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May 2009
At last!!! May is finally here!
I can’t think of anyone that doesn’t think that May is his or her favorite time of the year. Oh, we might enjoy certain holidays and dig the snow on a beautiful winter’s day, or the sight of leaves turning in the fall. But May, by it’s very nature, is all about new growth, new beginnings and the fertility of our lives and world. In fact, since ancient times the month of May has signaled a time of celebration and joy.
In medieval days squires, knights and all the rest of the men folk used to chase the maidens around the castle gardens with lustful intent. The term for it was going “a-Maying”. Now a-days it’s become more G-rated and we call it a picnic. Whatever ya wanna call it, it might be a good idea to throw some fried chicken on the scoot, grab yer sweetie and ride someplace green to frolic and get lusty (just a suggestion. If ya get busted blame it on me).
When May comes around your senses just get blasted with growing things. The birds have come back from wherever they went for the winter and their whistles and chirps fill your ears. Ya start seeing the grass start to grow greener and thicker (ain’t nothin’ like the smell of fresh cut grass!). The flowers start to wake and rise from their beds and you begin to notice the leaves on the trees turning thicker and greener as ya feel the warmth from the bright sunshine begin to bake your skin. Your vegetable garden (if ya have one) turns from a dirt patch to rows of green sprouts literally reaching for the sun.
Regarding flowers and gardens, everything I’ve ever planted that was legal grew into a dried up stick, if it grew at all. But my woman Julie has a green thumb. She could probably grow palm trees in Canada. The only problem with that is every spring she agonizes over what to plant where. Sunlight, shade, moist, etc are things I’ve never considered. I just made sure I put my “plants” where they couldn’t be seen from the road. But that wasn’t good enough one hot summer night.
On such an evening long ago a bunch of friends and myself were sitting around a fire out back singing songs, drinking and telling stories when a neighbor came running up to my fire pit.
“OH NO!! I’m so sorry Bummer!”
“For what Floyd?”
“I saw the reflection of the fire in your kitchen window and called the fire department because I thought your house was on fire!”
My friends and myself spent the next few frantic minutes running around pulling things out of the ground by their roots and throwing ‘em in the garage (I think that was probably the most excitement I’ve ever had with my clothes on).
Shortly after that we started hearing sirens and soon a few fire trucks pulled up spewing out firemen, hoses and more excitement. I explained the mistake as a few of them walked all around the perimeter making sure there was no fire. Since I live in an un-zoned township they had nothing to say about the fire pit. The firemen eventually packed up all their equipment and left us in silence as we stood looking at each other with raised eyebrows. Floyd was nowhere to be seen.
I got hold of him the next day and thanked him profusely and of course didn’t say anything about the wasted, dying plants in my garage. Mistaken or not, what he did could have ended up saving my home and my life! It’s always good to have neighbors watching yer back. Emergence personnel were called once before when another neighbor called in that they heard screams coming from my house. That time I came home from work to find firemen crowded around a woman handcuffed to a brass pole in my bar, but I won’t get into that now (this was way before I met Julie….she has her own key!).
Getting back to growing things: I really do appreciate the fact that Julie plants and weeds the flowers and even puts in and tends a little vegetable garden. It allows me to at least pretend that I’m of some help with it all. The reality of it is that I just help her pick out what to plant, but that’s about it. And even then, I’m sure she just pretends to listen to what I have to say about it because she knows way more about what we can grow and what we can’t.
But speaking for the rest of us who are agriculturally challenged, and because of that pay less attention to the weather, soon we’ll start to take the sunshine for granted like we do every year. It’s amazing that though we all claim to worship the spring and summer’s sun, which is only here for a relatively few months, we soon forget how much we’ve missed it over the winter.
We put away and forget about our winter coats and gloves, our snow shovels and our sidewalk salt. We start bitching about the heat. Complaining about the rain, or lack of it. We spend entire days inside our homes away from the sun in the air-conditioned coolness. We pitter away our summer just like we pitter away the rest of the days of our lives, until that day comes when we realize that it’s all over for another year. Then we’ll start bitching about that!
But for now let’s enjoy this wonderful spring weather that will lead us into a glorious summer. For now let’s cruise through the green countryside under blue skies. Let’s plan road trips and swap meets and poker runs and try to take advantage of the sunshine while we have it. Let’s lie in the sun with a cooler full of ice-cold beers and bake our brains out!
By the way, speaking of all that: Don’t forget to make sure ya plan on going to the June Jam next month on the 19th thru the 21st. in glorious Hopedale Ohio. Do what ever ya gotta do to start making your plans now.
Summer’s almost here people and the time is right for dancin’ in the street!
Bummer
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