Finding Guiseppe ~ Part I

Maresy-doats and doesy-doats and little lambsy-divy.

A kid’ll eat ivy too – wouldn’t you?

This was one of the nonsensical songs my mother would sing to us in our childhood. Of course we would chuckle for we knew the next line was coming, which would explain the first.

If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,

Just say mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy….

Words were our parents’ toys and it was only natural that we became comfortable with language early on. Growing up in a home that eschewed the television because our father could see into the future to a time when the box at the front of the room would draw the attention from all else, we were left with ‘only’ words — the written word, the spoken word, and the words that were joyfully sung.

A flea and a fly in a flue were imprisoned

So what could they do?

Said the flea, Let us fly!

Said the fly, Let us flee!

So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

Oh, how I remember trying to learn this little wordplay as a child. With all the homonyms, it certainly made a young child’s mind think! And think we did. We wrote poems, sang songs, read books…

We never noticed the great thing our parents were doing in equipping us with a love of language. We did not think it odd when our mother would tell us to clean up because we looked like ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’. We knew that was a Longfellow poem about a shipwreck and we must do just as she said. I once referred to this in a class I was teaching and the poor unfortunate souls looked at me in confusion. For all the ‘progress’ of enlightened, modern education, their lack of knowledge took me by surprise. I thought everyone grew up surrounded by Jabberwocky and walked down the beach with the Walrus and the Carpenter.

The language of hymns lifted our vocabulary and increased our understanding of words as we sang:

Though the angry surges roll o’er my tempest driving soul,

I am peaceful for I know, wildly though the winds may blow,

I’ve an anchor safe and sure, that shall evermore endure.

And it holds, my anchor holds

Blow your wildest then o gale,

On my bark so small and frail,

By His grace it shall not fail,

For my anchor holds, it firmly holds.

At Christmastime, we learned history as we sang the words of Longfellow written during the dark years of the Civil War, struggling with his sadness at the division of the country and expressing his hopefulness when he writes –

And in despair I bowed my head. There is no peace on earth I said.

For hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

Then rang the bells more loud and deep, GOD IS NOT DEAD NOR DOTH HE SLEEP.

The wrong will fail; the right prevail with peace on earth goodwill to men!

Oh, it was so easy to believe when we were surrounded by this goodness, this beauty, this use of language! Chesterton, that great British author was not afraid to speak about words:

Our generation professes to be scientific and particular about the things it says, but unfortunately, it is never scientific and particular about the words in which it says them. It is difficult to believe that people who are obviously careless about language can really be careful about anything else.

Our dear Chesterton is correct – and to think he died in 1936! Ah, but he was a man of words and could see what was truly coming down the pike. He knew that standards in speech are important and one of the ways we establish order in a society. When language falters, we are less likely to understand one another. Without rules of speech we do not present ourselves well and this often leads to coarse or underdeveloped use of words. Without an ability to converse, chaos reigns.

There are arguments that can take place peacefully. We call them discussions. However, without the ability to communicate clearly we will never be able to have them! Chesteron notes this also, when he says:

What is the good of words if they aren’t important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn’t any difference between them? If you’re not going to argue about words, what ARE you going to argue about?

Ah! This man is speaking my language. How many nights around the dinner table did talk reign supreme with opinions freely given – very freely given, for we were raised to speak our minds and we certainly did. Man or woman, boy or girl, each had words to say. Our parents viewed us with the respect granted a child of God and we would never take advanatage of that. We knew there were times to be seen and, respectfully, not heard, but that we would also have our time to speak.

My father’s last words to me arrived in a card a few days after his death. I treasure those words. They are worth more than any amount of money. The words we exchanged over tea, the everyday discussions of what flowers or vegetables he would plant in those last years of his life, are precious and gentle remembrances of time well spent.

Now, whenever I sit in a crowded room or around a table and hear conversation flowing around me, whenever I am part of that conversation, I am reminded that my wise parents presented me with a feast of words, a love of language, and I am reaping the benefits daily. That, my friends, is what we call a legacy.

