"In the Heart of the Country"
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In the Heart of the Countryside --------by Susy--------------------- Oh, wish it were the end of Summer and my favorite season, Autumn, was nigh. The Fall with its mercifully chilly but not freezing cold air, nature's air conditioning, and gorgeous Fall colors the flora garb themselves in as a prelude to near-total disrobing. I wish I could bid Summer goodbye soon; farewell to sweltering bright blinding sunshine, multitudes of dead squashed frogs in the road, and hordes of giddy liberated school kids buzzing around as if Summer is endless. Which is how it seems to them. And indeed, here in the South, it can seem to last for six months! Sky-high temps make this season seem unending to me, too. And the prospect of Fall and Halloween school carnivals looms ravishing and enticing, but more than that, Nature's belated air conditioning at just the right setting. How sweet it will be. But when I was a kid, summers were the big thrill. At Daddy Lewis's farm right across the road where he had chickens I stalked the rooster very early in the mornings as he slowly paraded around his kingdom--unnerving to stare a stern kingly rooster in his cold eye. I didn't mind the green chicken manure squishing in between my bare grubby toes, or the flies, because after that, I would chase a squadron of squaawking ducks, shrieking at the top of my lungs which was great fun. (The rooster chased me, while I screamed.) The sudden sting of sandspurs in my shoeless soles was always dreaded. I also anticipated the special day when I could peel the skin of the first pomegranate of the season--a rare-seeming luscious fruit I regarded as outrageously exotic and desirable with its hundreds of crimson sweet and sour tiny red rubies clustered inside. I ate a grasshopper once when I was really little and barbaric, but a few years later felt disgust at the worm I discovered in the plum I'd just bitten into, and spat it out. Summer was quite a sumptuous banquet. There was a certain type of mostly sour, harmless weed topped with little purple flowers we liked to chew on, wild raspberries, blackberries and blueberries, and delicious messy peach and watermelon repasts. The chance to buy lots of notebook paper, pencils, and a few outfits and shoes made the end of all this delightful freedom more bearable. Even now, as an "adult" or one who pretends to be one, my Fall and Winter wardrobe is superior to my "summer fashions" (thrift store specials!) collection. Speaking of fashion, a man bounded into the office the other day and hollered out "Hey Garfunkel where's Rootie Tootie" and posed dramatically in the doorway, wearing glaringly white shorts--his golfing attire, he said, and a charming ensemble it was. Especially topped off with its crowning touch, a red caterpiller cap. (He had on a loudly colored patterned shirt too, and funny golfing shoes and socks, of course.) It's things like this which make me glad to live in the hotbox fireball roast-you-to-a-"tee" Southland.--SUSY
