Heaven is under my Keds as I run in Nanny’s yard and chase my sisters down the hill.

Dear Friends,

This will be my last post for awhile, as my compass is pointing me in another writing direction. Thank you for reading along these past seven months. I’ve learned a lot about myself and writing in the creation of jeannebirdblog.com. At the least, I hope that you have wondered about life with me.

CONNECTION

I head to the garage that runs under the house. It is cut into the hilly landscape, below the house that Grandpa and Uncle Pippi built at the top of the hill. Since the garage was cut into the earth, the garage smells like dirt. It is dark, dank, delightful. It is neat as a pin. No clutter, no junk. The cement floor is swept clean. The garden tools hang on pegs on the left wall. A washer and dryer keep to their designated spot near the basement steps that head to Nanny’s kitchen upstairs.

One might think it is a dreary spot, however, I welcome it. I can sigh deep, dirt sighs here and be by myself. I study the garden tools and know them well. The hoe, the shovel, the rake, all know their jobs.

Jewels welcome me at the threshold of the garage. The door is fully open when I arrive, welcoming me. At the beginning edge of the cement floor, where the driveway’s black asphalt crumbles into the cement, the garden jewels sit. Uncle Pippi leaves his garden bounty there for the taking by the lucky ones at the receiving end of Aunt LaLa’s phone calls. The lucky ones are her sisters, cousins, nieces, and Great-Aunt Lizzie from across the street. Mom tells me to go and fill a bag.

Brown paper grocery bags, neatly folded, sit in a stack next to bags filled with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers. Ears of corn are piled high in Uncle Pippi’s wheelbarrow. Pale yellow kernels peek out among green fronds and slippery silk slipped from the ears lie under my Ked’s covered feet. Early in the day, Uncle Pippi wheeled the garden jewels from the garden across the street, the smooth, wooden handles of a wheelbarrow lying easily in his workhorse hands. Metal rings attach the wooden handles to the metal vessel, a bowl welcoming the vegetables mounted high is its’ load.

Cucumbers, their dark green, shiny, waxy skin, feel bumpy as a toad’s back under my running fingers. The prickly, tiny thorns tumble off as my thumb pushes them away. I bite into crunchy skin, cucumber juice runs down my chin, wipes away with the back of my hand onto my cut-off, blue jeans shorts. Green bites of hard skin crunch between hard flesh and the pulpy, soft, seedy innards of the cuke.

I hold a plump, deep red tomato in the palm of my hand. Bringing it up to my cheek, I stroke the tomato along my face, the soft, silky, dirt dusts my skin. A soft, soft, soft touch of red garden love. I wonder at the tomato. Is it not part of Uncle Pippi? And, as he’s connected to Mom through Grandpa and Nanny, doesn’t that make me part of the tomato?

This morning, I searched for Uncle Pippi’s date-of-death online. I want to give it to the priest that is presiding over Mom’s funeral, as I want him to try to personalize her tribute with family history. I didn’t feel like searching through my documents-upon-documents of my own research. Blaming laziness, I did an online search which immediately brought me to a version of the Darien High School newspaper. Shows you how useless searches can be at times, since this has nothing to do with his death. Needless to say, I thanked Pippi for helping me today, as he helps Mom with her coffin, leaping to the end zone, and victory.

HISTORY OF RIVALRY REVEALED
An excerpt from the NEIRAD, Darien High School newspaper, November 1984.
NCHS COFFIN

An angry Darien team traveled to New Canaan in 1936, hoping to stop their mentors. Darien students came to the game with a coffin marked N.C.H.S. and Darien even managed to score, but it looked like all they would manage was a 6-6 tie. Then late in the game, the Wave’s Jackie Craighead intercepted and returned it 50 yards to the New Canaan 5. With Darien’s fans up and screaming, three line plunges would not crack the end zone. On fourth down, with the game, the season and revenge riding on one play, Pippy D’Arrigo leaped into the end zone, and Darien had the victory.