Christmas Joy Mondays

Now that Thanksgiving and Black Friday are past, the time has come to enjoy the season of Christmas! For the next Four Mondays I will post some Christmas cheer for all of you to ruminate upon! Enjoy!

God’s gifts
put man’s best dreams
to shame.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Blessed is
The season which
Engages the whole
World in a
Conspiracy of love.

-Hamilton Wright Mabie

How many observe
Christ’s birthday!
How few, his precepts!
O!  ’tis easier to keep
Holidays than
Commandments.

-Benjamin Franklin

What is your favorite Christmas quote?

 

Fallready?

      Wow! Did that summer blow by or what? It seems like just yesterday I was laying down the raised beds in the pseudo-Elizabethan garden and trimming the rose bushes out of the apple tree. Could it possibly be two months since I went to Maine and

lamented that I couldn’t stay for Moxie Day?

     I’m not ready for fall! Autumn cannot  be here! Yet all the signs point to it.

    Tina and I dropped the girls off to college last week. Joe starts his classes at Valley Forge today. So the autumn hush has returned

     to the world. This tell-tale rhythm, of things slowing down as the kids are once again occupied with their adult lives, smacks of the changing season. 

     The summer flowers fade. The bees grow quiet as the evenings turn cool. The golden rod  explodes its sniffly pollen into the chilly breezes that have replaced the summer wind. Mom and Uncle Tom sound like trumpet swans as the evenings tickle their noses and throats with yellow dust that blows in waves across the town. In every roadside crack and crevice autumn flowers poke their noses and heads forth to let us know that the time of dying is here again.

    I know fall is here because that sense of nostalgic hope is back too. It comes as things wilt and pass away, that acknowledgement that this is how it’s supposed to be…the constant ebbing and flowing tide of life. The season makes me look back with longing for what was and forward to what will lie ahead when winter’s grip lays dormant the land I have only just begun to work.

    I am not ready for the season change, but I know it’s time has come. I am laying up the winter sauce and blanching out the beans and squash. The smell of boiling butternut, oregano, basil, garlic, and stewing tomatoes fills every nook and crevice in our kitchen.

     A week ago I was not even aware of any of these things. I may have passed them all by and never once thought of them as the signs of summer’s end. I probably could have forgotten that school, golden rod, or stewing tomatoes meant the beginning of fall. It’s been nice enough that I could have convinced myself that summer had no end… or at the very least it was not near. But here in New England there is one sign none of us can ignore; As certain as the robin means spring or snow fly signals winter, in New England it is the leaves that tell us the time has come. It’s why we call it FALL.

Two Roads To Beavers

A hundred years ago Morton Converse ran a toy factory in our town that supplied most of the country with wooden rocking horses. The toy business  gave Winchendon its nickname, “Toy Town”, and made Converse a wealthy man.

     He built a mansion in the center of town on a steep hill that overlooked the Miller’s River. His home and garden terraces ran all the way to the river’s edge and spread across to several islands on the waterway. 

    The factory burned down when I was a kid. All that is left of the mansion is a few stray concrete walls which have withstood the encroaching forest and the tides of the River.

     A few well-meaning souls have tried to push back the undergrowth and plant a garden along the edge of the road where part of the foundation still remains.  I cannot say they have met with success. But where men have failed to tame the hillside beavers have commanded the water’s edge to bow to their will.

     I have known about the beavers for a few years and have wanted to spend some time watching them. But the opportunity never presented itself , that is until my daughter Melanie’s last  visit home. She suggested that we should take some time and visit the Converse beavers. So last Thursday we did just that.

     The rain let up for a few hours in the morning. So we put on long pants to guard against the tics and the cold and set out.  We hopped the fence and headed down through the foundation garden. The grass had grown in along the side walls all but obscuring the foundation stones as we set out down the steep hill. We quickly lost the rock pathway  in the foot deep grass. Grasping onto limbs to guide us down the steep hill Melanie and I quickly realized we were not dressed for the task. The hill was  nothing but mud and grass, wet with three day’s rain.

     By the time we reached the chapel wall we had slipped several times and our jeans were soaked up to the knees.  But we had a good view of the little critters who maintained the river. We watched for quite a while despite our chilly discomfort, mostly because we dreaded the thought of climbing  back up the way we had come. That’s about when we realized we were actually standing on a muddy trail that seemed to lead further up towards town. We decided we had little to lose; So when we were finished watching the beavers build a new island we took the pathway to its end which by golly was a set of stairs that led directly to the street.  Apparently someone a hundred years ago had been bright enough to figure out that people would want to go down to the river and that perhaps there should be a better method of getting there than to repel from the back-end of the mansion.

     Of course I, being a modern guy and all, never thought once to look for a set of stairs. Oh no… if it had been my mansion I would have strung a rope from the bathroom window and said to my guests “don’t forget to flush before you climb down to the gardens!”

     Makes me wonder how many other things in life I am doing the hard way.  I hope one day I will learn the lesson” work smarter not harder.”