When I was a little girl, I helped my father plant a garden. He was a master gardener, not in the sense of taking a course, although he held a degree in agriculture. No, he was a master gardener in the fact of loving plants, and loving the process of gardening from beginning to end. Before the seeds were planted, the earth must be tilled, the little tractor pulling the plow, disturbing the rocks that grow so well and turning over the soil.

My father knew the ground would need to be turned over several times, that fertilizer must be mixed in. He measured each row, tying string to stakes at each end to ensure the rows were straight. Each row was hoed just deep enough for a seed to be planted, but not so deep that the seeds could not grow. I walked along dropping corn kernels in the row, strategically placed, two at a time. I loved the bright pink color – at that time corn was treated before planting. We must be careful not to put the kernels either too close or too far apart. Cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins were different. THEY must be planted in small mounds and given freedom to roam. We worked together, the children doing their part, my father leading the way. This was his specialty and my mother was nowhere to be seen. She loved her music. He loved his plants and books. They poured their seeds of music and nature into our lives and, though we never noticed, they were growing us all the time. We were just some of the things they grew.They found great solace in escaping city life, in buying a simple country home, and surrounding us with music, books, animals, and large vegetable gardens.

We looked forward to the time when the corn grew high and ripened, tassels turning brown and a summer evening consisted of shucking the ears, boiling the corn, slathering it with butter, sprinkling it with salt, and feeling the soft kernels pop as the juice ran down our chins. The room was full of laughter and talk and life was simple and good.

It was August and school would not begin until after Labor Day. It was a distant thought. As children, we did not realize the beauty of this experience, foolish as we were. We did not realize these days would be treasured in years to come – and that was just as it should be, for children do not need the burden of being made to appreciate the everyday-ness of life. They must be allowed to live each day fully and memories will appear in their older years, when they are needed.

During the winter months, in between reading Solzhenitsyn or Louis L’Amour in front of a roaring fire, and journeying with us through the Little House books, our father studied his seed magazines and planned his garden. The gardens grew as the years went by, to include three separate glorious spaces. Gourds were grown simply for their beauty, laid out to dry, and then to be shellacked to a lovely shine and shaken with vigor by certain children to hear the seeds rattle. These were used purely for decoration and enjoyment.

As I look back on this now, I realize this was not an unusual experience for the time and area in which I grew up. Families often planted their gardens together and children seldom had time to contemplate the boredom that is so rampantly expressed in our present age. There were weeds to pull and, later, vegetables to pick. Summers days of wandering through the fields, a stalk of Timothy grass hanging from one’s mouth, feet and head bare, were the norm. Sunscreen was unheard of, a burdensome invention yet to come. We felt the sun warm our bodies and lifted our faces for its blessing.

Without television or screens of any kind, I wandered happily over the hills never realizing the charmed life I’d been granted. And yet, I did not disdain it. There was a joyous feeling to picking tiny wild strawberries with my siblings in the middle of a wide, open field. All in all, life was good, free of worries, full of hope. We did not choose to be grateful, we simply were.

Now we live in the terribly enlightened year of 2022. Screens abound. Children must be instructed to play in the fresh air. Social media has taken the place of kitchen table discussions. Friends are too busy to drop by. Strawberry fields have given way to housing developments. It’s a brave new world where twenty-somethings exchange looks of disdain for their elders’ lack of wokeness and breathe a sigh of relief that we have escaped the gentle life of all that was truly good and beautiful. Now, we must schedule our times of reflection if that is even to be.

As for me, I’m holding on to gratefulness. I’m choosing the wide open country and walks into good books. I’m looking for wild strawberries and kitchens full of friends and neighbors. I’m hoping the Wendell Berry life is still available and I want to invite all who wish, to come away with me. There are still so many lanes to wander, so many trails to explore. I want to grab the hands of all those woke disciples and lead them to the land of plenty — no shoes, no hats, no sidewalks, just the good fresh air and the folks you love. I dare any screen or tight schedule to compete with that.