Summer winds are blowing again

On the way to a nearby town to pick up a heating pad (don’t ask) I found a station on the car radio that played some of my favorite music, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, you know the crowd. Those who know me also know that I’ve been a rock’n’roll band member off and on for half a century, and this might surprise them.

Anyway, the music was wonderful, and then I began to become annoyed. I’d forgotten that music producers back then seemed to believe that some of the greatest singers in the world needed schmaltzy orchestral strings layered into the music, so I said to my radio, “What were you guys thinking?” Then I got over it, relaxed my shoulders, and enjoyed the ride, eventually crossing the Mississippi River where, beneath me, barges were churning north and south.

My lilac flowers are done for the year and the walnut trees in the hollow are finally leafing out. Walnut trees are the first to lose leaves in the fall and last to leaf out in the spring especially down in my hollow, where the temperature is always cooler than up here on the bluff. It’s hard work producing walnuts, so they wisely work with a short growing season. Hardly a year goes by without some old guy who thinks himself a genius looking up at the ancient walnut tree by my garage saying, “That tree is dead.” Even my father did it 20 years ago. The tree is beautiful again this year.

Wild plum flowers in my hollow are gone as well. Later this summer I will pick a few plums, about the size of a shooter marble, take a bite, and wonder why I did.

A few days back I was walking to my car from a grocery store carrying a bottle of whiskey in a much too short bag, so it was easy to spot what I was carrying. Out of nowhere I heard, “Hope that’s good whiskey!” A guy sitting in the passenger side of a pickup was the voice. “Yes, it’s from Ireland,” I said. “What do you drink?” I asked. His response was as if it was scripted just for this scene in which he and I acted. “Oh, I don’t drink so much any longer. I’m 90 years old.” We wished each other a good day, and it was beautiful.

There has been a certain melancholy that resides easily in my breast and it has been something which I have acknowledged and struggled with since I was a child. Some of you may know whereof I speak, and after a horrific pandemic year melancholy became languishing, and languishing became uncertainty. Anyway, all I can say is that it can be difficult to not give in to it, but we must. I’m an uneducated counselor, but feel free to stop by if you need to talk with someone. I’ve taken a good long look down the road ahead and I think it’s going to be OK, bumpy, but OK, and I believe the journey will be worth the effort.

The weather indicates summer has arrived. More than half a century ago summer was my season. I worked every day mowing lawns around town, which totally beat being in school. Walking a mower across the most dog-used lawn in town was much preferable to being in a speech or Latin class where my teachers ignored or bullied those who weren’t the best students. In those days the top of mowers had a start pulley, around which you wrapped a rope with knot on the end, yanking it to start the mower. You no longer need such a rope, but there is one hanging in my garage. I’d be happy to loan it to you.

In the meantime, if you’ve got a copy of Sinatra singing “Summer Wind” crank it up. You won’t be disappointed.