Memories….

Sister and Brother-in-Law are back from Hawaii, and while gone, I was watching their turtles for them.  They have around 20 turtles, 6 infants, 5 two year olds, and the rest are adults.  This past Thursday, the day before they came home, I found these two going at it.  Kind of late in the season, but tell that to them, not to me.  But it brought back memories of a fishing trip I had with my cousin Bill when we were 16 years old.  We went fishing along Deer Creek or a tributary of it in East Sacramento County.  The creek went right through pasture land.  It was early spring…probably March.  The cows were at it all day long as we fished.  I can’t remember if we caught any catfish or not…surly we did because Bill was a good hunter and fisherman….but I definitely remember the cows going at it.

Earlier this week while we were up at Apple Hill, we saw some Christmas Tree Farms, which will be open in mid-November or so.  It is in this area around Pollock Pines that we often went as a family to get our Christmas Tree….walking in snow some years until we found the right tree, then cut it down and hauled it to the booth to pay, then strapped it on top of the station wagon or VW Bus and headed home to set it up.

As I have been watching the Doves in the backyard, it brought back memories of my next door neighbor, also named David, whose family raised Pigeons for food…fairly common for Chinese families to do back in the mid-60’s.  We loved to play football out in the street and one day during a game I saw David’s grandmother out in their garage with a large pot and lid, a large towel, and a large cleaver….along with a bin of pigeons.  After she executed the first poor pigeon, we all ran over there to get a closer view of the next.  Now “Grandma H” did not speak a lick of English, and up until this day, many thought she was just a mean old person because when she talked, it sounded like she was yelling.  After this incident, when she became the “big show”, we all seemed to have a different feeling about her, and she “loved” being the head of the show.  Well, the Pigeons did not fair as well as these Doves do (unless a Hawk comes flying through, which happens now and then.)

Mom had “Hen and Chicks” Sempervivums (above) in the front garden when I was young, as my sister does now.  Brings back many memories of those days….

   

…as do the Hummingbirds in my sister’s backyard.  Between the Hummingbirds and the red Hibiscus out front, it reminds me of the Hummingbirds and Red Bottle Brush plants that were in the front yard of my boyhood house when I lived next door to David.  (The Hummingbird/Bottle Brush picture above is one I found in Google Images)  Hummingbirds have always mesmerized me, as have Woodpeckers. 

While living in Arkansas they thought they had found a living Ivory-billed Woodpecker…so much furor over it, they even made a license plate for it.  Above is my Ivory-billed Woodpecker license plate that was on my Ford F-250.  Should have kept the plate, it might have been worth something some day….not!  But it shows how much I admired Woodpeckers.

   

Over the past week I have been observing the change of the season, which is still in its infant stage in Sacramento.  Each day more and more color.  Something about the end of a season which brings many thoughts…

Above is Mom and Dad’s house which, as many of you know, is just two doors from my Sister’s house.  In a few weeks the greens will be yellows, orange and reds…except for the two evergreen trees in the distance.  In a few months it will look bare, with empty branches, brown grasses.  Life in the garden will not be the same until Spring brings on new life, a fresh new beginning.

But something hit me today.  I remember contemplating once why older people love to sit out on a rocker on their front porch.  We all have seen older men sitting in front of a store front, or people sitting outside of their RV’s just letting time pass by.   What hit me today is that people do this not only because they want to see what is going on now…watching the birds, the changing of the season, feeling the wind blowing, feeling the warmth of the sun, enjoying the company of those around you.  It is much more than that….goes way beyond the current day.  This activity also brings back memories of an earlier day.  Memories of being with friends and family.  Memories which are hopefully happy, but also some which are sad, sad especially when they bring back memories of others who are no longer here but who still live within the memories of our soul.  Two turtles bring memories of a fishing trip with a bunch of, how can I say this right, overly active cows….and a walk back to the old white pickup truck which my cousin borrowed from his dad…this same truck which one of us drives into a ditch….and Uncle “Red” has to come and help us get it out with the help of a farmer (who did what farmers do, hook it up and pulls it out with little help from others.)  Fond memories of an Uncle who has long passed…except he lives on in the many loving memories which abound with the hearts of the many whom he touched, and he was a man of strong faith and belief so surely lives on in a better place than this.  His “New Spring” has surly arrived….and as we get closer to, and further into our own Autumn, we tend to contemplate our “year”, and with faith, we look toward our own “New Spring”.