There's a Chill in the Air

I'm still in my shirt sleeves on my morning walk; but it feels like it won't be long before jacket weather.  We're coming up on my favorite season.  I have always loved the fall.  September especially.  The food is always best this time of year.  Fresh tomatoes, peaches, corn on the cob, pears, apples, air, abound.  It all tastes so good and inviting.  It tastes like success.  It tastes like God is good.  It tastes like pay day.  The fruit of our labors offering satisfaction and yet so full of humility because we're utterly dependent upon God for the harvest.  It is the time I'm most reminded of his love for us.  He didn't have to make the first frost tip the balance of sugar in a Golden Delicious apple to make it so luscious and sweet; but He did.  He didn't have to make the flavor of a fresh peach blend so well with the sweet smooth quality of cream.  He did have to, but it seems clear that He wanted to make our sojourn here a pleasant one.

I live in a desert.  Here we don't take rain for granted.  We manage the water carefully and count it an enormous blessing.  We've been through drought years and we've seem miraculous crops, when we expected none.  We grow wonderful hay in the most awful looking soil and bow in gratitude that something grows in this harsh and barren landscape.  We have sufficient for our needs; not only thanks to generous Providence but also to the foresight and industry of our fore-bearers.  Men and women who scraped out the canals, built the dams and developed the systems that enable us to have water for the entire growing season in a land that is lucky to get 10 inches of rainfall in a year.  This is a land of hopes and dreams and most of all faith.  Faith that for yet another year there will be crops to sustain us.  We never take that for granted.  We can't.  It's like standing on the ridge of a steep roof.  So much depends on balance.

I love September too because school begins again.  I always reset my calendar and my goals and dreams at this time of year rather than the first of January.  This time of year I am excited that I truly had a clean slate and so much to look forward to.  January was always so dreary and bogged down beneath snow and darkness and unfulfilled dreams from September.  This was the time of year that we received the bounty of last year's efforts and it seemed to be the right time to commence the challenges of next year.  It was the time of new clothes, empty notebooks, new ideas, new friends, and ever present bounty.  This is the time of results.  What better time to anticipate the next round of them.

Another important transition begins for me in September.  This is the end of the survival mode of living.  We've about got things tucked away for the winter.  Food in the pantry, so to speak.  Now commences   the more contemplative, restorative portion of the year.  The time to sit and read by the fire.  The time to mend the equipment and the bruises and bumps of a tough year.  Time to let the horses go unshod and fatten up on what's popping up in the hay field after the last cutting.  Time to learn, to plan, to dream, to relax, to indulge and to appreciate.

I think it is no wonder that the more prosperous societies have long been in the northern climes where the seasons change.  Perhaps it is because we had to be industrious to survive.  Likely so.  Don't think though, that the refreshing changes the seasons bring have a lot to do with keeping us motivated and looking forward. I've noticed that I'm seldom looking back as the seasons change.  This time of year I'm looking forward to cooler weather.  Toward the end of Fall I'm looking forward to long quiet evenings to enjoy reading and conversation.  By the end of Winter I can barely wait for flowers and greenery.  As summer approaches I'm longing for less wind and more steady weather and a chance to get outside and sweat a little.  Never am I looking back wishing for more of what I've just had.

When we lived in Southern California, I never had such sensations.  The weather didn't seem to change.  The sky was always the color of dirty dish water and temperature hardly varied.  It was so boring to have nothing startlingly different to look forward to.  I'll take a nasty bitter cold blizzard or a sultry hot swelter, or a week of tree bending wind, or an unexpected cold snap in early September over monotony any day.

I've been known to walk into the Bureau of Indian Affairs and ask for the weather chief.  When asked, "why," to explain that I just needed to thank someone for another wonderfully long and beautiful Indian Summer.  We get those quite regularly around here and I just want to thank the BIA for doing such a tremendous job!  Still, at the end of Indian Summer there is nothing quite so thrilling as that first snow fall.  You know, the one with the great big flakes that drift so slowly down you can ask them about the wife and kids before they melt on your tongue.  But I digress.  No point in missing fall for looking on to winter.

I'm going out to crunch some walnuts on the road and hit a fruit stand or two.  That'll do for today.  Tomorrow it will be corn on the cob from Brad's.  In a couple of weeks it'll be the smell of walnut leaves as I rake.  So much to enjoy.  So much to look forward to.

Utah Book Bloggers' Summer Social

I had a great time at the Utah Book Bloggers' Summer Social.  It was held along the Jordan River in Sandy on Saturday evening.  More details can be found at It's All About Books!.

I had intended to go with Booklogged, my Sweetie, but her mother is awfully ill and she elected to say by her side.  Sweetie insisted that I go though and I'm all about pleasing Sweetie.  I owe her big time and any progress toward paying the enormous debt I owe her, is a privilege.

