Ethyl Remembers: Another April

One of my favorite short stories is entitled 'Another April' by a Kentucky writer named Jesse Stuart.  It is the story of an old man going out to take a spring walk after being indoors all winter.  He is frail and must lean on a cane as he carefully goes around the yard examining the new buds and plants that have started to sprout, touching the pine needles in his hand, smelling their pungent fragrance, and finally hobbling over to the old smokehouse to look for an old terrapin that has made his home there for many years.  He calls the old turtle 'his friend', and his young grandson looks through the window as the old man kneels down to have a lengthy conversation with the creature.  The old man promises the terrapin to come again, although he knows it may be the last April for either of them, and the young man looks on in innocent wonder, having as yet never having to come to terms with a life ending.
When I walked out in my back yard this early morning I thought of that story.  I walked around and counted the pods on my irises.  I now have ten.  I looked at the roses and the promise of blossoms there.  The birds hopped around and the air was warm and sweet, and I thought how wonderful that April does come every year.  Even if the winter is hard and cold, like this one proved to be, we always have the promise of April to look forward to.  And she seldom disappoints.  She delivers her goods almost always on time, and every year her dress is resplendent.  She blows in on a whim and leaves on a whine, but she is most pleasant company while she favors us with her presence.  Here in the South, May will get hot.  By the middle of the month we will have ninety degree weather and be running our air conditioners full blast.  Our utility bills will start to climb and they will not decrease until possibly October.  But for the next thirty days we have April.  So since she has been so kind as to drop in for her yearly visit, let us all enjoy her company for as long as we have her.

Ethyl Relates: My brother Jim and Sunshine the bird.

Growing old is the pits.  There is just no two ways about it.  But sometimes there can be bright spots that make you feel good in your heart.  My oldest brother has reached the age where so many things are gone from his life.  Youth and vigor have either left entirely or have been greatly reduced.  For years he was a military man, seeing two tours of duty in Viet Nam, being subjected to some of the bloodiest battles of that horrible war, and then for the next twenty five years serving with the police force in Charleston, South Carolina.  He braved the fury of hurricane Hugo, staying on duty during one of the worst storms to ever hit Charleston, braving the elements so that other people might make it out safely. 
He sits in his new leather chair his wife recently bought him and he remembers, and he talks, and sometimes he even cries when he recounts the things he has experienced.  Things no man should have seen, much less have felt and experienced first hand.  Meaningful, useful work is at a premium now, the yard that was once his joy and price in his retirement years has been replanted to be more easily maintained.  The row of beautiful azaleas next to the house have been replaced with plants that don't require as much care.  The roses he grew that were so magnificent a few years ago are now in the process of going back to the earth.
The things he tends to talk about are things of long ago, in a past, that to a big extent, was full of trauma and disappointment, while he has trouble remembering what he did yesterday or if he talked to you on the phone an hour ago.
And so a long hard journey is drawing to a close.  A journey that will eventually be required of us all.  So much of life is over and done with, so many dreams and plans and ambitions are put on the shelf, and each day is a search for some bright spot to find pleasure in, something to make him laugh, something to give him a sense of well being.
And then enters Sunshine.  Sunshine is a bird.  He was introduced into the family a few months ago and since then he has taken over.  Some folks get a dog or a cat to sit in their laps and pet and coo over.  My brother has a bird to sit on his finger and fuss over.  Sunshine has a beautiful singing voice and he has made himself right at home with his new family.  He knows they belong to him, and if a stranger approaches the house, Sunshine has an absolute fit.  If brother steps outside and can't be located for even a short while, Sunshine goes berserk.  Oh, that bird is no shy guy.  He has a personality that is out there.  Cross him and feel the wrath of a peck on your finger, but he is protective and loyal to those he cares about.  And more than anything else, he makes my brother smile.  A happy boy like smile.  And so sweet to behold.  I have not personality met Sunshine, but I have seen his picture and I have seen him perched happily on my brother's finger. 
I talked to my brother a long time on the phone yesterday and we talked about his bird.  I told him the joke about the woman who had a parrot that was in the habit of spewing the most horrible, obscene language, so she went to her preacher and asked him what she could do to teach her baby some respect, and his suggestion was to bring her to him.  He has a couple of male birds that were so perfect, so pure, they were always singing hymns and praying and he thought maybe their good example would rub off on her bad bird.  The idea sounded good to her, so she packed up her bird and took her to the preacher, who took the bad little girl home and put her in the cage with his psalm singing, praying birds.  As soon as she entered the cage, one male bird looked at the other and said , "OK, bud, you can stop praying now.  Our prayers have been answered". 
Brother's  response was the usual when I tell him a joke.  He burst out in laughter.  A few days from now I could probably tell him the same joke again and he would laugh out loud just like he did yesterday.  But yesterday it brightened his day, if only for a few minutes.
Every life needs a little sunshine.  In my brother's case, it comes in the form of a beautiful yellow and gray bird named Sunshine.

