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.”

Everyone needs a front porch!

 

The garden swelters under the heat. For that matter, so do I, but then again, you all know I love the cooler weather. I am grateful for air conditioning even though I really,  dislike using it. It seems as if our windows and doors are shut most of the year, and I love billowing curtains. The time will come for billowing curtains when Autumn comes calling.

I do not remember air conditioning anywhere when I was a kid. I know my grandparents didn’t have it, and neither did we. Of course, there were those long, hot nights with sweaty sheets and just a box fan. It was summer so, well, that was the way it was. But, there were porches.

My grandmother had a front porch complete with a porch swing. She had a porch light that she often blinked if I was staying with her and my date stayed too long. She never actually came out to the porch, but just kept blinking the porch light! During the day that same porch was where we cleaned beans for dinner, darned socks or chatted with neighbors walking by.

My farm had a great porch too. That porch had a swing and, in those days, without stop lights or businesses, all that the eye could see were Doc’s fields and apple orchards filling the gaps into town. In the summer it also held three butterfly nets for the boys and an old pan to fill with water to wash their feet before they came in for the night. I don’t remember anyone wearing shoes during the summer! It was quiet too. In the winter the porch was a mainstay. We filled it with firewood, work boots, and a snow shovel, of course! My front porch was also where we read books, told stories, and cleaned beans for dinner.

Later on in my life, when I bought my house in town, I knew I wanted a porch. I found the perfect house for that. Once I moved in, I realized all the windows were nailed shut and the ropes had been cut. My first order of business was to get those windows open. Lee made screens for each one and we had to number them as each window was actually a different size.  Lee replaced all the old-fashioned ropes. Once the weather warms in April and before the heavy frost in October, my porch is my go-to every day. There is no air-conditioning, but I have a great ceiling fan and those lovely windows. My porch faces east so I get the morning sun, and the heat of the day stays in my backyard. I don’t have a porch swing, but lovely wicker furniture and stacks of books. I love my porch as I also have it surrounded by bushes so that I can watch the world go by, yet I am a bit hidden.

How and when did we lose these glorious additions to our homes? There really are two major factors contributing to the demise of the front porch. You guessed it. Air-conditioning and the invention of television. Once folks were comfortable inside, why go out to the porch? It was cooler and more entertaining inside. Ah, but was it really? Now my family wasn’t musical, so I didn’t learn the banjo or hear my grandpa play the harmonica on my porch, yet I love them. My dad lived with his grandparents for several year during the Depression. His room was up in the attic with a bed of straw-filled ticking. He often told stories about going to bed early and listening to the old men talk on the porch as they sharpened their knives on the whetstone every night. What a lovely memory to have.

In my neighborhood, there are porches. Probably because most of the houses are close to a hundred years old, such as mine. Sometimes Lee does play the banjo on the porch. My neighbors, Larry and Cheri, spend hours on their porch with their dog, Molly. People stop by to chat every afternoon.

If you don’t have a porch, maybe you have a stoop? It seems everyone has a back deck which is not quite the same, but at least you are outside.

This week the temps will cool so a perfect time to sit outdoors and watch the world go by during the day and stars by night.

 So come and sit a spell for stories, for music and to help clean those beans!

Ukulele Camp!

 

I check my list: sheets, blanket, pillow, towel, washcloth, ukulele, music. It looks like I I have everything I need. I load it into my wagon and wait for Carolyn to pick me up. She arrives and we load all of my gear into the back of her van including my wagon. Everything she needs is already packed. I hop into the front seat and off we go. Oh, not to just any event, oh no, we are headed off to ukulele camp or to be more specific, Midwest Ukulele and Harmonica Camp. I missed camp last year so I am eager to go this year.

It is a short drive to Toledo University. I love that the camp moves around to different locations. We get out out map to find our way to our dorm where we will not only sleep, but where all our classes will be held. We are not the only ones arriving, although It looks as if I am the only one pulling my wagon. “Smart idea,” someone calls out. I smile. Between my wagon and Carolyn’s cart (we are very prepared for camp!) we head up to the registration table. Just like college, I think, as we are issued our meal ticket and our keys to our suite. There is an elevator, thank goodness, with all of our stuff. I tried to think back to my dorm days so many years ago, I don’t think we had an elevator. I guess we just hauled all of our stuff up the staircase. I am grateful for the elevator and the door closes. We find our room and our other two roomies come in as well. They love our means of unloading and borrow our cart and wagon!