I'm new to this scene and arrived totally unacquainted with the group.  That didn't last long.  Everyone was so kind and friendly.  I quickly relaxed and had a great time.  It helps to have a common interest, though ordinarily, the books I read were utterly un-heard-of in this crowd.  The gender and generation gaps are very obvious.  Thankfully, a few husbands turned up or I'd have felt like a fox in a hen house.  It was good for me to meet some very fine authors, who surprisingly, are ordinary folks like you and me!

Thanks Suey and Natasha for a great time!  I hope to be there again next time!

Book Review - Pelagie, The Return to Acadie by Antonine Maillet

Three years ago Sweetie and I found ourselves in Cheticamp, Nova Scotia at dinner time.  We stopped at Restaurant Acadien for dinner.  Cheticamp claims to be the heart of L'Acadie or in English, Acadia.  The food had a home cooked, family style nature to it and was wholesome and simple.  Attached to the restaurant was a cute gift shop with lots of locally created crafts and trinkets.  We like to learn more about the local culture through books and found Pelagie on a shelf there.  The idea is to enhance the enjoyment of our trip by returning there in local literature upon our arrival home.

L'Acadie covered much of the Maritime Provinces of Canada and some of New England.  The French first sent settlers to the area in 1604.  England and France skirmished and negotiated over the area several times.  In the summer of 1755 at the out break of the French and Indian war, an American extension of the Seven Years War between France and England, the British claimed control of Acadia and violently uprooted and deported the Acadians who refused to swear an oath of allegiance to the King of England.  They were scattered abroad from Boston to Louisiana and around the Caribbean basin.  Those who gathered in the bayous of Louisiana became what are now known as the Cajuns, a corrupted form of the word Acadians.

Widow of the Great Disruption (what they called the time of deportation) Pelagie LeBlanc and her children, who'd wound up in Georgia, scratched up a cart and six oxen and after 15 years in exile; determined to go home.  They set out in 1770 and crossed the continent South to North over the course of the next ten years.  You will surely notice that it was the same ten years as the American Revolution.  This little marvel chronicles the hardship, travail, joy and triumph of that epic journey.  The journey became more than a long trip home, it became about the preservation of a people, a history and a culture.

Pelagie, The Return to Acadie was originally written in French and was the first foreign novel to receive France's highest literary honor, the Prix Goncourt.  I would love to have been able to read it in French.  The English translation by Philip Stratford is masterful, though and did wonderful justice to the original.

The Acadians were mostly illiterate at the time and so many of the stories of the Great Disruption have been passed down in legend and tale.  The book was written in that style.  Written as though an old storyteller was sharing it with company around the hearth.  As the story is told, the audience, interjects their vocalized comments, contrary versions and exclamations.  The book is written as the collective voice of modern Acadie as if gathered to recite again the wonderful story of the woman who climbed the continent gathering Acadians as she went.  Pelagie-the-cart she is called, accompanied by Belonie the chinwagging centenarian storyteller.  The voice in the book is Louis-a-Belonie-a-Belonie-a-Thaddee-a-Belonie-le-Vieus Mailett, great grandson of the old chinwagger himself, whose mission was to follow the footsteps of his storytelling predecessors.  Also in attendance is Pelagie-the-Grouch, daughter of Pelagie-a-Madeleine-a-Pelagie-the-Cart.  Each has something to say about the ancestor whose name they bear.  Actually, a little more than something.  And of course the audience consists of descendants of other characters who have their own traditional two bits to toss in.

At first I didn't understand the style and found it difficult to read.  I persisted though, 'on account of because' it was such a captivating story.  Well before the half-way point though, I had caught on and really enjoyed being part of the group, often interjecting an exclamation of my own!

Read this book!  It is an absolute delight.  My heart is warmed toward L'Acadie and I can barely wait to go spend more time with her unique and beautiful people.  Merci'!

Five enthusiastic stars!

Missing the Fountain at the Rexall Drug

As a young High School student I worked at Ashton's Department Store.  I took my breaks on the corner at the Uintah Rexall Drug.  Oh how I wish I could still stop in there for a bit to eat.  Marion Swain operated the fountain and fixed the finest food.  If I stopped by for a morning break I almost always had a sweet roll and a glass of milk.  This was not just any sweet roll.  They were made in Ashton's bakery by Twila and Dolly and were wonderful.  Marion took those and made them out of this world!  She'd take the bonnet off a nice sticky stack of them, select the biggest one for me and toss it on the grill.  Then with a Wooster paint brush she'd slather it with melted butter and let it warm and get crispy and caramelized around the edges.  She'd place it on a plate with a fork and serve it with tall glass of whole milk.  I'd probably weight 400 pounds if she were still there serving up that delicacy.

For lunch I always had her salad plate.  A dinner plate loaded with equal portions of cottage cheese, tuna-macaroni salad, the best* potato salad in the world, and green salad with a few cello-wrapped saltines.  Oh my goodness was it good stuff.  This evening I finished off a batch of tuna macaroni salad with some cottage cheese and wished I had the rest to round out my meal.  It was homemade, wholesome and just plain good food.  I had it every lunch there for two years.

