Hot and humid days mark the beginning of our new month, as we leave August behind for another year.

Cooler days are ahead for us, as autumn comes in earnest.  This has always been my favorite season of the year, until chilly winds and snow flurries tell autumn farewell.

While my fingers are busy on the computer, my mind is roaming the woods and I am longing to go once more to Hickory Knob and camp out once more.  In my growing-up years, Daddy took us every fall season to this rustic and isolated place to spend a week.  I can see the deep forest, smell the unforgettable fragrance of clean, woodsy soil when the sun shines hot on it, and see the curl of wood smoke from the campfire.

I feel the clean, fresh water that comes down the Ha’nted Lick holler, and see the cucumber trees dropping their huge leaves in the road.  I can taste the bacon and fried potatoes cooked over the campfire outdoors, and hear the excited yells of the grandchildren as they swing on the grapevine swing and climb through the trees.  Daddy always cut us a grapevine swing, and even after we were married women, we swung.

I want to sit around the campfire after it is built up hot and roaring at night, toasting my front while my backside shivers.  I could even enjoy the blackened, crusty marshmallows toasted by too eager children and offered lovingly to Mommaw.  I want to sleep in the little camper at night and awaken to frost covering the campsite, and the morning sun bringing down the golden maple leaves.  I have had a long-standing love affair with nature and her woods, and it is calling me again.  I have beautiful memories of years gone by spent with Daddy and the family in the woods of Hickory Knob; memories that I will always cherish.

Alas, that time is gone forever.  It is sad that I will never again be able to tromp through the woods, or dabble my feet in the cold water that flows there.  The time comes when Grandma spends her time in her wheel chair or going from room to room on her walker.  But that is not the end of it—Heaven is there for the pure in heart, and its glories could never be described.  Sometimes I get anxious to go there and leave this corrupt, sinful world.  Won’t that be wonderful!

If there is anything that can make a person aware of the swift passing of time, and how the years have gone by, it is a school reunion.  Our Hagar Grade school reunion was this past Saturday, and the memories keep lingering on and on.  From the Bethel Methodist Church Fellowship Hall where we gathered, we could see up the hill where the school once stood. Although it is gone now, in our mind the white, two-room building was clearly seen.

Some of us remembered the time that lightning struck the big oak tree that grew right beside the schoolhouse.  In fact, some of its limbs touched the roof there.  There was a bank of windows on that side, and a few minutes before it happened, Mr. Hinkle had closed them as he saw a thunderstorm approaching.  I think I must have been in the seventh grade, as our row was close the other side.  It happened so fast—a streak of lightning and ear-splitting boom of thunder simultaneously– that we were all shocked and screaming at the same time.

I remember seeing a ball of fire come out of a plug-in and go rolling down the aisle where we were sitting.  Rosalie Brown (Burdette) was screaming, “Mommy—Eugene!”  It was a once in a lifetime experience.  We were all in such a shocked state that Mr. Hinkle dismissed school and let us all go home.

We were terrified for a long time after if a thunderstorm threatened.  Somewhere we had heard that feathers would be a safe guard against lightning, and I can remember all of us carrying a feather pillow and encircling Mom.  Sometimes she would be sewing on the old Singer foot treadle machine, and we would pile our pillows all around her.  I don’t know why we thought she would be able to ward off lightning.

Oh, there were lots of old memories, and many sad ones when we began remembering the ones who are already gone.  The crowd was smaller this year, and it’s no wonder when you consider our age and the year that school was discontinued there.  Our daughter Patty was in the last class there (first grade) and she is now 62 years old.  Sometime, it will have to be the last time.

With canning season almost over, and the children back in school, many housewives are beginning their fall cleaning.  I have been thinking of compiling some household hints that are tried and true.  These things have been learned through bitter experience.  First, a young housewife should know that there are certain laws, which go with housekeeping.  For example, there is a law (is this Murphy ’s Law?) that demands a full pitcher of Kool-Aid must be spilled on a freshly waxed floor.  This is the same law that insists on a glass of milk being poured down through the refrigerator as soon as it is defrosted.

How about the unwritten law on unexpected company?  You can clean religiously for days (I don’t anymore!) scrubbing and waxing; polishing and shining, and the only face you see is the UPS man delivering a package, or the neighbor’s little girl knocking on the door to borrow a cup of sugar.  Take a day off to sleep in, and lounge around reading a book, the kitchen piled with dishes, and the living room filled with discarded shoes, clothes and last night’s newspapers, and what happens? You guessed it—in drops your cousin you haven’t seen in years, (the one with the immaculate appearance) and who also has a reputation for being a spotless housewife—what to do?  I don’t know how you can circumvent these laws, but knowing you can expect these things might help some.

I’ve been in sort of a melancholy frame of mind since the Hagar reunion, so I’d like to share this poem.

                 GROWING OLD

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer;

The headstones thicken along the way;

And life grows sadder, but love grows stronger

For those who walk with us day by day.

The tear comes quicker, the laugh comes slower;

The courage is lesser to do and dare;

And the tide of joy in the heart falls lower,

And seldom covers the reefs of care.

But all true things in the world seem truer,

And the better things of earth seem best,

And friends are dearer, as friends are fewer,

And love is all as our sun dips west.

Then let us clasp hands as we walk together,

And let us speak softly in low, sweet tone,

For no man knows on the morrow whether

We two pass on—or but one alone.