Skip to main content

Golden memory

Among my earliest recollections of childhood is seeing the golden glow that peeked from under the door of my brother’s bedroom. It was predawn and that glimmer was the only source of light. 

From my bed I could hear him rustling around in there, zipping up the sleeping bag he slept in every night on top of his bedspread and quietly dressing. His fishing, or sometimes trapping, gear waited on the back porch, having been carefully packed up the night before. 

I recall a palpable anticipation about these early morning rituals, frequent as they were. I think the sleepy house itself could feel the excitement.

You wouldn't think that a little girl like me would be included in trips like these, but once a year or so my brother allowed me to tag along.

Believe me, I was a burden. Eight years younger than Rick, I was more suited to hand washing doll clothes in a soapy basin on Sherry’s back porch than cooking a “sunny” with a stick down its throat on an open fire. But that’s exactly what we did.

Photo-encaustic painting from vintage snapshot
Rick Bennett with carp, along the Schuylkill River, March 1962
If there was any trepidation expressed by our parents about the sharp fish hooks, rusty metal animal traps, deep water of the Schuylkill River or dizzying heights of the dam we climbed, I don’t remember hearing it. 

We always made it back. Frostbit (or hot and sweaty), hungry and dead tired.

Comments

Len said…
Holly,

Thanks for the card and the time you have taken to produce, manufacture or whip-up the picture of Rick with the fish. I will take it with me in a couple of weeks when I travel up north for a visit. Rick continues to find time to include other folks in his passion just as you described his annual enjoyment of letting you be part of his world!

Sincerely .... Len
August 18, 2014 at 5:59 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Holy cow, it’s costmary!

Recently while helping my sister, Kit, move to a new house, we found an inte res ting old bible belonging to “V. H. Reinhart” in the bottom of a moldy old box. I’d never seen a bible like it. The left-hand column is written in German and the right, in English. Victor H. Reinhart, born in 1885, was the father of my step father, Wilbur Reinhart, and I knew from oral family history that he was a Mennonite minister. Inside the bible we found a single, brittle, pale green leaf and immediately recognized it. I said, “Holy cow, it’s costmary!” (Tanacetum balsamita also Chrysanthemum balsamita)  Because I’m passionate about both genealogy and herb gardening, this discovery was a bit like taking a beautiful old painting to the Antiques Roadshow and finding a signed copy of the Declaration of Independence behind it. Costmary’s (now obsolete) common name is “bible leaf,” having been used as an aromatic bookmark since the time when a bible was likely the only book in the house. The volat...
7 comments
Read more

Genealogy: it’s about connection

Each one of us has two parents, four grandparents, and eight great-grandparents. For every generation you go back, the number of people who procreated, to eventually make you, doubles. When I first started out on my genealogy journey, these numbers astounded me, and still do. I love to think about my DNA stew. It feeds my soul. Playing with numbers Let’s assume each generation makes a baby at age thirty. Perhaps the age should be 16, 18, 20, or 25, but whatever, I picked 30 for this exercise. After all, in the past, people started having children earlier than today, but they also bore many more children and did so over a period of 10, or even 20, years. Stick with me for this simplified and fictional example: For a child born in 1960, there were two parents who were born about 1930. The baby’s four grandparents were born about 1900. The baby’s eight great-grandparents were born in 1870. (You see, I'm doubling the number of grandparents and going back 30 years at the same time....
5 comments
Read more

On Beauty

About 10 years ago during our routine Saturday phone call, my father asked me an amazing question, “Why does seeing something beautiful make a person cry?”  I was honored that he asked me such a powerful question and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. In my lifetime, I've seen some beautiful things that have made me cry. When I was 17-years-old and an exchange student in Spain , I walked down a dark corridor inside a church, turned a corner, and saw a huge painting (10 by 16 feet), El Greco’s “The Burial of the Count of Orgaz.” That was 1972, but I vividly remember the colors in it: the metallic gold, the reds, and the grays and how the elongated faces and figu res dripped emotion. I remember the awe I felt in seeing that the artist had painted a sheer white gown over a black velvet robe (lower right). I stood quite close to it for as long as the guide would allow. For many, the natural world evokes wonderment. About 25 years ago, on a trip to rural Canada...
4 comments
Read more