Ethyl Remembers: Farmhouse Food.

There are two things that every old Southern woman knows how to cook and cook well.  One is homemade biscuits and the other is banana pudding.  Not the kind that comes from a jello box.  The type with the sweet creamy custard that is made from scratch and cooked up on top of the stove in a double boiler.  At our house when we were growing up there were homemade biscuits on the table every morning and just about every Sunday for dinner there was a bowl of homemade banana pudding.
By the majority of people's standards we were poor.  And by that I mean there was never a lot of money for clothes or luxuries or to spend at the grocery store.  We used to long for bologna and hot dogs and lunch meat.  Instead we were forced to eat county ham, hand cured and smoked in our smoke house by my daddy.  The fried chicken we had often on Sunday at dinner was running around in the chicken coop earlier that morning.  The beef roast and pork chops came from our freezer, which was so large it covered the majority of one wall in the kitchen.  In summer there was always an abundance of fruit.  Blackberries grew in the pasture, grapes hung on the garden fence, peach and apple trees grew in the orchard and also in various places around the home place where my mother had stuck out tiny seedlings that had become mature trees.  Our summers were busy canning and freezing and drying the ingredients that would go into fried pies and cobblers to be made and eaten at a later date. 
There was always an abundance of fresh eggs, gathered every day from the hen house.  It was my job to take a basket, which happened to be hand made from willow twigs, by my grandfather, and gather the eggs.  Sometimes I would enter just as the old hen jumped off the nest and the egg she left behind would still be warm to your touch.  They were usually brown and the yokes were always a deep yellow.
Some years my daddy planted sorghum cane and had it made into molasses.  Not the kind you buy in little jars in the store which is a poor imitation of the real thing, but rich and thick and a dark shade of golden brown that when you held it up on your spoon in winter it would stay there.  It would be clear enough you could see your spoon and the cold from winter made it thick and slow running.  There really is truth to the statement that something is as 'slow as molasses in January'.
On recent trips to Wild Oats Natural Foods or Fresh Market food stores, I am stunned by some of the prices.  My folks were rich when it came to the foods we ate.  It was all organic.  The fruit sometimes had bad spots but the trees were never sprayed with chemicals.  The same was true of the vegetables that grew in the various 'truck patches' or the garden.  The eggs were free range and the tomatoes, which grew by the acre in among the watermelon vines, were all pesticide free.  There was an abundance of fresh butter and milk, and Mama could turn the simplest ingredients like flour and sugar and fresh butter and nutmeg into the most delicious butter roll you ever put in your mouth.  I have tried numerous times to duplicate her masterpiece and can never get it right.
This has brought me to one conclusion.  When you are young, you very seldom appreciate the true value of what you have.  You always wish for what seems to be the thing that the majority of people deem valuable, when so often the value of what you have far surpasses anything you can buy or anything others may possess.  You often take those who really love you and have your best interest at heart for granted, and spend countless energy, hours, and money trying to win the approval of those who could care less about you.
Aah!  Such is the folly of youth.  Maturity comes with a high price sometimes.  But when it does come, it's value is priceless.  And as Forrest Gump would say, 'and that is all I have to say about that'.

Winter Poem

Visions of Springtime are Dancing in My Head!

Got up this morning, jumped out of bed
While visions of springtime danced in my head
Looked out the window and what did I see
A sky full of gray floating aimlessly.

