Roses in December

"God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December". J.M Barrie

He was "Uncle Zeb" to his friends and neighbors and "Papa" to his children and grandchildren. A good steward of his land, Papa lived as harmoniously as one man can with nature. Peanut farmers from miles around would come to hear his horticultural wisdom, much more valuable than any almanac. The sun was his taskmaster; he rose early before Sol could catch him aslumber, and went to bed with the last fingers of light still streaking across the low horizon. Its been said he could work magic with rain; sitting patiently on his front porch stoop silently coaxing angry clouds to loosen their tears upon his fields, then returning indoors when his vigilance was rewarded.


The Old Homeplace in 2003

He raised his family in the old homestead; no indoor plumbing or electricity. In the late 40's his son-in-law and the nephew built a new house for Papa and Mama just a half-mile or so from the old place. Mama moved up right away, the luxury of water at the easy turn of a faucet handle instead of a cranky handpump a most welcomed gift. Papa sat it out for three weeks, refusing to budge from the place he knew as home. Late one evening just about dark-thirty, Mama saw him slowly walking up the dirt lane, an ancient trunk filled with his few belongings hoisted on his shoulder and a look of stubborn pride in his face. Whether it was from loneliness, or the lack of hot supper, the old fella had moved to the offending new abode. Some things wouldn't change - Papa thought having a toilet indoors was heathen and unclean thus took his daily constitutionals in the outhouse by the mule barn.

In 1947, Papa planted a red rose bush just off the edge of the front porch, his one frivolous gardening concession. Like his peanuts and his orchard, it thrived in the sandy soil.


Papa and his roses in 1963

Years have passed and the clouds have no more magic; Stagg cemetery has grown with headstones and families are rejoined under the same loam that once provided their sustenance. The new place is now in as much disheaval as the old homestead; plaster falling from the ceiling, birds roosting in the top of an old lamp, and deer sleeping in the tall weeds of the once neatly mowed front lawn. An ancient pear tree still bears a few small fruits and the berry vines struggle through the briars. No Sleeping Beauty here, just the land's remembrance of its once more cultivated self.

A couple of weeks ago, Kman and I spied something bright red up near the front porch of the "new place". Gingerly, we made our way through the hip-high weeds and patches of poison oak. A lone rose blossom was bravely clinging to a spindly stalk, stretching towards the few rays of sun that found a way to shine through the overgrowth. Taking a sharpshooter from the back of the Expedition, Kman very gently dug up the rose bush, keeping as much of the dirt ball around the roots as he could. Driving back to Cowtown, we planted it in our backyard garden next to the antique fence railing on the upper terrace. With a little dose of Miracle Grow for Roses and a lot of kind words, we are hoping to keep this small memory of Kman's grandparents alive. Perhaps a tiny spark of that magical farming spirit remains deep within the tough fibers of the old rose and we will be successful in our transplant attempt, much as Mama was those many years ago with Papa.

When the blossoms come again, I will remember the hardscrabble life these people lived and the image of a late afternoon when Papa trudged the path to the new house with a trunk on his shoulder and a begrudged acceptance of change.

Whistle A Happy Time

I would like to welcome a special guest Contributor, who I hope will continue to provide articles to the Dew.

She is Cappy Hall Rearick, book author, columnist, and Nominee for 2003 Georgia Author of the Year. Her website is: www.simplysoutherncappy.com

"Whistle a Happy Time"

Having taken its own sweet time, autumn has begun to arrive. This annual manifestation of nature makes me nostalgic. When the sun begins to slump behind trees more quickly each day, I find myself looking out the dusty windows of my past.

It is a late October afternoon. A cool breeze drifts down to settle for the night. I am with my friends not far from where I live. Smoke rises over the rooftop at the house across the street making my nose sting from the pungent smell of burning leaves. Like other normal small town occurrences, I barely notice the smell, the nose-sting or even the smoke. They all occupy a rightful place in my yesterday life.

This is the time of day I listen for Daddy’s whistle, as opposed to the ring of a cell phone. Microchips and fiber optics have not yet begun to govern our lives. There is one black telephone at our house with no dials or touch-tones. I can’t use it until after piano practice and homework is finished.

When I hear the anticipated whistle, I stop what I’m doing to listen for the second one. Daddy’s whistle is my signal to come home.

“Gotta go.” I say as I quickly peddle my bike down the street.

All the fathers in our neighborhood whistle for their kids to come home but they’re all unique. Daddy presses two fingers down hard between his lips and blows through his fingers. The “whew-ah-whew” has its own timbre, rising as it reaches its final “ah-whew.”

I recognize other whistles, but Daddy’s is the one to which I respond. He whistles twice with a full ten minutes in between. Time enough for me to stop what I’m doing and come straight home for supper.