My afternoon break was just as consistent.  I had a root-beer float with scooped, real ice-cream.  You can't make a good root-beer float with soft ice-cream.  It just doesn't melt right, nor seem as creamy and delicious.

Marion was like a grandmother to me.  I ate at her table more often than I did at home.  I loved to visit with her.  While she cooked or did the dishes.  She had dish pan hands, her hair tied up in a net and a resolute determination to do her job well.  I always sat there by myself, usually during off hours when the crowds weren't there.  People came and went I'm sure but all I remember was Marion.  That is until one fateful day.

I was in this very marching band.  It had a little more class in those days.  The Drum Major is my good friend Keith.  You can see both Ashton's and the Uintah Rexall Drug in this photo.  Also Bobbie's Dress Shop where Sweetie worked.

I had quit Ashton's and was working as a surveyor.  One day I happened to be in town in the early afternoon and, for old time's sake, stopped in to see Marion.  The place was hopping and the only stool was right next to a pretty girl I was remotely acquainted with.  We had a good visit over our meals.  I have no idea what she had, but of course I had the salad plate.  Marion gave me a wink of approval as I sat beside someone she obviously approved of.  As we parted I paid for the young lady's meal, which she graciously accepted as she has thousands of times since.  She became my sweetheart, my wife and the love of my life.  And *her mother's potato salad is even better than Marion Swain's.

Welcome Home Whitey!

Today I'm re-embarking on a wonderful adventure that began three years ago.  My neighbor and friend Whitey has Alzheimer's.  Shortly after I retired from UPS and upon our return from Newfoundland, Betty began calling occasionally to have me help with Whitey.  He'd slip out of his recliner and onto the floor and she'd need help getting him back up - things like that.  By December, I was over there four or five times a day.  He was losing his ability to walk and poor Betty was beside herself trying to give him the loving care she hoped to.

Any wife would have a hard time deciding his care was beyond her capacity; and so it was with Betty.  We shed a lot of tears and Betty struggled with such a conflicting decision.  Most Alzheimer's patients don't last as long as Whitey has.  The 2 1/2 years he was in the Care Center were fraught with seizures and other difficulties, but those have ceased and his care has become simpler as he is not at risk of injury as he's utterly unable to change positions, even in bed.  A couple of months ago, another woman in a similar situation suggested that Betty might now be able to bring her husband home.  She resisted.  But the notion began to grow and blossom into a possibility.  Betty was certain that she couldn't do it alone.

As we've compared notes; on the day that I felt inspired to quit seeking employment and stay home to write, Betty felt impressed to ask me to assist her with bringing her husband home and in his daily care.  She didn't feel she could ask me though, not knowing what I was up to.  A few days later, Betty and I bumped into one another at the Walking Park and walked a few loops together.  As we conversed I told her of my plans and of the huge leap of faith I was making as I knew it could be many months before I realized any revenue from writing.  Her own issues suddenly clarified and she dared ask.  Having already assisted with Whitey a lot and being blessed with such a disposition as I have; it was easy to say, "Yes!"  Betty will help me with a little income, though I won't be accepting nearly what she offered.  I don't consider this a job, but an opportunity to serve.  So, I calculated what would be just sufficient for my needs and intend to accept nothing more.  I couldn't bear to profit from Betty's misfortune.  Of course she will save a large amount of money as the Care Center is very expensive.

Anyway, we brought Whitey home today.  Several of his Priesthood brethren turned out for the occasion.  Betty had asked for a couple of guys to help me lift him up the steps and into the house.  Eight men showed up!  It was a quiet celebration of sorts as we welcomed him home.  A couple of sweet ladies from the Care Center, who'd accompanied him home were also there to bid him goodbye.  You could tell they loved him and would indeed miss him.  Thank Heaven for the Care Center and the good people who love and care for so many who need to be there.  Thank Heaven for the Care Center Branch who serve their spiritual needs during their stay.

Now to the task at hand.  I'll still be writing most of the time.  But every few hours I'll run over and help where I'm needed.  Periodically, I'll be spelling Betty while she goes to the Temple, to a bridal shower or out to lunch with friends.  I'm thrilled to be able to help.  These are wonderful people for whom I have great love and respect.  If I can play a tiny part in improving the quality of their lives together, it will be the joy of a lifetime.

Sweetie and I will be doing our share of commiserating as she's currently the primary caregiver for her own ailing mother.  We both have remarked that these days of service and love are priceless beyond measure.

The other night Betty took a son and his family to dinner with Whitey and the Rest Home.  They ate pizza while he had his pureed dinner.  As they were leaving, Betty gave him a kiss and Whitey, who has only spoken gibberish for years said, "You're a wonderful woman."  What a blessed, tender mercy.  I believe that Whitey's spirit is still conscious, even though his mind is completely confused.  I believe that one day we will know, that his spirit was able to use that poor decrepit body to convey his love to his devoted wife.

I am certain that I will count myself fortunate to have witnessed the eternal bond of love and friendship that persists through deepening trials in the lives of these fine Saints.