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       A woman struggles to adjust to a solitary life as she packs her husband's belongings. 

Last Rose of the Season

 

Americana

 Jeez, I’m getting old.

 Took in a unique bit of Americana last month – the County Fair.

 

Ignore the creaking of my rocking chair as I say, back in my day, the Fair was the highlight of the summer. Rides. Prizes. Animals. Foods one never saw the rest of the year. And it was always hotter than hell, but that made it a day a person never forgot.

 

Remember the time Grandma sat right down on the grass next to the Tilt-a-whirl? 

 

(She survived.)

 

Remember the time the cotton candy melted in Daddy’s hand while we were on the ferris wheel?

 

(Liar, liar.)

 

Packed dirt walkways between corrals and beat up old buildings filled with bunches of stuff grown, sewn, and built while rattling swamp coolers kept the place humid.

 

Barns stuffed with all manner of livestock come to town. 

 

Once I saw one of the five largest dairy bulls in the country at a county fair. The top of his tail was a clear foot above my head and his manly bullish parts were the size of a ten pound roast. And that was a lot of bull.

 

(Honest.)

 

When they paved the walkways, I figured it was the beginning of the end.

 

Used to be, (creak, creak) we showed we could feed and clothe ourselves. We had skills to make things and were proud of our craft. Now, there’s a few displays in one row while a couple of old souls, nostalgia gripping their hearts, wander past for a look.

 

The 4H kids barely keep one barn dusty with a small herd of miscellaneous critters.

 

This year, the fair is mostly concerts with stages, lights and seating taking up all the room that used to be filled displays and stuff you never knew you needed to buy until you wandered into the shade to prevent heat stroke.

 

I guess it was always so. Comfort comes from memories and routine. Nostalgia doesn’t have to be bitter if we don’t allow it to prevent the joy of new stuff.

 

I sat in the shade of a tractor and ate fry bread. So all was not lost.

 

Then I went home to dust off my rocking chair.

The Nature of Hope

 After twice being decimated by Montana's heathen deer, the rose bush is budding once again.

The first thing I thought when I saw the tiny bud was, hope springs eternal.

And I moved the rose into a pot in the house so the deer just go bother someone else.

Necessity being the mother of invention. (1894 translation of Plato's Republic.)

(Who knew? I always thought it was my mother.)

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; 

Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore! 

What future bliss, he gives not thee to know, 

But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. 

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: 

Man never is, but always to be blest: 

Alexander Pope

For those more playful, less literary -- 

"... A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest

Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;

They thought, "If only Casey could but get a whack at that—

We'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat."

Ernest Thayer

Wouldn't It Be Nice ...