Oh well, to myself I did say
Winter is present, it won't go away
And although I know spring is there on it's heels
Still can't dismiss the way the day feels.

But I know in my mind that very soon
Robins will sing and daffodils bloom
My forsythia bush will break out in gold
And we'll say a very merry goodbye to the cold.

So even though right now the sky is grey
It's still kind of pretty in it's own unique way
For there is a special type of beauty in the season
And for everything under the sun there's a reason.

For without the rest that winter brings
There would be no special longing for spring.
For everything needs a time of repose
So seasons of gray clouds can be good, I suppose.

So for the present I shall be content
And wait till all these gray days are spent.
Because I know that's soon I'll see
Tiny little buttercups smiling at me.

Enjoy the day, everyone. As long as we are above ground and sucking air, we can hope for a better tomorrow.

Yellow Daisies

I love the color yellow.  I remember in tenth grade home economics class when Mrs. Gaines gave us the color wheel and taught us how to put colors and patterns together so we could dress properly.  I thought it was interesting that yellow was a primary color.  Not fiery like red or icy like blue, but just kind of peaceful, lying there between the two other primary colors.  And what you could do with it.  Mix it with blue and make green, mix it with red and make orange.  Such a useful color, always happy to contribute to the benefit of others.
It makes sense that sunshine was always depicted as yellow in our coloring books.  It was warm and seductive but not too hot like red.  And yellow flowers just have an inexplicable method of touching the heart.
Which brings me to the crux of my story.  One picture perfect October day we were down in Tishomingo County visiting my parents.  It was the kind of day songs and poems are written about.  Just as close to a perfect day as you are ever going to have in an imperfect world.  Aah!  October in the South.  Not too hot and not too cold.  The butterflies still flitted around the fields and pastures, they had not flown away or gone into a permanent sleep.  Bees were still buzzing, but not for much longer.  We knew it, and there was always the feeling that maybe they did too.  They were just so busy accomplishing all the last minute stuff they needed to do before winter set in. 
On this particular picture perfect October day I said to my husband, "I want to go to the creek". 
Now the creek I was referring to was what we called Cagle Creek, although the proper term for it was  Indian Creek.  It started in town in Mineral Springs Park and flowed down across land that belonged to the Cagle family.  It was the creek of my childhood.  There was a deep pool in which fish and sometimes children swam, to the right side of the ford where the tractors and trucks crossed the creek to go to the field that lay just on the other side.  When I was young, the ford was rocky and crystal clear.  It was shallow and cold and felt oh so refreshing on a hot Mississippi summer day. One of the best things in life was to lay down on the shallow rocky bottom and let the cold clear water run over you and wash away all the heat and humidity and dust accumulated during a miserably hot Mid South day.  I had not been in years, but somehow this day I really wanted to go back and revisit this beloved spot from my childhood. 
It was about four miles from my folk's house to the little dirt road that ran down to the creek.  On this particular day, from the moment we turned down the well worn path, there was beauty everywhere.  Some logs had fallen in the pine thicket that lined each side of the road, and from those rich pine logs, ripe with decay, grew the most beautiful wild yellow daisies.  They were strewn all along the roadway on each side and the green of the pine trees was the perfect accent to the most beautiful shade of yellow.
When we reached the creek I realized the spot I had so loved in childhood was no more.  They had dredged it, straightening it from the winding branch I once knew.  The deep pool was gone and the ford, for the most part, had disappeared.  Still, it was my creek.  The oak and willow trees still grew along each creek bank, and the cool shady glen was what I remembered.  Peering across the opening between the trees and down what remained of the field road, I spied yellow.  Curious to know what lay on the other side, I took off my sandals, rolled up my pant legs and waded across.  Glorious day in the morning!!  The entire open field, which was comprised of several acres, was completely covered in yellow daisies.  They were dancing in the autumn breeze, beautiful beyond words.  I stood for a moment totally mesmerized.  Seldom in life does one come upon something that perfect.  Butterflies flew and bees buzzed... and I stood still and drank heavily of the sunshine and the sight before me.  One thing I knew.  My husband was going to have to see this.  There was no way he was going to remain on the other side of the creek.  I made my way back to the bank and shouted for him to come over. 
"But I can't walk on the rocks', he said.  "My feet are not used to it".  
"Well, your feet are just going to have to suffer",  I told him.  "You have to see this".
With those words of encouragement he removed his shoes and socks and slowly waded across.  We stood together and stared.  A perfect moment in time.  Forever imprinted on our minds.
I think sometimes of how Wordsworth must have felt when he came upon the daffodils growing in the Lake Country of England.  That sight inspired one of the best loved poems in English literature.  The golden daffodils had touched his heart in much the same way the golden daisies touched mine.  He wrote that sometimes when he was pensive or sad the flowers would flash upon his inward eye and then his heart would fill with laughter.   The last lines of that poem are ,'and then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils'.  Sometimes my heart dances with the daisies.

