When Winter Comes in March

The excitement in my classroom Tuesday afternoon was apparent. My students had long ago informed me that a snowstorm was coming through our starkly barren region beginning that evening. And then there was the sly little comment from one of my seventh graders, slipping out after an instruction I had given about an assignment being due the next day. "If we have school tomorrow," she added, making me feel like the Grinch with a heart three sizes too small as I muttered to myself, "Pshaw. Fat chance that the wimpiest winter I've ever seen will begin now."

But that was Tuesday. Wednesday morning at 5:00 a.m. had me racing obsessively to the window every 10 minutes, gazing out at the wads of wet snow already packing up on my front step railings. My phone came with me everywhere. White cat bowie was allowed to use his litterbox instead of the customary morning trip out into the cold. And finally the call. My coworker housemate and I waltzed about the house, with difficulty finally settling down to take advantage of the much-needed snow day while gazing out our windows at the hill across the road, completely obliterated by blowing white.

So here's what else happens when winter surprises the U.P. in March:

Yoopers apparently don't like shovel marks. I get "yelled" at for hefting the ten inches of wet snow out of my driveway--and within minutes have a luxurious parking pad made by the school board chair's Cat.

I go poking around with my cross-country skis and find that the best trail is the one made by snowmobiles on the river--as long as one avoids the places where the trail disappears under water. . .

Sabbath morning, as I awaken to more snow, I hear the Cat next door removing it from the church parking lot. . . my house is next.

I bottom my truck out in my own driveway. I'm certain that I can hear the truck settle its wheels back on the ground as I chip away at the white mass beneath it.

Friday morning, as students begin to arrive, I'm sure I smell snowmobile exhaust, and the sheepish looks of three students tell me the rest of the story

I am so caught up and ahead after two snow days that I have time to blog!

Sammy Goes Off-Roading

You've met Sammy before--a little, white rear-wheel drive Toyota pickup with a paint-chipped hood, nearly 200,000 miles, and the faithfulness of having been in the family for about 9 years. Sammy's a good egg, albeit a little bit of a speckled one these days what with all the road muck sprinkled on his white shell from the winter roads.

This afternoon, however, Sammy wasn't so sure about listening to directions, even with the four big buckets of sand behind his wheelwells. He thought it was more fun to get a running start on the road and then to slide, his hands out in the air for balance, truck cap tape fluttering behind him, trailer hookups dangling.

He got to showing off a good deal, much to the chagrin of some folks, triumphantly calling out at one point, "Look, mom, no front wheels!" as he slid up a hill on the ice-glimmering road. With that, his front wheels indeed went all squirrelly and he himself did a curly-que that ended in an ungraceful faceplant into the juniper and snow filled ditch.

There just so happened to be passing by a couple fellows who were willing to haul him out and dust him off, none the worse for the wear, and who even kindly offered to follow him home lest he get into any more shenanigans on the way. So Sammy tried hard. He pointed his nose straight ahead. He hunched forward to tried to keep his wheels straight. But the shellacked road was just too temping. Off the road he went again in another face plant, finding snow in his nose after being hauled out the second time by his bumper.

This time Sammy decided to stay put. No more adventure. He pulled himself off the road into a little clearing and made ready to nap there, shutting off the shine of his eyes with sleepy eyelids and agreeing to wait out the ice long as necessary, just wishing he were tucked into his sheltering garage some five miles south.

The Lord Gave and the Lord Has Taken Away. Blessed Be the Name of the Lord

"Miss Knott, did you let your cat out today?" I feel my stomach tighten as I listen to my fifth grader's question over the phone, remembering how just this morning I had picked her up from where she lay curled beside the heating vent in all her queenly calico glory and put her outside as I left the house for my walk across our county road to school.
"Yes, Austin... why?" I force myself to respond, but somehow, already, I know why.

* * *

It was a quiet May evening this spring when I went for a walk with a dear friend of mine on the Andrews University campus for a mutually-much-needed chat. Midway past the custodial building, however, we were pushed beyond the concerns of our own lives when we were interrupted by the persistent meowing of an attention-famished little puss, so desperate for love that she would later, with little coaxing, follow us back to the "no-cats-allowed" apartment complex, submit to being snatched up and popped inside my B49 door, scarf down a can of "human" tuna, all the while purring and meowing so constantly so as to lose her voice--and still continue on telling her story of woe and then rasping out her happiness as she spent her first night on top of my stomach, waking me up every several hours as she got lonely in my tiny, human-filled apartment.

And thus the little one entered my life. The next several days, no, even the next morning proved to be adventuresome, an apt foretelling of the nature of the months that would follow. No sooner had she awoke, but she peed on my visiting sister's sleeping bag as a welcoming gesture and was tossed outside for her misconduct, I sadly expecting our short friendship to be thus ended as my frustrated sister closed the door behind her skinny rump. But this little one was not to be deterred--one night of keeping me awake with her exuberance hadn't been enough. Within hours she shocked me by announcing that she was back at my rust-red door and hungry, and within days she had turned into the "9-c'clock cat," adjusting her business to my teaching schedule. She faithfully returned each evening at that hour exactly, proving herself and thus drawing to herself the name of "beloved friend"--Amie--by her nightly presence on my bed.