We make our beds and put things away on the shelves. Going to ukulele camp with a great friend is about as good as it gets! We check our schedule over and over and mark the classes we want to take. Jazz, blues, finger-picking, strumming, song-writing…how can we choose? With classes circle, and our ukes strapped on our backs, we head down to the classes.

The workshop instructors are brilliant uke players. As we walk through the halls to our workshop rooms, the sound of ukes tuning up fills the hallway. I mean, have you ever heard 200 ukulele players tuning up? Carolyn and I had planned to take all different workshops so we could share the information, but we start out together. We settle into our chairs and join the others as we tune up our ukes.

I am so ready for these classes.   What amazes me most of all abou these professional teachers is how beautiful and effortlessly they play their ukes. They make them sing in ways that I cannot. I want to play like them, I really do, but I know the amount of work that goes into this. Maybe it would take me a full year to learn a song or two. No different from storytelling, although I have been doing that for so many years.

The instructors talk about so many concepts. I listen and try my hardest to understand the Circle of Five, or other terms. Carolyn knows it all already, and whispers to me, “I will explain it to you later.” How lucky am I to have such a good friend?

We take classes, we eat in the cafeteria. We both think about our granddaughters heading off to college this fall. We take photos of us sitting on our beds and send them to  girls!

The evenings are the best. We all gather in the community room as our teachers perform for us. They are extraordinary. The music community is close and they invite other members to play with them. We sit on the edge of our seats and watch the beautiful sky out the giant windows turn from dusk to dark with cotton candy clouds. We clap, we laugh, we sing, we applaud. We are an appreciative audience. Following the concert, we all just hang around with our ukes strapped across our backs as we begin our night jam session. Now it is our turn to play with them until midnight.  When it is over at the midnight hour, we head back to our rooms and chat with our suite mates. No one wants to go to bed as there is so much to talk about.

Camp isn’t just for kids.  Go ahead, pack your bags, and go to camp!

Ah yes, the 4th of July!

 Finally the Fourth of July is here with all the fanfare it deserves in my little town. There are so many culminating events…the Philharmonic, the Americana, the fireworks, the park events, and how can we forget the parade? Kathy’s daughter and friends came from San Diego to enjoy an old-fashioned Fourth of July parade and all the fun the lakes offer.

I pulled my wagon out of the garage, loaded it up with three lawn chairs, sunscreen, water, and my phone for photos. I was excited to visit with Emma and her friends. I went down a little early to set up camp! They really were great seats, even at the end of the parade. Emma and her friends brought the rest of the chairs and were over the top with parade enthusiasm! “Best parade in northern Indiana,” I said. We settled into our lawn chairs to wait, and  were not disappointed. (I told that when Bill’s Towing showed up, that was the end----and I was right!) Lots of years I am in the parade, but not this one, so I could just cheer from the sidelines! The parade was everything they hoped it would be…candy in their pockets, smiles on their faces, and an appreciation for small town U.S.A.  After the parade, I hauled all my chairs back up the hill. As I went to put them away, I noticed the garage remote was not where I usually keep it! Hmm…I never put it in a different place or lose it, so it is somewhere, but the picnic at Aaron and Rachel’s calls me. No problem, I can put everything away later. By later, I guess I meant on Sunday morning after all the festivities.

By Sunday morning my wagon was drenched. No problem. It will dry out, but in the meantime, where is that remote? I started my search. I really dislike losing things and I am always telling my kids, “”put things back where you found them.” Yes, I say that, but on this day, I didn’t follow my own advice. Three hours later I have searched every nook and cranny in my house and yard. I checked in weird places…every drawer, every seat cushion, every roll of toilet paper-----even in the toilet. Okay, that is really extreme, but I am being honest here. Once the search was complete, I didn’t find it, so, of course, I do it all over again. Don’t we all? In the meantime (yes, there is a meantime) I realize the downstairs toilet is plugged. I have had lots of guests this week…now what did they do? I am handy with the plunger. So, I plunged away, but with no success. Again, try the same thing over every hour because surely it will work. Sadly, no. I donned the rubber gloves. Aha…I can fix this. Nope, I can’t. I continued this sage through the day on Sunday…remote, toilet, remote, toilet. By four in the afternoon, I finally came to the realization that the two must meet. (Twain meet?) I think I solved the riddle. The remote must have fallen out of my back pocket and into the toilet. Sure. That’s what happened.
I make my calls to Bradley Overhead Doors, and my long time handyman, Lee. I make the confessions and hope to see them both soon. Bradley Doors appeared first. Of course, they wanted to get into the garage to make me a new remote. Alas. Alas.