Ethyl Reflects: Life Lessons

It's been said we should try to learn from the mistakes of others because we won't have time to make all the same mistakes ourselves.   And I think there is a lot of wisdom in that statement.  For our lives are indeed short in comparison to so many other things on earth.  A turtle that has no grasp of mathematics or science, but acts purely on instinct, can live up to two hundred years.  A tree, the giant sequoia, has been known to live a few thousand.  Man, on the other hand, is limited to a mere seventy or eighty years on average.  So we are going to have a relatively short time in  our lives to make decisions, plans, mistakes, and friendships.
When we are young there is a great need to be accepted, so often we chose our friends from those who are sought out by the vast majority, and we feel it is a great privilege to be acknowledged by such lofty ones.  The most popular students in high school got that way for a reason.  Everyone wanted to be friends with them simply because they were prominent and by being close to them  the less noticed could indirectly share some of that prestige..They could be total snobs, dumb as a rock, and totally lacking in moral fiber, but if they happened to be on the 'in' list, everyone sought their favor. 
A psalmist prayed, 'Oh, teach us how our days to number that we may bring a heart of wisdom in'.  We are wise if- when we reach the point in our lives where we begin to see we have a limited number of days- we began to be much more selective in our choice of companions..   Gone are the pursuits of younger days.  We begin to look for quality, not quantity, and for persons from whom we can learn and grow.
In reflection, I find that I have a lot to be thankful for, for I have been blessed with people who have been wise and experienced,  from whom I have learned and by so doing have avoided major pitfalls and potholes that I otherwise might have fallen into.  Life lessons, that when taken to heart, have helped me grow and mature and become a much, hopefully, wiser and kinder person.
It's amazing to me how much our lives mimic the seasons.  Spring is fresh and new, alive with new energy and growth.  Summer is adulthood , fruit bearing, and productive.  Autumn is mature, the end of years of hard work and productive activity.  Ripening of our mind.  The time in our life when we come to terms with our mortality, and the realization we will not be going back to the spring or summer but only forward into winter.  In many ways this is the best season of all.  We are mature.  The grain is ripened and our minds, like the storehouses of the farmer, are full of experience and wisdom.  The time when in many cases the years of work have paid off and we have time and still a sufficient amount of energy to go and do and experience what was denied us in our youth because of a lack of either time or money.  Aah!  then winter.  The time when the days grow shorter and fly much faster.  The time when it's harder to get out and about and takes so much more effort to go anywhere or do anything.  The maturity of the mind is offset by the feebleness of the body, and then in the end, as King Solomon described it, 'the days have arrived when we will say we have no delight in them'. 
As I write this I realize I am still in the autumn of my life, and I am so thankful for the ones who have helped me grow to this point.  Over the years on reflection I realize that the majority of my friends, the ones I love and trust the most, have been older than me.  Anywhere from seven to fifteen years older.  And now as I age so do they, and I am faced with the sadness of seeing them lose physical stamina and mental agility, in the same way I am losing it each day.  But I am so thankful they have been a part of my life and they have seen fit to include me, because from them I have learned so much about life and what it takes to be truly happy. 
Will I advance from autumn into winter.  There is no way of knowing.  But I am so thankful that I have been permitted to live long enough to avoid dying young.  I have been allowed to raise my children myself and that task has not been left to others, for I know in my heart no one would have ever loved them in the same way or to the same degree I have.  Am I apprehensive about the coming winter.  Yes.  Just like the season itself, we never know what it will bring.  Will there be blizzards and ice storms and damage to structures and such or will we progress into and out of the season for the most part unscathed.  Who knows.  We will just have to wait and see.  But for now it is good to still be here and to have those we hold so close to our hearts here with us.  Each day is a gift.  That's why we call it the present.  And the best way to appreciate any gift is to  use it well and be truly thankful for it.

