June 26, 2008

Hoosiers tend to write about summer

A fly crawling on my sweaty arm gets an instinctive swat. It’s a miss. The soiled work hand leaves a light muddy imprint on the skin. Spring’s first fly, pausing at the same arm location, was kindly allowed to dawdle and stroll over the skin leaving a tiny trail of tickle. Spring’s a kinder season all around.

The end of June coincides with the end of spring. Summer is upon us and Hoosier summer, Wells County summer, Angelkeep summer, is a delight to be anticipated. But it is tough on us senior romantics of the patio to accept yet another spring departure. It seems that spring takes but only half the time to make its season travel. Winter, on the other hand, takes its sweet time; three fold of the calendar allotment.

Birds sing less in summer and never do it nearly as sweetly as when they sent their spring love songs zipping over Angelpond. Spring bird songsters, while seeking that perfect mate, sound like Romeos serenading at the foot of a castle tower.

Birds move on to nesting and brooding with full confidence in a long, safe, and abundant spring and summer. What faith. We could all learn from them.

Myrtie Barker wrote a column for the Indianapolis News called “My Window.” Her own Angelkeep was seen through those panes of glass.

She wrote, “The faith of birds. True enough, they look upon every strange object with suspicion. But they are soon convinced. A few days, a few weeks, and they accept a bird house, a feeder, and even a scarecrow.”

Spring’s April (if I may reflect back a bit) was full of newness of flora and fauna. That instantly wiped away the gloomy, cold, colorless memories of winter-harsh. Fish splashed, thrilled to again break the Angelpond surface. They leap for bugs and dragonflies.

Spring’s month of May brought Hoosier instinct of soil tilling, patio pot planting, and tomato plant setting into gaps of flower beds. This year’s flower bed veggie experiments are beets and broccoli.

Spring brought a bunny’s return. Then a pair. Then another smaller pair. Spring is more loving than summer.

Poet Lloyd A. Whitehead, of Carlos, Indiana, wrote “Acreage Reduction” back in 1963 and put my own summer opinion into perspective.

“Last year, in mid-July I found that I had planted too much ground. This year I’m trying not to grow more garden than my wife can hoe.”

That’s from Whitehead’s book titled “Hoosier Horizons”. The book was printed in Berne. Before June’s summer days are gone, finishing his book and gleaning more summer wisdom could be down-right prophetic.

Summer’s got some good points. Billions of dragonfly aerial displays—for one. And hummingbirds busy as can be, as another. There’s the hawk moth visits to the patio purple petunia profusion now doing the beginning of their summer cascading down the side of the big pots.

Ah, and cool summer sunrises donated by God for patio coffee drinkers. Myrtie Barker had words about that also from peering out her own Indy window.

She penned five decades ago, “I have decided that the nicest thing about summer are summer mornings. They are gifts. They are heaven’s bestowal to those who rise early. Forty more winks can never equal the cleanness of morning air, the cool feel of the breeze in your hair, the touch of sun against your cheek.”

Nine years was my age when she saw that summer wisdom through a sash. Life, like seasons, move on quickly—too fast. A spring’s gone. A summer begins. A decade fades. Generations come and go. After a half century an Angelkeep columnist repeats a Hoosier thought. He word processes (not a fountain pen of 50+ years ago or maybe a big metal typewriter where the keys stuck often) about Indiana summer morning delight.

It will be something duplicated by yet another Hoosier columnist after another half century. That is, if there are trees yet to make newsprint in the year 2058.

“Truly, they who rise early are the richer for the rising. In those quiet moments before the clamor of the day we can draw nearer the Giver of all real riches—among which are summer mornings.” --Myrtie.

Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their back yard and have named it “Angelkeep.”

by ALAN DAUGHERTY

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