Contemporary 1 - A beautiful Morning
History.
I looked it up in Merriam-Webster. Good old Merriam gave
me words like “Tale” and “Story”. It said that history is a chronological
record of significant events. It didn’t say, however, who would judge which
events were significant nor how they would so be judged. It did suggest that
often an explanation of the significant events’ causes would be included. As I
read further Merriam clarified that “history” is simply the events of the past.
hmmm, Past. So, what exactly is “past”? Back I went to
Merriam. “Just gone or elapsed. A period before the present.” Well, that made sense, I guess. Still one more
question. “Present.”
“Now existing or in progress.” Good old Merriam-Webster.
Has a definition for everything, which, by the way, according to Merriam, is
“a: all that exists b: all
that relates to the subject.”
Based on this information so far, there are any number of
philosophical paths I could shoot off on but I began with “History”, so I guess
I should stick to history. Based on what I’ve seen so far, then, I’m thinking a
case could easily be made that all of what I’ve written in this post so far, is
“History”, in more ways than one. I wrote it and that’s an event. It is past,
not present meaning it is not “now” so it must be “before”, so it is history.
Now, if something so recent can be called “History”,
certainly what happened yesterday can be called History, or last week, or last
year. We often think of History as the things that transpired in 1957 or 1870 or
1738 or 1600 or 1492. But here we are saying that what happened just yesterday
is history! If what happened yesterday is history than stories of the Drums of
Drums from yesterday, or even this morning, seem relevant to this blog.
That was a way-too-long-way of saying that as occurrences
from the present take place that may have relevance to the Drums of Drums story, I’ll
write them up and post them here, sort of “in-between” the stuff about the more
distant past. I have a friend who refers to stuff like this as “Contemporary
History.” I suggest that “Contemporary History” may be even more important than
plain old “History History” because, as the occurrences of the moment become
the actions of the far distant past, the reports chronicling the events of the present will become
invaluable to those of the future seeking to understand what happened in the
past.
So, we begin with this morning, August 15, 2018. It was a
beautiful morning.
The sun had not been up for very long when I decided it
was the perfect morning to take a walk. Lately it has been raining. It has been
raining since, well, it feels like forever. Today dawned bright and clear and,
most importantly, dry. At least the sky and the air were “dry”. The ground and
the grass and the trees and the roofs were all covered in a thin layer of water
as if all that moisture that had been making it rain these past few days just decided
to lay down and rest for a while.
So, I headed out across the Drumyngham property. I’ve allowed
what once was an orchard, to grow wild, to fill itself with Raspberry bushes, Goldenrod,
Queen Anne’s Lace, and, unfortunately, a bit of Poison Ivy. As the ground turned
from the browns and whites of winter into the greens and pastels of spring, I
cut a path through this orchard so I could wander past the old apple trees,
some now overgrown with grape vines and Virginia Creeper, past the Dogwood and
the Blue Spruce, and through the stands of Goldenrod that I knew by fall would
be as tall as me, or taller. It was down this path that I walked today.
The layer of water that had taken its rest on the grass
and leaves around me began to grow restless, so formed into droplets, and began
jumping down to the ground below, or, as was often the case, onto my head,
cheeks, or nose. As the sun made its way higher into the sky, these droplets
caught some of the sun’s rays and broke them into hundreds of thousands of tiny
rainbows causing the scene in front of me to dance in flecks of colors almost too
tiny to see. It was beautiful. What a pleasure.
The growing warmth of the sun gave many of the orchard’s
insects the courage to “come to life” and take flight, some sending tiny
splashes of the morning dew up into the air about them as they leapt from their
leaf or stem. Small Flower Flies, always so brave and curious, looking like
tiny bees in their yellow and black striped outfits, began to make me the
center of their curiosity as they circled around my head, landing on my hands
and arms, tasting to see if I had brought them something delicious to breakfast
upon.
The Katy-dids had all by now stopped their raspy overnight scratchings
of their namesake leaving just the night crickets to call for their mates. Their
constant soft whir was beginning to give way to that of the day grasshoppers
whose calls can raise a sound that at times can be deafening. I know that later
in the day they will be joined by the harsh buzzing calls of the Cicadas and
the orchestra will then be in full voice. But not yet, it is still early, the
songs still soft, like the dew.
As I made my way along my path, harsh caw-caws of some
crows could be heard coming from the field down below. Suddenly the scolding cries
of a much closer Robin replaced the caws in my ears as mother Robin warned me
to stay away. Her nest is near, and she means business, so stay away, she
warns. A Mourning Dove sitting high in one of the spruces beside me coos her
soft, sad call, as if trying to sooth mother Robin and let her know this
visitor means her no harm.
By now my pant legs had become quite soaked and, as I was
reaching the end of my path, I turned to head back in, back into the house
where I grew up, where so many of my memories reside, as do I. As I stepped
from the bright sun into the cool darkness of the basement, I thought of how
often I’d done this same thing in the past, following my dad, hearing my mom
call me from the kitchen above. Both are long gone now but it seemed I could still
hear Mom saying, “Get out of those wet things! You are dripping all over
everything and you’ll catch your death of cold!” and my dad chuckling, as he
always did when she made such a command.
I almost hated to do it, but I did as she asked and pulled
off my wet things. I hung them on the clothes lines still stretched around the
basement where she, herself, had tied them. I hated to do it because it meant
my morning was ending and the day now needed to get started.
So now this morning, too, has taken its place among the
many memories I have of life at Drumyngham.
What relevance this will have for some future historian
researching the past I’m sure I don’t know, but it sure was a beautiful
morning.
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