Ethyl Surmises: Mark Twain

Mark Twain said, "The lack of money is the root of all evil".
What that Bible verse, which is often misquoted as 'money is the root of all evil', actually says is, 'the love of money is the root of all evil'.
There is a big difference in the two statements.  Money is necessary to be able to live with a reasonable degree of dignity in today's world, but the love of it, and the obtaining of it at any and all cost, is indeed a precursor for evil actions.
Two thousand and ten is a big year for Mark Twain... This year in April he will have been dead one hundred years, and also this is the year he has a new book published.  It is the unabridged autobiography of his life, which he left to those he could trust with the firm instructions it was to be published a hundred years after his death.. His reason; "By then I will be dead and unaware and indifferent and therefore able to speak my whole frank mind".  And speak his mind Twain did, but so often what he said was so cloaked in satire that the persons who were self righteous, pompous, and full of themselves never got his true meaning.
Case in point is his novel 'Huckleberry Finn'.. It has been dubbed the great American novel, and in my humble opinion, it is.  But as well loved as it is today it was not received well by much of the established literary guild of his day.. Many writers who were well known and accepted as the top brass of their generation criticized Twain for his style of writing in the vernacular of the time. But the public, the people in general, loved it.  And the subtlety with which Twain laid bare the hypocrisy and self righteous attitudes of the slave owning hierarchy of his time is not to be matched anywhere in literature, and that includes 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
When my middle son was ten, he and I read Huckleberry Finn together, and I will never forget his reaction to Twain's use of the word 'nigger'.. In our house our sons were never allowed to use that word to refer to anyone they knew.  It was on the same level with a curse word and it just was not acceptable to refer to fellow humans in such a derogatory manner.  When Huckleberry referred to Nigger Jim, my son's mouth flew open in surprise and he asked how the writer could use such a word in a book that would be read to children.  I explained to him Twain was merely writing as people in those days talked, and it was not meant to degrade anyone.
When Huckleberry decides he will not turn Jim in but instead help him escape we are all brought to a defining moment in the narrative, for the boy is sure he is going to Hell for his actions.. It is just wrong to steal and in a sense he is stealing from the Widow Douglas, but he loves Jim and he is going to take that chance.  Twain's condemnation of the ideas and accepted beliefs of his era are brought to the reader's attention in a way no one else in literature has ever done before, or after, for that matter.   It was wrong to hide the property of someone else, but not wrong to keep a fellow human in bondage.  A classic moment in literature!
Another incident when we are brought face to face with the fact that all humans are basically the same is when Jim cuts himself and Huck sees him bleed.. Huck's response, "Why Jim, your blood is red too", is never to be forgotten.
Twain in many ways was the most outspoken civil rights advocate of his day, but that fact was so well cloaked in his literature, many unsuspecting readers never got his point.
Something he talks about in his autobiography is an occasion when he went to his publisher accompanied by his black butler.  Their being seen out in public together caused a minor outrage that resulted in embarrassment for the butler, but Twain took it all in stride.  His comment on the matter, "It seemed justly proper for him to accompany me, for in every way he is my equal, and in many ways my superior". 
Such was the great wisdom of Mark Twain.
In musing over the writings of Mark Twain, Ethyl has thought about some of her post.  Are they phonetically sound, grammatical proper, written in the style of acceptable writings.  Most assuredly not!   But that is not the purpose of my writing.  I wish to tell a story and relate certain happenings as I remember they occurred.
Mark Twain's foremost objective was to tell a story, and if that was good enough for the best American writer who ever wrote a line of prose, well then, I guess it's good enough for Ethyl.  Nuff said!