October
begins as a poem with subtle sweeping rhythms. Morning floors are cold to the
touch, and the sparrows wait anxiously at the back door at the first pink blur
of dawn.
There
are deep purple petunias and brilliant orange marigolds nesting in coffee cups
on the window-sills. Overhead wild geese fly in broken formation, honking
reassuringly to one-another.
There
is the pilgrimage to the farm in the valley for apples and cider, down the
well-kept driveway between the grove of trees, past the manor house to the
tenant house where the thousands of apples are sorted, boxed and readied for
selling of for cider. Everywhere there is the all-pervading essence of fall.
Weekends
are lost — to the wind, the sun, the light — and the World Series. Transistor radio
blares in the fierce competition with the television tube, and the one we
married for better, for worse, and for World Series, too, appears like a
stranger during commercials asking for a handout.
We
have apple pie and applesauce, apple dumplings and apple strudel, apple betty,
and apple cake. No one complains. We were born to the apple. The smallest and
most limber climbs into the trees to gather green apples by the side of her grandparents’
old-new country house. Later she patiently stirs the cooked apples through a
conical food mill belonging to her great-grandmother. Everyone at dinner that
night says there never was a more delicious applesauce. She beams with quiet
pleasure.
Indian
corn hangs by the door, and the squirrels scurry up and down the railing in
daring forays to hide the precious kernels in the hollow oak tree. They are
nesting now in a discarded boy’s sneaker tossed aloft one warm summer day and
finally forgotten as the days of barefoot splendor took over.
It is
time to take the geraniums inside. Too tall and awkward now, they persist in
pink profusion. The marigolds nod in affirmation, and the fledgling maple
boasts its first full crop of bright red and yellow leaves.
Splendid
though it all be, there is an air of sadness hanging over the household. After
four carefree, Samson-like months, our firstborn has travelled on weighted foot
to the barber shop just down the street. Poor barber, he must have been
astounded, but he charged the standard price, a right and honorable man he is!
Clipped and neat, our son returned with downcast eyes and sodden heart. He
claimed to be cold and suffering of chills upon the neck. But he survived the
night and was the first before the mirror in the morning to see if it might
have grown a centimeter or two! Weekends the family jitney service runs almost
non-stop from sun-up to sun-down.
Father
takes the car to the hardware store, and gives the boys a ride to the music
shop. We pass in the kitchen, and as he hands me the keys I hand him the peanut
butter.
I
drive the girls to the shopping center where there are hundred of others
sipping cokes and buying nail polish in the five-and-ten with their Saturday
allowance. I promise to return at 2:30 to pick them up in time for basketball
practice. There is not enough time for a leisurely drive down a country lane.
Not really enough time to go home and start the laundry. But you just can’t sit
on a strange parking lot knitting a mitten or reading this week’s selection of
magazines? Or can you?
Our
volunteer-in-residence, with no further World Series or football games to
watch, offers to drop the children off at a friend’s house on his way to the
lumber yard. He hands me the empty peanut butter jar, and I wish frantically I
could remember where I put his car keys.
Saturday
sinks slowly in the west, and the furnace begins its evening humbeat. “Did we
get any mail?” I ask wearily, wondering how many times this week we’ve had
hamburgers. “Only a birthday card for the refrigerator,” comes the answer. Our
local appliance dealer is now sending birthday cards to refrigerators he has
sold, a reminder of service and certainly good for a laugh on a late fall
Saturday when even the geese have gone south and the World Series is finished.
Thanks to Will for transcribing this column.
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