Autumn memoirs from a childhood in the Pennsylvania countryside.
Copyright 2013
Many precious memory leaves dangle on the aging tree of my life, some of them are a vibrant mosaic of Autumn-hued leaves from my childhood. Amongst them are recollections of wearing a sassy red woolen beret while driving my turquoise Murray car over the brown leaf-covered lawn of our Pennsylvania farmhouse; crunching the yellow and rust-colored leaves beneath my feet as I walked to the end of the dusty country lane for the bright yellow school bus; the invigorating and crisp air, a welcomed reprieve from the long and sultry days and exhaustive dark nights of summertime without air conditioning; picking many dark blue Concord grapes from the arbor in back of the house, and stopping to eat one now and then; and my mom canning juice and making a clear purple jelly made from those grapes.
A real treat was choosing bright orange pumpkins, along with my cousins, Tommy and Teresa, from Grandpa Harrell's pumpkin patch; chilled apple cider; playing hide and seek amongst the lifeless golden brown corn stalks; dressingup for Halloween in my black cat costume; an abundance of golden pears and crimson red apples rinsed in an ancient sink with icy cold water from a hand pump; the fragrance of spicy and sweet pumpkin and apple pies; my dad cuttinga ruby red apple in half and scraping, with a spoon, the sweet goodness for meas Isat inhis lap; ebony shelled black walnuts and fresh crunchy chestnuts from the trees near our dark red barn; a bowl of mixed nuts witha nut cracker and picks for getting all the nut’s goodness out of the shell.
Memories include wearing deep jewel-colored cardigan sweaters; my mom peeling buckets of apples to make sweet, cinnamon-colored apple butter; on a crisp morning, precious warmth from the wood cooking stove in the kitchen; crystalline blue skies sporadically dotted with fluffy white clouds, and lastbut not theleast, the feeling that coursed through me as I sat in the back seat of our big, maroon Hudson sedan, looking out at God’s awesome palette of colors as my dad drove us along the country drive to church on Sunday mornings that time of year.
Much of what you've written can still be experienced by Pennsylvania farm children today. I grew up in Wisconsin; while not on a farm, my experience, especially not having air conditioning and ice cold pump water, was similar. As a child, the only wine my relatives drank was Mogen David. My only contact with Concord grapes. I liked the wine, and always asked for some. Fall color in Wisconsin is unbeatable.
It was only when I lived in Morgantown, West Virginia for six years that I discovered the beauty of fall in the mountains and Concord grapes. My office was a house built in 1928 that West Virginia University had purchased and our department had converted for use. There was a grape arbor on the side of the house. That summer, it was purple with grapes, and, with the help of some graduate students, we harvested half of a large paper shopping bag of the sweet fruit. I took the bag with me all the way to northern Wisconsin over the Labor Day weekend where it was enjoyed by everyone at our family get-together on the lake.
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