What lesson is life teaching you these days?

Making the Markers Matter

       I like Saturday morning sunlight better than week day sunlight.     You see, I used to spend Friday nights at my Grandparent’s camp.  I remember every Saturday I would wake up and savor for just a few moments the yellow light that poured through the chintz curtains onto the bedspreads around me.  

      Saturday mornings were always the same. Eggs and toast with orange juice followed by grocery shopping and a historic tour of Athol MA.

     On those morning drives I wrote my first poetry and I memorized the locations of Sentinel Elm, and the homesteads of the Tandys, and the Lillies. I saw almost weekly the three houses my great- great-grandfather built for his daughters and sister. I can still point out the cellar hole of the house my great-grandmother burned down while drying her sons’ clothing over the wood stove.

      On certain special Saturdays my grandparents would take a little longer to complete my education. On those Saturdays Grampa would skip his candlepin bowling and we would make the drive to Erving Where the “first Joseph” was buried.

      I can still hear Gramp’s  gravelly voice litanizing our family history. “You are Joseph Elon Lillie V but we call you the III because your mother didn’t want you to be likened to whiskey…The first Joseph was a wood cutter…father Caleb Elon… his father Caleb senior…all the way back to the revolution…Joseph’s mother-in-law was Susannah Clark they called her “Little Grandmother”…Shay’s rebellion.”

    At least that’s the way I heard it as I phased in and out of consciousness without my grandparents even knowing.

     I didn’t realize it at the time but Gram and Gramps were training me for a job that would become mine in the fullness of time. When they passed, watching over the family grave markers fell to my Aunt Joan and Uncle Walt. Now that they have moved to Seattle to live with their kids I may be the only Lillie who remembers where everyone is!

          This year I took my sister with me to check on the graves. We didn’t stay long. Talking to the dead isn’t our thing (at least not since we came to Jesus) but that really wasn’t the point. I wasn’t there to grieve. I went to make sure the markers still stood, could still be read, to show that the lives they represented still mattered.

     Maybe it’s because I am now on the edge of that phase called middle age, maybe it’s because all my kids are grown and out of the house but I find myself wanting to make things count more than ever. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and say “Well that was certainly a waste!”

     My desire to leave a legacy that matters got me thinking about what those who went before left to me:

     As I stood before my father’s marker I could still hear him chiding me “Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Give me an answer you can live with.”

     What can I live with? I feel like I am just learning the answer to that now twenty years after his death.

    

     As I visited the cemeteries this year I realized that these people effected who I am, some of them without ever knowing me. One of them spoke a name that would echo down the generations to their grandson’s grandson. A “little grandmother” lost somewhere in the folds of history has birthed a family that stands for freedom and personal responsibility. Gosh, a couple of these folks have even influenced the way I look at sunlight. They mattered…at least if my life does!

     What will the markers I leave behind matter to those who come after? I want to be more than a potted geranium some grandson I never know buys at his generation’s version of Wal-Mart.

     I’ve been thinking about what I want on my tombstone should Jesus tarry (the way things look that ain’t likely but just say I get hit by a bus or something). I think I want people to say of me “He was someone who really knew how to love. Not the gushy, fake, T.V. romance, messed up love but the real Jesus type of love.”

    I want them to write this in the dash between my years.

      I want people to say “He did it. so can I!”

      As I stood at the graves of my ancestors I realized it’s not the size of the rock that matters but the making of the marker that can only be done by the living of a life.

    I am writing my gravestone as I live each day not so that people will come and leave me pretty plants but so that lives that come behind mine will be changed.

What legacy are you choosing to leave?

The Twelve Ways of Fall

     Just like there are twelve days of Christmas there are twelve ways of fall. Did you know that? Probably not because I just made it up on the drive to my computer! Dear reader here it is for the first time in print, “The Twelve Ways of Fall”.

      “Oh the first way y’ know fall is here”, My true love said to me.

       “The Canadian Geese start flying in a v”

       “Oh the second way y’know fall is here,” My true love said to me “school bells start ringing and Canadian geese start flying in a v.”

   “Oh the third way y’know fall is here.” My true love said to me

“trees change their colors, school bells start ringing, and Canadian geese start flying in a v.”

    “Oh the fourth way y’know fall is here,” My true love said to me

“Gram makes her jelly, trees change their colors, school bells start ringing, and Canadian geese start flying in a v.”

    “Oh the fifth way y’know fall is here,” My true love said to me

“WALMAAAAAART’S CHRISTMAAAAS  AISLE!!!!!!!”

“Gram makes her jelly, trees change colors, school bells start ringing, and Canadian geese start flying in a v.”

