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Chirps from Cardinallady by cardinallady
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It's CHRISTMAS TIME in the city
Yesterday I was strolling through Wally World and I overheard this lone little caroler from the basket singing "Santa Clause Is Coming to Town"
I couldn't help but smile because there were adults talking around and over him, but he was there in his own little world warbling his little song from the bottom of his heart. And I smiled... Children make Christmas special.
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Love your grandparents while you can
Finished reading John 4[th] time 10 after 8 a.m. Oct. 15, 1983, Sat., Regina spent the night with us Fri. -notation in Grandma’s Bible at the end of the book of John.
I can still see Grandma’s sweet smiling face peering at me from over the sink as I drove up that crisp fall day.
It was my first trip to their house in my new “flivver” as she called it, a maroon 1976 Plymouth Duster.
It was also my first taste of being at Grandma and Grandpa’s house as an adult by myself, because I had just learned how to drive.
Grandpa had a fire going in the hearth and grandma had a warm supper on the table to greet me as I walked into the old kitchen.
The next morning we went on a road trip to Tishomingo State Park in Iuka and spent the night in a little cabin.
It was lovely waking up the next morning and looking at the river. I took pictures of the pretty sweet gum trees.
Over this past month I’ve thought about the influence that my grandparents have had in my life.
Each grandparent had their own special brand of memories.
For grandpa it was muscadine hunting and finding treasures in the dump or eating at some little homey restaurant I’d never been to before.
Granddaddy on the other hand took me hunting at Grenada, tried to teach me how to drive a stick shift, and pulled me through the snow on the hood of an old car.
Grandmama and I spent many a quiet afternoon on the lake wetting our hook and Grandma Butler treated me with a tall glass of lemonade and stories of her childhood on many a hot summer day.
Recently I went to the cemetery to visit grandmama and granddaddy’s grave in memory of losing granddad two years ago.
I couldn’t help but reflect on the joy that they were in my life. Tears stung my eyes as I remembered that soon it would be grandparents day, and for the first time in my life I won’t have a grandparent to go see.
I cleaned the old flowers from the grave and put out the fresh fall bouquet I’d just picked, a brand new American flag blushed from amongst the yellow blooms.
I reverently dug a hole and buried the old flags, resting them in peace below granddad’s foot marker.
It was funny how something so mundane could bring such comfort to my soul as I reverently cared for the little bits of material and the last resting place of my grandparents.
I walked to the back fence to throw the old dried magnolia leaves into the woods. The yellow leaved muscadine vine caught my eye.
The purple fruit hung in a pretty smile above my head.
I stood on my tiptoe and picked the ripe orbs, I closed my eyes as I tasted the sweet goodness letting the tears spill down my cheeks as the moments of yesterday stole their way down the corridors of time.
Before long I left the cemetery, pulling the gate quietly behind me.
I drove home with a pocket full of muscadines and a heart full of memories.
This column was written September 2009.
From my column bank, written September, 2003
Have you noticed it? The gorgeous September moon.
There I was standing in the parking lot at Wal-Mart calling to folks who passed by to look at the eastern sky.
A beautiful full orange moon was poised just behind the steeple of West Heights Baptist Church.
It was the second time I stopped people and made them look at the sky. Last June I did the same when a giant rainbow arced across the eastern sky. Now it was the moon.
I just can’t help myself when I see something beautiful, I think others must share in the beauty.
It was more dangerous than usual for me to drive home that night. I kept looking in my outside rear view mirror at the orange moon following me home.
When I got there I called my sister Kirsten.
“You’ve gotta see the moon,” I insisted.
“I can’t see it from the back door,” she replied.
“Then hang up the phone and go outside and look at it,” I ordered.
I don’t know if she followed my orders, but if she didn’t, she surely missed a pretty sight.
This wasn’t the first time the moon has enamored me in the last few days.
One day as I travelled the streets the moon was a pale sphere rising in the east while the giant fire ball sun was setting in the western sky.
That’s a sight you don’t get to see too often, and I was grateful to have caught it.
I realize the sun and the moon are every day sights, but sometimes we get caught up in “living” that we forget to stop and notice the miracles around us.
Our world turns one more day and we are in it. Golden yellow flowers nod in the breeze against an azure sky. The wind whispers to the leaves in the trees high above of the fall that is sure to come.
And the ever changing moon goes from full to half to a deep grin, marking our days, reminding us that life, with its little pleasures, is indeed good.
I miss shelling peas and the old black fan
I couldn’t wait to get my treasure home. While Mom and Dad were away, Daddy asked me to look after his garden.
“You can have the peas you pick,” he said.
I carried my peas home and pulled out the pea-shelling pan. Now, most of you may not have a pea-shelling pan, but I do.
It was one of the small treasures I took from Grandmom’s house after she changed her address from Liberty Street to Golden Street.
