The resiliency of children

Francie Nolan grew up in an exceedingly poor Irish family in Brooklyn in the early 1900s.  Her story is chronicled in the classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.  Facing hours on the road recently, I picked this audio book off the library to keep me company. The 13 disks that make up the book held me spellbound.

Francie and her brother Neeley picked rags and scrounged tinfoil for pennies that went into the family savings - a tin can nailed to the floor of the closet. They played games like 'North Pole Explorer' that taught them to view the days when the family had no food to eat as an adventure.

In spite of serious hardship, the children grew up with an attitude of optimism and hope, in large part because of their parents. Their mother - who worked as a scrub woman cleaning tenement buildings - was committed to making sure her children had the education she didn't have herself, requiring them to read one page of the Bible and one page of the Complete Works of Shakespeare each day.  In spite of his shortcomings, their father, who died of chronic alcoholism and pneumonia when the children were 11 and 10, always made his children feel special and loved.

Revisiting this story, which I'd read many years ago, reminded me of just how resilient children can be. The children were not oblivious to their situation. They knew they were poor. They knew their father was a drunk. But their growing up experiences taught them pride as well as shame; made them resourceful and creative.

By the time Francie is 16, she and Neeley are referring to their childhoods as 'the good old days.' They lament that their sister who is only 3 will never know all the fun they had growing up in Brooklyn.

If you're looking to connect with a really good book, I encourage you to look to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. And listen to the audio book if you can. The narration by Carrington MacDuffie, a recording artist and spoken word performer, brings life to every character who walks the streets of Brooklyn.

Climbing for supper

Check out this little guy!  We were watching TV and looked up to see this tree frog working his way up our picture window.  It was quite a hike for him. This window is a full two stories off the ground. 

My husband suggested he was up there catching bugs.  Quite likely.  Our family room lights cause flying insects to congregate.

The window gave us a great vantage point to see his suction cup toes in action. Even with suction cups, I thought he was brave to climb so high for his supper.

Vine ripened, ready to eat

Growing up on the farm, we had a big garden. Big enough to fill our fruit cellar and deep freeze. Enough to feed our family at every meal,  through the winter, until the garden gave up its bounty again the next year.

One thing we did not grow was melons, though we loved them dearly. Instead, we waited for Dillon Marlow to drive his truck down our lane. Every summer he came, the back of his pickup loaded with melons. And then did we feast! As much watermelon as we wanted, every day until it was gone.

He only brought us watermelon once a year. I never thought much about the fact that he only delivered melons once each summer until we began to grow melons on our acreage a few years ago.

We only plant one hill of cantaloupe and then we wait. We watch the vines branch out and the buds blossom. We watch the melons form and fill out, first green and then yellow. Then all of a sudden, they are ripe. Almost all of them. On the same day!

Of course there is no way for just two of us to eat so many melons, though lord knows we give it our best shot. There is nothing so sweet, so tasty, as a vine-ripened melon. For a week we eat like royalty and share our largesse with friends.

This year, today is the day for melon. I brought in six melons. Several others will ripen over the next week. But then they'll be done for the year.  Unlike other produce, melons don't preserve well. Melon is one of those fruits it's best to eat fresh.

When I carried all the melons into the house today, I thought of my neighbor who came with his truck just once a summer. All of his melons vine ripened and ready eat. At the same time.

Algae bloom art

I joined friends for a walk along the bike trail north of Johnston over the weekend. We went early in an unsuccessful effort to beat the heat and humidity. At 7:30 a.m., the sun was still low in the sky, throwing long shadows across the trail.

The trail was an excuse for a walk and talk. More interested in talking than sightseeing, we were totally unprepared to be stopped in our tracks by the algae bloom covering the lake and back water on both sides of the trail.

An algae bloom may be caused by many things and often the reasons and the results aren't positive. I don't know what caused this one, but the result was art.

The green and yellow colors were brilliant. The shadows dramatic. The result of this algae bloom was a scene reminiscent of a Pixar-produced wonderland. The colors changed from green to yellow to silver depending on the angle of sun. The surface appeared to be glass or ice or velvet. The photographic results were exciting color contrasted with subtle black and white. Both dramatic.

Maybe we're not supposed to like algae blooms, but it would be impossible not to enjoy the art nature used the algae to create.