  Of course, as I made coffee at 12:30, I was wondering if anyone would show up. But they did. Hope and Tom Wilson came with cots to watch the beautiful show that night. I remember Hope reciting one of my favorite poems, Summons, by Robert Francis, “ Keep me from going to sleep too soon, or if I do go to sleep too soon, come wake me up. Come any hour of night…” It was a very magical moment.

My twins were born in August, and when we lived on the farm, to celebrate their birthday, we took the blankets outside with a thermos of hot chocolate to watch the Perseid showers. Sometimes we were so amazed as the meteors whizzed across the sky. Other times, we didn’t have such luck and finally gave in and went to bed. I always told them to pick a star for their birthday. I still remind them to choose a star on their birthday.

Once upon a time, August was for vacations. Finally baseball and 4-H were over so we packed our old van and headed up to Michigan to camp or to stay in tiny little cabins on Lake Superior. I loved those lazy vacations. I always packed a  bag of books and settled in for the day to read as the boys all went fishing. Such lovely memories of August.

Usually the heat is high in August; although this week is different with the lovely temperatures. In August we trudge back out to the garden to pull weeks, pick bouquets or decide what is for dinner. I planted a lot of vegetables in my garden, but last year’s pumpkin seeds have completely taken over. The vines are sprawling over the fence onto the yard and the nearby tree. Somewhere, inside those vines, are those seed I lovingly planted. I guess I will see if anything happened under those vines after the frost. There is still time to plant a fall garden too. I just planted spinach and lettuce (really nice to have my own lettuce these days!)

August is a slow down month. Time to dawdle in the garden without that spring planting rush. What is going to be, is simply going to be. I am grateful each day for anything that finds a home in my garden. August is supposed to be hot and lazy…drift down the river in a kayak or spend the afternoon reading on your front porch with a glass of iced tea and a sprig of mint from the garden, of course.

August is here, and I want to enjoy each moment. Autumn is close behind, and even though she is my favorite season, I want to push her back. “Not yet,” I whisper to her as the temps fall into the 50’s…no, not yet.

Watermelon, sun-ripened tomatoes, lazy afternoons, sparkling drops of dew are all part of August. Let’s enjoy beautiful August.

 

My birthday!

 

It seems as if birthdays come and go much more quickly than they once did. As a kid, we counted the days to our birthday! Would it ever arrive? And when asked about our age, we always said five and a half or almost seventeen! As if I would ever do that now! Kids are always fascinated by age. When I was at Hamilton, the students would always ask my age, and I always gave them a riddle to figure it out. “Younger than the statehood of Alaska, and older than than the Apollo 11 moon landing.”  That always confused them as they tried to figure it out and quit asking.

The twins, Faith and Noah, wanted to talk about my age every day when they were here. Noah was the sweet one, “You are just 20, right, Nannie?” Faith was not buying it and she was happy to blurt out my age wherever we went.

Age and time are such oddities. How does it happen and where does it go? I have no idea. {Sorry if you were looking for some kind of answer. I have none.) But this I know, I am more than grateful for each birthday, I cherish the day. Actually, I cherish the entire week. Well, why not?

The weather turned cooler last week on my birthday to a gorgeous 70 degrees which is a gardener’s paradise. I spent the entire day in my garden. Jonah came to mow and paint fence and actually bought me lunch from Sutton’s Deli! That, alone, was a perfect day for a gardener. Jonah came carrying a beautiful bouquet from their prairie.  By late afternoon, it was time to clean up and head over to Aaron and Rachel’s house for dinner and cake and singing and watching the sun set on their new prairie. I could actually just while my life sitting on their porch. However, that was not my birthday gift. I love it when we, as a family, can do things together. They had arranged Friday night at the TinCaps game complete with Jonah and Graham and their girlfriends. I was ready two hours early for that adventure. I love spending time with family, and this gift was a true gift. We all sat together, cheered together, and yes, I was so happy I cried. The evening ended with a win and a spectacular fireworks show at the stadium. How much more perfect can that be? Of course, I heard from my faraway children, Abe and Adam. They can’t fly up for every birthday!

There were lunches with friends, coffee at Caleo, a glass of wine at Cork and Barrel. Irene and April gifted me the coffee and wine. Living in a small, sweet town really is the best. Another friend, Teri, came for the weekend to explore our little town, visit with friends and accompany me with three other women to the Gaslight Theatre to see, “The Addams Family.”

If my grandmother were alive, she would say, “Lou Ann, you had a red-letter week.”  She would then get out the red dishes to honor my birthday. I have those red dishes in my Hoosier cabinet in the kitchen, and I remember her whenever I pull out those coveted red dishes. Of course, they were not just for birthdays, but for spelling bees or theatre productions or even losing a tooth! You always knew a celebration was on hand when you went to her house and the table was set with the red dishes! I am so glad I own those and can think about Grandma Luella.

When I work in the garden, I don’t play music or listen to podcasts. No, I let my mind wander as my thoughts dart from one subject to another. The birds keep me company as well the sounds of my neighborhood. This past week, on my birthday, I thought about the poet, Mary Oliver. She once wrote, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I thought about that a lot as I was weeding a flower bed. We really are gifted with one precious life. Do you ever think about that? Straight down from our ancestors, we are here and moments are not to be wasted.

How do I want to spend my precious life? Family, friends, community, students. I want to honor each day as T.C. Steele once said, “Every morning I take off my hat to the beauty of the world.”