Cold Water Ears

 

Carolyn J. Rose

 

 

Recently my brother’s doctor peered into his ears and announced “You must have done a lot of swimming in cold water when you were young.”

Indeed we did.

 

 

That’s how my brother developed the bony growths the doctor spotted.

 

I’m sure I have them as well, although a medical professional has never brought them up.

 

When summer finally came to the Catskill Mountains where we grew up, we chose between cold water and colder water. We headed either for the Sawkill or the family pool.

 

The Sawkill (note that “kill” means “creek” in that neck of the woods) was off limits in the early spring when it ran high after heavy rains. For one thing, the high water was an opaque rusty red from clay deposits upstream. For another, we could hear rocks slamming together and see limbs thrashing in the current. Even at an age when we had little idea of what mortality was all about, we knew enough to pass on a rock-slamming swim.

 

In summer, however, the stream ran clear. But the level was usually low and the pools only a few feet deep and a few wide. Not exactly conducive to swimming laps or executing wave-creating cannon balls.

 

So mostly we picked the family pool. Built in 1941 and now no more, it wasn’t fancy. It was an in-ground concrete-lined rectangular box with a sloping bottom that filled and was replenished with water from a hillside spring. Shaded by that hillside and plenty of trees, the water remained chilly for weeks. By the end of August, it began to cool down when the days weren’t long enough to replace heat that lengthening nights sucked from the water.

 

So, the window of opportunity was short. But we were hardy souls. And, let’s face it, without computers, smart phones, and more than the two TV channels our set picked up, there wasn’t much else to do. The days seemed to stretch forever and then compress suddenly as the start of another school year loomed. So, we crammed in all the swimming we could. We splashed and sunned and bet who could swim farther underwater, or knock someone else off a tube, or do a complete flip, or bring up a quarter from the corner of the pool where water didn’t circulate much and green slime grew thicker every day.

 

There was no filter system on that pool, and no chlorine to kill germs. My father tossed in a handful of copper sulfate now and then, but it didn’t deter the algae. It did, however, seep into my hair and by the end of the summer it was a brassy green that kids at school would tease me about.

 

It a weird way, I didn’t mind that. Green hair set me apart. At least for a few weeks. Then, like my summer tan, the tint faded. I don’t have many pictures from those days. Perhaps my brother will ask his doctor to take some shots of the interior of his ears to remind me of how it was.

 

 

Corn Star

Carolyn J. Rose 

  

 When sweet corn season comes around, I think of my father. He loved fresh-from-the-garden corn, especially corn from his own garden. And he went to incredible lengths in order to sink his teeth into kernels slathered with butter and sprinkled with salt and pepper.

The yearly struggle to triumph over dry spells, disease, weeds, marauding crows, and determined raccoons began in the heart of winter with the arrival of the seed catalogs. He’d page through them, searching for the old and familiar varieties, and for the latest hybrids that claimed to hold that just-picked sweetness a little longer.

Spring can be fickle in the Catskill Mountains, toying with gardeners, teasing them with mild days followed by snow or hail or plunging temperatures. But, finally, the time would come to hook the plow to the tractor. He’d turn the rocky soil, cart off large stones worked up by the frost, harrow what he’d plowed, cart off more stones, then spread fertilizer and lime from huge brown paper bags. He did that with his bare hands. Having survived World War II and the perils of flying a supply route from India to China, he wasn’t worried about a few chemicals.

Level land was at a premium on his acreage, so it wasn’t a huge field—at least not by the standards of the Midwest, where corn is serious business. He’d stake out rows, carve furrows and, when the leaves on a white oak were the size of squirrels’ ears, space out the seeds and cover them with just the right amount of soil.

In a few days, he’d pace the rows in search of the first pale green sprout. That became an evening ritual, walking the rows, checking progress, planting a second wave, yanking out weeds.

By the time school was out, the weeds were ferocious, and my brother and I were tasked with crawling among the young plants and pulling them out. The best time, according to my father, was early in the morning while the dew was on the ground and the weeds came up easily, root and all.

For me, there was no “best” time to weed. There was only the wrong time—and the wrong time was any time, but especially early on a summer day. Only the threat of allowance withheld got me out of bed and into the corn.

By August, the ears were fat and the tassels turning brown. The corn was nearly ready to pick. And the raccoons knew it. Night after night they came, climbing the stalks, tearing off the husks, dining on milky raw corn.

Day after day my father plotted ways to halt their forays into the field. On visits to the general store/post office he commiserated with other gardeners and came home with fresh ideas.

He mixed hot pepper with lard and painted it on the ears. That night the raccoons ate more.

He hung aluminum pie pans from the stalks hoping the clatter would deter the masked marauders. Apparently it was music to their ears.

He ran a string of extension cords and set a strong light in the center of the field. The light shone through my bedroom window and cast shadows of cornstalks on the wall above my bed. One night the shadow of a raccoon appeared and I ran to alert my father. He seized his rifle, raced to the edge of the field, and fired. The raccoons escaped unscathed.

The next night, they returned, but I slept through their shadow show. Finally, by offering financial incentives, he enlisted us to sleep in the field. We, in turn, recruited friends and, armed with a battery-operated radio, soft drinks, snacks, sleeping bags, and canvas tarps, set up camp.

The raccoons stayed away.

What I remember most about those summer nights is going to sleep damp from the dew and waking up to find some manner of bug crawling on me.

What I remember most about summer dinners is the taste of sweet corn just out of the garden and the fleeting feeling that it was all worth it.