Dandelions and Daydreams

There is nothing quite so sweet to steal as flowers…unless it is a kiss.

After yesterday’s rant, I felt the need to lighten up a bit with today’s post. The past two weeks have been rainy. I actually went to the store last week with the sole intention of getting a raincoat and an umbrella. Even with two weeks of rain, I still need to find my way into the great outdoors. Yesterday I decided to make my way down the road, in a light sprinkling rain, to a empty lot about 1/4 mile away. There is still a house foundation on this lot, and there are still lilac bushes that somebody planted some time. Since the person who planted those lilacs is no longer around to enjoy the blooms, I stole a few branches for a bouquet. June is a purple season.

Wildflowers are always the first, hopeful signals of spring. In Georgia, the first flowers of spring are usually the daffodils and the peaches. A walk through the woods in late March will reveal and abundance of blossoms. The beauty pageant of wildflowers will continue through the summer and into the fall with each new week trying to outdo the week before in both color and fragrance.

One of my favorite haunts is the periwinkle farm. At some point in history. this place had a cabin with a fireplace at each end. I can almost hear the echoes of children’s laughter ringing off the hilltops. The keeper of this homestead loving planted her garden (you can actually still see the level spot where a vegetable garden once stood). To add a bit more beauty she planted a few daffodil bulb here and some periwinkle there. There was a pink flower bush over near the well (I’ve only caught it in bloom once). The hillside was terraced for farming, but it’s been so long that the farm has grown over with pine trees.

Most of the time, old house sites make me sad. The fallen down houses are forgotten, ignored. Even if I leave an old falling down house, I want my mark on this world to be flowers that bloom every spring reminding everyone that winter is over. Whoever planted the periwinkle at this home site definitely left her mark on the world. The periwinkle continues to spread and cover more area. Some day the whole area will be covered.

Our Sunday afternoon walk took us down to the shoals–my own personal water park.

My family first discovered the shoals when I was about five. We had started building my parents house. It was summer and it was stinking hot. Our house was just a concrete slab with cinder walls slowly going up. Air conditioner was still a long ways off. Many hot afternoons were spent playing in these waters.

On the far side of the creek, the current was faster. There was a groove cut in the rock that made a splendid water slide. A mountain laurel branch hung low over the water at the bottom of the slide. You had to lay back to slide under it or risk getting a face full of branches and leaves.

I had a deep fear of this rock when I was a kid–or rather what might be lurking under the rock. That was the “deep end” of the pool beneath the shoals. It was probably 2 1/2 or 3 feet deep at its deepest, and I was sure an alligator lived under that rock.

I’m sure the idea was originally planted by my brother. My fear of that rock continued on long after I knew that alligators didn’t live in North Georgia. Then I was certain that there would be a copperhead or a water moccasin laying in wait for me there should I venture into the deep end of the pool.

The water is only a couple of inches deep there now, but that rock still seems menacing. I’m sure I would still avoid splashing near it if I were to swim in the shoals now.

Down stream, the neighbors had built a zip line across the creek using a cable and some old bicycle handlebars. When the spring rains came, the normally quiet, placid creek would turn into a raging, rolling monster. We would have our annual wake-boarding event taking advantage of the high waters and fast current. We tied an old ski rope off to one of the trees along the banks and take turns wake-boarding in the rushing waters. It was quite a thrill, but if you ever fell off, you might have to walk a mile down stream to retrieve the wake-board.

Every good water park has souvenirs that you can take home with you, and ours was no exception.  Rather than overpriced plastic and funny hats, we had to go hunt for our souvenirs, but they were free.

Heavy rains would churn up bits of broken pottery, remains of the time when the Cherokee Indians camped along the banks of Rock Creek every summer.

My brother, Jesse, was the one who had a natural talent for finding Indian pottery.  He would be wading along picking up rocks and skipping them when he would say, “look at this piece of pottery.”  The secret to finding pottery is not to look for it.

At the end of the day, we would stuff our pockets with pottery and rocks and hike the mile or so back up to our house (building site).  Years later, we have buckets of quartz rocks picked up on hikes down to the shoals, and quite a bit of pottery reminding us of summer afternoons in Rock Creek.

This is what I’m dreaming of.

For years, philosphers and commoners alike have pondered the important question of “why did the chicken cross the road?”

This morning, I walked out to the car to get my cell phone, and was forced to ask, “Why did the goose cross the road?”

I think he got lost on his way to Canada.