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still too early
By JEFFERSON WEAVER
The twig was a victim of a thunderstorm that reminded me of a child throwing a tantrum – fast, loud, violent, and forgotten within minutes of its passing.
The day was the type we’ve experienced in plenty this year, where no amount of cold water could make up for a lack of air conditioning.
The branch and its four passengers – all brown, dried leaves – meandered across my lane, powered by the last puff of breeze from the storm, a breeze that was almost apologetic for its inability to provide relief.
Logically, I knew the leaves were brown because the limb snapped in a storm. After all, August is not the right time for oaks to turn red-brown, unless the tree has been beaten into submission by a thunderstorm.
Still I saw the little branch as a harbinger of the autumn to come. And as September now rolls closer to October, I must protest.
As much as I love autumn, I must say, please, not yet.
I haven’t had enough summer. I have been fishing once this year. Once. I can do without heat, but I can’t do without fishing.
I haven’t yet slapped mosquitoes and watched the sun set whilst trying to convince a catfish that the loathsome mess on my hook is actually a delicacy.
Miss Rhonda and I have been swimming precisely twice. Twice. I am sure we are committing some sin of omission.
We have spent only a fraction of the required time sitting on the greatest front porch in southeastern North Carolina. We haven’t tormented our cats with meticulously-aimed and -spat watermelon seeds.
Only once have we sat in the dark and enjoyed the majesty of a thunderstorm, laughing as the occasional errant drop or spray made it under the porch roof.
Neighborhoods seem lonelier when it’s still summer but the kids have gone back to school. While many parents will disagree with me, the young’uns need a few more weeks of freedom before starting the next portion of their educational sentence.
Summer’s end cannot be looming, since I haven’t been to a baseball game of any kind. I prefer cheering for the players who still consider the game magical, whether they be cute little kids or aw-shucks young men dreaming of the “bigs”.
I can’t run out of summer yet, because I’ve only mowed about half of our five-acre yard twice. I like to have it completely mowed at least once each summer, whether it needs it or not.
I can’t run out of summer yet, because I haven’t yet found a gnarled old pear tree to raid. There is nothing that can match the taste of a pear from an old farmstead, a pear pollinated by bees that visit the mint, rosemary, and sassafras lining the garden of a housewife long since gone to her reward.
Such pears – and peaches and apples, when you can find them – would never win a beauty contest, but their taste is incomparable. They even taste better when the juice runs down your chin.
Although I love the Perseids meteor shower, that light show means there isn’t much time left. Once again, heavy clouds robbed me of that annual lightshow, although there have been a few nights when streaks crossed the sky like angels playing pool.
Maybe I should have stopped the truck and dove for that twig the other day. Had I the ability to do so, I might have tried to graft it back to its parent tree, if there were any hope such a repair could slow the descent of summer by a few more days. I doubt it could, and more importantly, I doubt I really would.
Because while that twig told me summer is ending, it told me fall is coming, too, even if it is still weeks away. And it would be wrong to further delay the smells of fireplaces and burning leaves and clear, cool air.
I don’t want to put off hearing the music a coonhound’s voice ringing through a deep swampy hollow.
I would be lost if I had to further postpone the indescribable feeling that comes when a buck snorts and stamps his feet a few yards away.
Our front porch is best enjoyed after a quick chill kills the mosquitoes, and sufficient warmth for an evening can be found in coffee and a beloved, is disreputable, sweater.
But I would like just a little more summer – not the heat, or the humidity, or the haze that grays the sky.
I just want a little more fishing, a little more swimming, and a few more shooting stars marking a summer’s night sky.
Weaver is a staff writer with The News Reporter. He may be reached via telephone at 640-4104, ext. 227, or via e-mail at jeffweaver@newsreporter.biz.
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