As I sat cross- legged in the yard, I put the little round silver pan in my lap as I did when I was a kid and brushed back a tear.
The pink- eyed peas plunked in the pan pleasantly as I ran them through my fingers. The white skin from inside the hull slipped out like little tufts of cotton.
I couldn’t help but remember the days of shelling buckets of peas at Grandmother’s house. She put us grandkids, from the 2-year-old on up, on the front porch with our little pans and gave us a spare bucket to pitch the hulls in when we were done. Those would later be given to the horses to munch on.
And if the air was stifling without a breeze, she would run the extension cord out on the front porch and bring out the old black fan with its wide, friendly face.
She would switch it on so it would turn back and forth and sweep the breeze over all of us so that nobody could “hog the air” as my cousins often accused the other of doing in front of the box fan.
The watchful eye of that fan brought us through many a hot summer while the locusts droned in the trees outside.
If there weren’t any peas to shell, Grandmama would bring a couple of old quilts out to the porch and spread them into a nice, thick, comfortable pallet.
We would stretch out on the sun-dried mattress while the fan stirred the breeze and even if it was a hot day, on that old concrete porch, the fan kept us cool. It was a comfortable way to get through the hot summer day at Grandmama's house. And I’m sure she enjoyed the peace.
Sometimes I wish that fan could talk to me, for it was privy to conversations when I wasn’t there.
It would stir Granddad’s pipe smoke in the air and ever so gently lull the babies to sleep with its steady humming song.
And in the late afternoon, when the shadows grew long and supper was on the table, that fan kept the flies at bay while Grandmother poured the tea in the old jelly glasses.
Night time was my favorite because we would all be gathered together in the living room. We kids would sit on the floor watching westerns on the black and white television screen with Granddad while Mom and Grandmama talked.
Every now and then, Ma Sanders would come over and visit, too, with her little silver snuff can and toothbrush stick.
But if we kids got too loud, we would be sent outside to catch fireflies in the dark or to play hide-and-seek or chase so the grown-ups could talk in peace.
And all the while, the black fan with its steadily turning blades kept the air stirred and the grown-ups comfortable while they made memories they will never forget.
Oh, for one more hour to play in the yard and listen to the old black fan and the sound of memory’s voice wafting in the air.
Are you a bird watcher? I am
I filled up Grandpa’s bird feeder and as I closed the lid, I thought of all the days I’d watched birds come to eat at it when I visited him.
The tears gathered in my eyes. I’d give it back to him in a heartbeat if I could see him again. I longed for one more hour to enjoy watching the birds with him and listening to him count the little tails on the perch.
Later as I washed dishes, a beautiful yellow finch lit on the perch to eat. And at the other feeder I spied a blue indigo. Before long, the cardinals chirped over the seeds and the purple house finches came in for a meal.
Feeding the birds and watching them flit around the yard has been a favorite past time of mine for years now.
It is a fulltime, year-round hobby. Even before I acquired my collection of bird feeders, I’d put the seed on the ledge outside my window and watch the little finches fly in for their wintertime meal.
It is a marvelous way to get closer to nature. I feel like a zookeeper some days when I go out to feed my birds.
If I leave one particular feeder empty a day or two so they will feed on the other feeders, it seems as if the birds are watching me as I go out to fill it up.
I will hear them overhead in the pecan tree or the near by trees on the fence row.
As soon as I leave the feeder, I see them wrap it up. They like that particular feeder because it is so far off the ground.
I recently left it empty too many days in a row because when I went to fill it red wasps had taken it over for their home.
Out came the vinegar. I sprayed them down good with it and they flew away. They can’t stand the smell in those close quarters.
I tore the nest down and filled the feeder up. That’s the beauty of vinegar, it is safe for the birds and will drive away six-legged pests.
I suppose I love to watch the birds because they are colorful and fascinating.
Even the dull and somber mourning dove has an overall pink appearance on its breast, and what looks gray is actually a gray-blue color.
And birds don’t have just one size fits all calls, a different tone is used according to the situation.
For instance, a cardinal has a common purdy, purdy, purdy call or you may hear them say chip when they come to the feeder. And if you hear chip, several times in a row it is a call of alarm.
I was apprised of this fascinating site on the Web by one of my blogger friends called birdjam.
It is a great site to go to and listen to the call of different birds so you can identify who is in the trees talking to you.
If you would like to listen in on the birds, here is the Web link: http://www.birdjam.com. When you get to the site, click on Learn bird songs! under the About birdJam on the left hand side of the page.
It has taught me all the different sounds that the birds make and I’m just now beginning to realize that what I thought were two different birds was really one bird’s call.
So now, after I fill my bird feeder, I retreat to that board swing my dear son built for me and listen to the song of the birds on the breeze while I’m watching them come and enjoy their meal on Grandpa’s feeder that continues to bring me somber joy.