    “Oh the sixth way y’know fall is here,” My true love said to me,

“Friends bring zucchini, WALAAART’S CHRISTMAAAS AISLE! Gram makes jelly, trees change colors, school bells start ringing, and Canadian geese start flying in a v.”“Oh the seventh way y’know fall is here,” My true love said to me

“people go to craft fairs, friends bring zucchini, WALMAAART’S CHRISTMAAAS AISLE! Gram makes jelly, trees change colors, school bells start to ring, and Canadian geese start flying in a v.” “Oh the eighth way y’know fall is here,” My true love said to me “pumpkins in the fields, people go to craft fairs, friends bring zucchini, WALAAART’S CHRISTMAAAS AISLE!  Gram makes jelly, trees change colors, school bells start to ring, and Canadian geese start flying in a v.”

 “Oh the ninth way y’know fall is here,” My true love said to me ” morbid decorations, pumpkins in the fields, people go to craft fairs, friends bring zucchini, WALMAART’S CHRISTMAAAS AISLE, Gram makes jelly, trees change colors, school bells start to ring, and Canadian geese start flying in a v.”

     “Oh the tenth way y’know fall is here,” My true love said to me

“people pick their apples, morbid decorations, pumpkins in the fields, people go to craft fairs, friends brings zucchini, WALMAAARTS CHRISTMAAAAS AISLE! Gram makes jelly, trees change color, school bells start to ring, and Canadian geese start flying in a v.”

     “Oh the eleventh way y’know fall is here,” My true love said to me “acorns start to falling, people pick their apples, morbid decorations, pumpkins in the fields, people go to craft fairs, friends brings zucchini, WALMAAARTS CHRISTMAAAAS AISLE! Gram makes jelly, trees change color, school bells start to ring, and Canadian geese start flying in a v.”

     “Oh the twelfth way y’know fall is here,” My true love said to me (big breath)  “Grampa starts his raking, acorns start to falling, people pick their apples, morbid decorations, pumpkins in the fields, people go to craft fairs, friends brings zucchini, WALMAAARTS CHRISTMAAAAS AISLE! Gram makes jelly, trees change color, school bells start to ring, and Canadian geese start flying in a v.”

     I love the fall! What are some ways your family celebrates autumn?

What I Got From Them

                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

        My mother’s parents lived in a rustic brown farmhouse on Route 12 heading to Keene. When my mother was growing up the family  had to pump their water in the kitchen by hand. Gramma never had an electric dryer she hung her clothes summer and winter on the big green clothes line up by the barn. In the summer the Tenney’s had two gardens. One for Gramp and one for Gram. I still remember my grandfather picking carrots, knocking the soil off, and handing them out to the grandchildren to eat.

    The house was heated by kerosene which my grandfather drew from a giant  brown drum next to the house by the root cellar. I can see my grandfather across the years in his black and red flannel €€ jacket filling the little kerosene pot from the spigot of that great big drum. I can still smell the faint residue of the fuel as it burned inside keeping the family warm.

         Sad to say I really didn’t know them very well. We were among the youngest grandchildren in a large sea of grandchildren; There are cousins on that side I have never met.

        Every once in a while I will be sitting in a restraunt and a lady I don’t know will come up to me and say, “Is that little J. Lillie?”

         I feel like replying, “Wait I think he’s in here somewhere under the 250 pound guy!”  

       But I never do. The conversation usually rolls on too fast for my incredibly witty comments.

        It usually flows something like this, “I’m your cousin…. I’m Aunt and Uncle…. daughter.”

        To this I usually reply “Wow, it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. How long has it been?”

         She says “Oh we haven’t seen each other since you were like three. I only recognized you from the graduation picture hanging on my mother’s wall. You haven’t changed a bit!”

         An awkward silence inevitably falls at this point as we both realize that we are two strangers who have nothing but blood flowing between us. Strangely that doesn’t seem like much of a conversation starter.

          I have often wondered about my mother’s family. Am I like them? How? What did I get from them?

         Five years ago something of them began to appear in me (at least that’s what my mother says). I was sitting on my deck praying late into the night when I suddenly began to look at my property in a different way. I saw gardens. I have always loved gardens but until I turned 38 I never once desired to plan and grow a garden.

     That night, though, it was like a light switched on and I began to grow things. Every year since I have expanded, learned, and organized my garden a little more.Oh I’m not a great vegetable gardener like my grandparents were but I do really well with herbs and berries.

       Here’s a list of what I grow in my garden.

1. Tomatoes

2.  onions

3. peppers

4. lettuce

5.  red raspberry

6.  red currant

7. blackberry

8. plums

9. grapes

10. strawberry

11. rhubarb

12. mint (spearmint, applemint, peppermint)

13. rose

14. sorrel

15. horseradish

16. American Ginger

17. bay

18. oregano

19. thyme (lemon, and great)

20. parsley

21. loveage

22. chamomile (Roman, and German)

23. valerian

24. bee balm

25. yarrow

26. lady’s mantle

27. lemon balm

28. butterfly weed (pleurisy root)

29. echinacea

30. marsh mallow

32.lilac

33. lavender

      Each year I live I learn a little more about myself and who I am. I think if my grandparents were still alive we would have a lot to talk about. I’ve found something I got from them.

   What did you get from your grandparents?

    What do you grow?