The crisp autumn weather puts Mama in the mood to cook chili and a steamer of rice served with cold milk left in bottles at our front door before the sun came up. I sop up chili juice with crusty homemade bread lathered with Aunt Polly’s country butter. Eat your heart out, Parkay.
It is a ritual, this evening regimen. It is the way our family closes the door on another day. We say grace before supper; my brother and I wash dishes and try not to kill each other while Mama and Daddy read the evening paper. It all begins with Daddy’s whistle.

No doubt today’s cell phones provide easier communication between parent and child, but it can’t replace the feeling I get when my nose stings from the smell of burning leaves, when I ward off the afternoon chill with an old sweater or when I hear a whistle similar to Daddy’s. October is when I long to hear that special, unmatched trill, the unique whistle my Daddy used to call me home.

— End—

My Hurricane Story

We lived through a particularly nasty hurricane, Hurricane Andrew, in Lafayette, La. Normally, Lafayette is far enough from the coast, about 50 miles, and hurricanes bring wind and rain or will spawn a tornado. This was 1992 and Hurricane Andrew devastated parts of southern Florida as a category 5 storm and then went back out into the Gulf of Mexico to power up again.

My husband and I decided to remain at home and ride the storm out as it was not predicted to be too damaging to our area. So of course, the path of the storm shifted just a bit at the last of the build up. We were up the entire night the eye came onto Louisiana's coast. Our son was a toddler and mercifully slept through the entire ordeal. It was the scariest experience I have ever had with Mother Nature! The windows were shaking, the old magnificant live oak trees were swaying and of course the power went off.

Our house survived. A neighbor across the street had a live oak tree uprooted in his front yard. Our electricity was out for a week.
Trucks with ice came in fairly quickly and believe me, ice was like gold to us.

We love the Gulf coast and chose to live here. With the blessings of this part of the world comes a very healthy respect for Mother Nature. Fools who want to party and act like they are too macho to leave, usually end up dead fools.

In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle

(*I wrote this piece back in the early springtime)

"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied--
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."

-Langston Hughes

The early morning wind whips mischievously round the glass and mortar towers of downtown. It has a mind of its own, finding stray newspapers, women's skirts and flimsy day-glo orange construction cones to dance with. Today, an old street beggar is standing at a corner. His too-loose baggy trousers become like a catamaran sail, filling with an unseen gust and propelling the gaunt black stick figure along the pavement. He seems too frail to withstand the rough and quick buffets, but with a determined stiffening of his back, he counters them and manages to keep himself erect. His slightly bulging eyes peer from beneath overpowering brows of grizzled and frosted hair. Deep brown creases in his face could have been carved from a sculptor's clay. A fur-lined hat, out of season for the warm spring morning, is pulled down tightly around his ears. A sad face, an angry face, when did he last smile? Ahead of him, a tee-shirted, khaki-clad man picks up his pace and jay-walks across the street to avoid any chance of contact with the sidewalk scarecrow. Looking furtively across his shoulder, arms swinging with determination, the worker jogs to put some distance between himself and the object of his unease. The old black man notices and shakes his head, his hat bobbing a bit with the movement. A gnarled hand reaches up and anchors it back down. His lips are moving with soundless words that are eaten by the breeze. The out-of-place inhabitant of the inner city seems like a fierce old lion, once the king of the pride but now powerless; beaten by life and weary. His mane is shaggy and matted, his gait unsure, and his bones made more prominent by the devilish wind pushing the threadworn cloth tight against his frame.

After work and driving west, the brilliant red and gold sunset could have been shining across an African savannah and I recalled this morning's odd encounter. Faint strains of music from a long ago song played in my head and I wondered, where will the lion sleep tonight?

Hurricanes

They are a fact of life for us Southerners, particularly along the coastal areas. I grew up on the Gulf Coast of Florida and there were plenty of times as a child that I can remember one storm or another churning up our way. Momma would throw a hurricane party, we'd head off to bed and that would be that.

The first storm that really had any emotional resonance for me was Hugo, closing in on its sixteenth anniversary. I'd gone to college in Charleston and had fallen in love with it. It was so unlike the cow towns I'd known growing up, full of charm and culture. You can truly breathe the history in the place.

I was back home in the Tampa Bay area when Hugo hit. I remember waking up at four a.m. to see, well hear really, a newscaster broadcasting from what is now the Charleston Place Hotel. It was pitch black, the electricity was out and the fear in his voice was palpable.

Once the news crews could get out, the destruction was enormous. Really, it was too much to take in at once and that was just watching it on television. I also remember yelping in surprise as I recognized a former co-worker's house on the Today Show, an uprooted tree bashing in his beloved BMW. It was an odd feeling, having such intimate knowledge of a place so severely affected. Because so often, places like that are just...places to us.

Now we have all sorts of warnings and the Doppler Radar and computer models, but it's still a guessing game. Because they didn't expect Katrina to take that jog to the east that spared New Orleans but apparently wiped out Dauphin and the other Alabama barrier islands, with no way to know the casualties until tomorrow, if then.

And there's still another two months to one of our 'seasons' in the south--hurricane season.