I have lived in the Northeast most of my life and I have lived in other parts of the U.S. long enough to be able to compare what happens in Spring. When the days continue to gain in daylight minutes and the temperatures continue to rise there comes a point when the earth explodes through the living vegetation. After the snow drops, crocuses, and scilla siberica all have bloomed the earth has warmed sufficiently and the rest of the plants awaken to rush to the party. The show has begun. The trees take center stage in this neighborhood because they are plentiful and dominant. Maples and red oak line the roads. As the sun gets higher each day the light sensitive buds on the trees react and begin to shed the bud coverings to let the tree flowers to open and cause the reproductive cycle to “get it on”. As one drives the back roads in Boothbay the evidence is on the ground. Red flower petals from the maples and oaks dust the surface in windrows at the edges next to the shoulder. Often the scent of the flowers wafts gently along and the smell is quite nice.
This is also the time for the tulips and daffodils to blossom and for other indications of what is to come. Branches of vines and fruit trees as well as rose bushes and lilac bushes all have swollen buds and small leaves turning the brown and gray of winter into shades of green and yellow of Spring. The daytime air is warm but as soon as the sun dips below the treeline across the road it gets much cooler. Nighttime temps go low and sometimes there is a freeze that slows or interrupts leaf generation. If gardeners are too excited to plant this is the time when their work is undone and the plants are killed by the nighttime freeze. Plastic coverings are needed if plants are in the ground. It is best to be patient with the little seedlings. Keep them inside until late May or the first of June.
I really enjoy being at home during this season. The long, dark, freezing Winter has tested the cellular structure of all of us and Spring is a demonstration of the ruggedness of the root stock and the resilience of the people as well. Winters are hard in the Northeast and Spring is a quiet celebration until the trees usher in warmer days that promise comfortable nights. Then it is black fly time so don’t relax.
Here is something I wrote a few years back that describes a few things in my life then. I was learning to write in the style of Hemingway. He could give minute details in short sentences and keep the story flowing. I gave it a try with this short story. The style also contributes to the imagination of the writer I believe. Let me know if you like in the comments below. Thanks.
Newport News
I’m sitting on the new day bed I built. I finished it Sunday afternoon. I’m holding a collection of Hemingway’s short stories in my hands. I’m leaning forward as if on a bunk in a barracks. My elbows are on my knees and the book is held low. I am alone in the house. No one else lives here.
The day bed is made from pine boards fastened with sheet rock screws. The boards I salvaged from my ex-wife’s window shelves. I made those too. She used them to hold plants she’d hauled in from the garden for the winter. She’s no longer here so I’ve changed a few things. It’s not like I’m destroying anything. She took her plants with her and the shelves are no longer needed. I got tired of looking at the shelves with nothing on them except for the debris that’s lived there long after she’d left. The sheet rock screws I saved from when I took the shelves apart.
There is sausage frying in a cast iron pan on the stove. At the same time a half chicken is baking in foil in the oven. I bought the meat from the Fresh Approach Market in Portland. The place is on Bracket Street in the West End, across from the Reiche Elementary School. It’s near Spring Street. I listen to the meat making meat noises. Every once in a while I‘m distracted by a red bird hitting the window behind me. It’s a cardinal sparring with itself. That’s been going on for several months.
The distraction’s interrupted my reading and causes me to notice how I’m sitting. I’m reminded of a guy who shared a room with me in Newport News. The room was eleven dollars a week each for a double. There are two single beds in a small room near the front of the house; second floor front on a quiet street near the shipyard. The street is between Jefferson Avenue and the shipyard proper. We didn’t have to walk far to get to work. Only about three blocks to the gate.
I remember the guy as quiet and polite, he kept to himself. We’d say hello, mention the heat of the day and that was it. I was not in the room very often except to sleep. Several times I would awaken during the night after we’d turned out the light and find him sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows on knees, smoking a cigarette. We’d look at each other in the dark and then I would turn my pillow over and go back to sleep. Since this was a boarding house we only met at meals and before sleep. I don’t remember his name, only that he sat on the edge of his bed with his elbows on his knees, just like I am now.
I moved in with a couple of shipmates after a week or so of living in the boarding house. Roger Schlief and Tom Owens rented a small trailer in a park just beyond Mercury Boulevard. We knew each other well. We’d been batching it for about a year in the process of training to be on the spanking new submarine being built at the shipyard. I remember Roger drove a 1960 Buick Special Station wagon, Tom a 1955 Plymouth Savoy, and I a 1960 SAAB 93. We all were newly weds so we spent a lot of time together in healthy pursuits such as playing under the hoods of our cars. Tom didn’t drink alcohol and Roger and I would sip a beer or two after work was done. Our entertainment was gained from strolling Washington Avenue in the early evening catching the local flavor of Newport News. Although the city was just across the Hampton Roads waterway from Norfolk there was little resemblance. Norfolk contained a major Navy presence while this place was primarily civilian blue collar. Also Newport News had white lightening.
.
George Goodwin
May 4, 2013
Playing Fair and Being Kind 