Summer Swelter

The weather we have now in Massachusetts brings me back to the sweltering days of summer when the only things I had to worry about were where my water shoes were located and how to find that blackberry bush without anyone following me and getting to all the ripe berries.

You have no idea how fantastic a summer berry bush is. Just behind our Barn was the juiciest and most abundant blackberry bush in all of Granby. Heck, it just might have been the best in all of Western Massachusetts. One summer I had discovered the ripened berries alone.

It was amazing.

That day, I had been pretending that a television camera was following me around, documenting my every move and opinion. We didn't have a television growing up, so, to me, watching television was a great honor-- not to mention actually starring on it. I was just finishing showing my "audience" the art of a pogo stick, when I suddenly remembered that berry bush. Yelping with personal delight, I threw the pogo stick to the ground, and, in a hushed, hoarse whisper, I told my imaginary cameraman:

"Follow me!"

Our Barn, as dilapidated as it was, held mystery and fascination for us Powell kids. If you circle round back the sagging building, you'll see the tall, hallowed phenomenon known as The Silo.  (If you don't know what a Silo is, I'm afraid you have little frame of reference to my childhood.) Just before the Silo was a clutter of trees that swallowed the side of the Barn.  But only one tree was special.

Hidden against her own kind, my Tree stood, anchored to the ground, her swaying branches dancing with her Spirit. Her seeds draped down from the budding wood,  her silken, green hair slipping through her branching fingertips. I felt love for my Tree. She was my caretaker, the shoulder I could cry on when no one else could possibly understand. She held me as I wrote nonsense and dreams in my black-and-white-marble composition notebook. She watched me as I gazed out toward the back fields and then hugged me as I thought of all the things I was going to accomplish in my life. When I climbed up her trunk onto her lap and shoulders and in her arms, I was safe. I was understood. And even though it looked like I was alone, I was not.

My cameraman followed me as I passed my Tree and came to the very back of the Barn. Immediately behind the building and in front of the berry bush was a large pile of decaying wood, old boards and scraps that had been thrown together after countless of farm projects over the years. I was tentative to walk there that day. The previous year, I had fallen victim to a swarm of bees that had hidden quite sneakily beneath a board. I had misstepped, angering them. As a small child, I was blanketed by the buzzing monsters, stung repeatedly, over and over. Had I been allergic, I would have died that day. Just like that little boy in  that movie "My Girl." Tragic.

As I avoided the wood and board pile, I finally approached the blackberry bush. There, on every possible branch, clusters of berries awaited me. Without a bucket to place them in, I began to grab at them, stuffing my mouth with the deliciousness of solitary and fruit.