Aunt Norie’s Sewing Room
“Just give it time.” Haven’t we all heard that from day one? “Time changes everything,” and so many more. No need to worry for a thing. Another I’ve always heard, I think maybe my most favorite: “Just turn the page.”
And so it’s been with our unusually long, and nationwide, hot weather this year. A neighbor and I chatted this morning. We haven’t seen a slug, those nasty creatures. Oh, they have been so thick, even climbing and eating my tomatoes. No mosquitoes, no problem with ticks. They only mowed the lawn once or twice. On and on in that vein, but no, that’s indeed like looking for that needle in the haystack, now isn’t it?
I so well remember a like period in 1934. My little brother, Joe, was born in June. New mothers then had to stay in bed for 10 days. It was so hot and dry, crops were burning in the fields with that blistering, hot south wind. I remember dad carrying huge pails of water, ice cold from that wonderful well. He dipped heavy layers of burlap gunny sacks into the water and hung them on nails over the window, trying to cool that hot wind before it then blew over mom’s bed inside.
This was about 15-20 miles south west of Holton up Highway 75, north of Topeka. Electricity was coming, but still miles away from us.
I also remember the end of it all, “The sounds of its end.” I remember Dad, so tall, he was standing there, his arms outstretched, his voice: “That’s the prettiest music I’ve ever heard.”
I don’t know if I can even describe that scene. The sun was hot and glaring from the south, so still, no wind. A dark, low-hanging cloud coming in from the north, as yet no wind, but that sound. The big, heavy rain drops clattering on those dried, hard corn stalks (Dad’s music) beating harder and harder. Those big drops stinging as they hit us kids. We stomped in the dust, turning to mud, even dad joining us, our joining hands stomping in a circle and singing.
Sorry if I rambled a bit today.
— Aunt Norie, PO Box 265, Tonganoxie, KS 66086; firstname.lastname@example.org