As I sit and wait for the finder’s keepers, I am reminded of the book by Judith Viorst, “Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday.” Last Saturday morning I had a working remote. Last Saturday I had a working toilet. Last Saturday I used to be rich. Now what do I have now? A lost remote. A broken toilet. Oh, and two blank checks.

 

Update: Doug from Bradley Doors used a wire coat hanger and was finally able to get into the garage through a side door. (When he first asked if I had a coat hanger, I answered, “Yes. And it’s in the garage!” But I found one upstairs.) I had a chat with Doug about his son, who wants to be a writer. Anyway, the garage door now operates, I have two working remotes and a $261.61 dent in my checking account.

 

The toilet mystery is still unsolved, but Lee said if there really is a remote control stuck in there, I’ll have a topic for my next column!

My July 4th Column...John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

 

I write a lot about Abigail Adams. I am, and always have been, enamored with her life and the time period in which she lived. She was an extraordinary woman who raised a family often without John as he was serving his country. Money did not flow in. In those days politics had nothing to do with money or salary, it was all about the love of country…the new country. When John Adams, a portly man with a degree in law, began to court Abigail and then propose marriage, most folks (including her own family) thought she was marrying beneath her stature. He was a fledgling lawyer with his office in the front of his house in Braintree, as was often the case. Abigail saw something in John, and she, with advice from her good friend Mercy Warren, kept the home fires burning so John could take care of the country.

John Adams was away many years of their marriage, and it was while he was away at the First Continental Congress in 1776 that he met Thomas Jefferson. They instantly became good friends. They had so much in common, besides the powdered wigs! They both loved books and reading, of course. They both studied law, and they both deeply loved this new country, the United States of America, even though they had different viewpoints.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson helped write the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was the primary writer which was written between June 11 and June 28, 1776. It was written in Philadelphia on Market Street. It was written by five men who became known as “Committee of Five.” Fifty-six delegates signed it and it was ratified on July 4, 1776. That  date lives on in all of our lives!

Eventually George Washington became the first president of the United States with Adams as the Vice President. Everyone, in the colonies, wanted Washington to run for a second term, but he decided it was time to retire. John Adams, a loyal Federalist, ran against Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican. Adams won the election by three electoral votes. I find it interesting (and really wish we still did this) that Jefferson became the Vice President under Adams since he received the second amount of votes. How smart they were to put the most intelligent men in charge of a brand-new country.

They differed in their opinions, however. Adams believed in a strong national government; whereas Jefferson felt more power should be given over to the states. Amazingly enough, these two men worked side by side in order to benefit the newly formed United States. There was no time for bickering or for ego building. Our founding fathers did not do that. Their only concern was that of the country.

Adams and Jefferson ran against each other for the third presidency, but this time it was Jefferson who gained control as the President. Aaron Burr also ran tying Jefferson with 73 electoral votes. In the end, Jefferson took the Presidency and Burr the Vice Presidency. (Of course, we all know the Burr-Hamilton story, but that will wait for another column!) Following Jefferson’s win as President, he and Adams had a falling out which lasted for ten years until they both retired. Abigail went home to Braintree to set up John’s library after his loss. Eventually Jefferson went home to Monticello.

When I think about these two men, I have such deep pride. I can’t imagine sitting in a room in Philadelphia complete with powdered wig, layers of clothing and the heat of a Philadelphia summer to write our Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin, another signer, often wrote about the heat! Our founding fathers asked for nothing except a new government. We owe them such a debt this week.

Following their retirement, the two men wrote letters which are housed in the Smithsonian and some in Braintree. Both men became ill in the summer of 1826, but did not know that about each other. One of the most interesting facts of our country’s history is that both men died on July 4^th, 1826 on the 50^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Adams last words were, “Thomas Jeffereson survives.” Jefferson died a few hours later.

The celebration this year is so much more than fireworks or swimming in the lake. (Although lucky you!) No, it is about men and women who gave and sacrificed for us. Let us always remember.

Happy Fourth of July to all of you.