BENTON COUNTY — As May comes to a close, we are needing rain badly. The ground is parched and dry.
A few day lilies are still blooming atop the cellar. The rose of Sharon beside the mower shed has some blooms on its upper branches, but the only plant that’s really flourishing is the prickly pear in the front yard. Traditionally a desert plant, its lemon-yellow blossoms have been creating quite a show the last couple of weeks.
When Jim and his helper mowed last Friday, they stirred up a huge cloud of dust. I had to scurry around closing windows to head off a major cleanup in the house.
We had a pleasant surprise last Thursday when Jim’s folks decided to drive down from northwest Missouri. We visited with them at our son’s home Thursday evening, and Jim and his mom exchanged a big hug. A few tears were shed as it had been about two years since their last visit.
We took them out to eat Friday evening, along with the kids and grandkids. Matthew, the youngest grandson, added to the excitement of the occasion when he lost his first tooth while waiting for his order to arrive. While enjoying a fresh roll from the basket on the table, he suddenly exclaimed, “My tooth’s gone!” We persuaded our waitress to snap a four-generationpicture just before we left, a lasting memory of the evening.
Gladys Taber, in "The Book of Stillmeadow," reflected on how every daywe are making memories and wondered whether she was making enough happy memories for her own child.
“I feel sure that if families would be conscious of the fact that everything they do or say may one day be a memory, there would be less quarreling, fewer harsh words spoken,” she wrote. “It is nice to be right, but better to be remembered pleasantly. And there is something so inexorable about the past, you can’t change it. You can only try to make today a good one before it, too, slips into the past.”
Jim’s folks visited with us all morning Saturday.We sat beside the fish pond, enjoying the balmy breeze and the sound of the splashing water. We took them with us to the farmers’ market, a popular spot for a weekend outing. We purchased radishes, beets, turnips, new potatoes, a plump head of cabbage and ripe blackberries. Now that the wooden token “double dollars” are available, our choices are even more of a bargain. When we returned home we browsed through several of my completed scrapbook pages, recalling memories.
Neighbors at the end of our street were hosting a graduation party for their daughter. Black and orange balloons and garlands adorned the front porch, and a large banner saluted the honoree. A number of vehicles filled the yard and adjoining vacant lot as friends and family members came to celebrate with the new graduate.
That afternoon, I dropped in at the Gravette Senior Center for Marion Roberts’ 90th birthday party. This party also drew quite a crowd, a tribute to Marion and his brother Melvin, who had a birthday only 10 days earlier. Birthday cake and ice cream were served, but the big attraction was the variety of homemade pies.
Memorial Day weekend brought memories of past gatherings at the lovely little cemetery in the edge of the woods where Mama, Daddy and my brothers are buried.All over the area, groups gather at little country churches and graveyards, remembering those whom they have loved and lost. Here the crude wooden benches are carried from the nearby storage building and set up under the leafy trees. A short talk and a few hymns precede the walk through the cemetery, reading the engraved headstones and placing flowers on the graves. In former years most of the flowers came from our yards, but this year the blooms were gone long before the memorial holiday.
Fred Starr recalled these services and noted that some will come from afar.
“It is the only chance many will have to shake hands once again with childhood playmates, sweethearts and school chums,” Starr wrote. “And as these people gather to pay homage to their dead, they will look at each other and wonder who of the group will be the next to go! In low tones they will talk of those who were here last year and are now absent.”
He reminds us once again that there is nothing as permanent as change.
Susan Holland, who works for the Westside Eagle Observer, is a lifelong Benton County resident.
Opinion, Pages 6 on 05/30/2012