And then she became a Trooper as she, a troll, transplanted with me to the land of the Yooper. She was a trooper who liked to wiggle in and out of the long blinds hanging in front of the glass door in my bedroom, making them tinkle, to get my attention. She was a trooper who had a way of bumping my door open with her moist, love-seeking nose just as I was changing my clothes--Amie! She was a trooper who would rather be outside than use her plush litter box and who sat on my back steps listening for my alarm clock at 4:45 a.m. at which point she would start her yowling--and door-seal-popping if necessary--to make me get up and let her in. She was a trooper who would tell me she had something to tell me as I came home from school so earnestly that I would finally give in and lay down on the floor, on my back, so that she could daintily prance up on my chest and tell me everything through her purring.

And she was even known as a cat with a desire for Holy things amongst my community, following a Wednesday-evening-moment-of-curiosity during a church cleaning, and a subsequent absence of two days during which time my nine school youngsters and I were praying for her . Friday evening I came back from a sunset-"God, why?"-run, and there she was, dolphining up against the white birch tree in my front yard in her excitement to see me again. The next day, as I related my Sabbath praise of a returned loved one, a small chuckle was heard across the church sanctuary and "the rest of the story" was shared: how some little calico cat had insisted during a Friday evening Bible study that she wanted out of the church. Right now! No, I never found her enthusiasm to leave much room for patience.

* * *

I find her by my mailbox, on the right side of the road as Austin had said, stretched out and stiff already. Her brilliant life force is quieted for the first time since I've known her. I pick her up, as I did this morning, and I take her home to where she must have wanted to go--too eagerly for once. And I find this first possible full night of sleep spent in another sort of wakefulness, this one also due to her. But maybe that's so I can talk a little more with her Maker.

Pianos in the Kitchen and Chili-tasting Tractor-racers

Just about two weeks ago my students set me lovingly straight on the fact that "Yooper" does indeed have a plainly phonetic spelling instead of my made up rendition (U-per), a spelling that is just as important as the narrow-mouthed vowelly accent they themselves have and the turn-a-statement-into-a-question-"eh" that I am struggling to keep out of my own language. But this is but one amongst many Yooper gems.

* * *

Thirty students and all three small classrooms full at Wilson Junior Academy is a good thing--and a cause for chuckling each Tuesday morning as I push the piano out of my room, and then at each lull in my busy teaching schedule throughout the day. In fact, through two closed doors and across the hallway I can hear it, even as I instruct my 5th-8th graders on how to use "muscle verbs" to strengthen their writing, even as the nine cries of "Miss Knott!" make me wish I could clone myself at least once. Through it all the fingers of our eager youngsters plink away on the keys of our piano, to the audience of a stove and a microwave and the hot lunch dishtowels and a piano teacher, all day long, all in the brilliantly acoustical kitchen. . .

* * *

Matt runs out of the men's bathroom, his eyes big. "Miss Knott," he says, his normally quiet, deep voice a little huskier than normal in his apparent distress, "I just flushed my flash drive down the toilet. It has my essay on it!" He rushes back in. The essay. The one he's worked on so hard. The one that I can't wait to read because he asked me the other day what those flowers were called with brown centers and golden petals. "Black-eyed Susans," I had told him, and then I saw him typing. Perhaps I am biased, but an essay mentioning Black-eyed Susans is bound to be a good one.

I don't know what to tell him. He actually flushed it? But a moment later he comes back out, the flash drive dangling rather lifelessly from his hand. Dare I ask? I take it home and pray over it as I put it in a little pitcher filled with white rice. . .

* * *

"This is really happening," my student says, eyebrows working up and down for emphasis, "a little kid is out in the hallway, putting something into the outlet." Thumbs point over the shoulder, and I dash out. Sure enough. There's little Sawyer--his right foot already in a tiny black walking boot after breaking his foot not long ago--innocently poking a plastic fork into the fascinating electrical crevices. . .

* * *

Hayrides. Jacob wonders what the big deal is--a ride in the cold on a bale of hay. In my mind I ask the same question. But Yoopers take them to a new level, racing their New Holland and Ford tractors up the middle, or rather, dominating the whole county road with their caged cargoes of chattering passengers. They find an old trail through the woods, or perhaps make a new one. They rumble and pitch us across the Cedar River. They weave in-between giant rolls of silage and barns amidst a manure-scented haze. And afterwards there is a chili cook-off tasting session--twenty some chilis ranging from vegan to veggie to a solitary meat stew at the far end of the table, swarms of folks with their plastic cups and spoons gathering around the pots and the cornbread and the quart of maple syrup that is soon used up.

* * *

Gailyn and Valerie tell me that they can give me some more apples to expand my carefully canned, five-quart collection of applesauce, and so I meet them at their "new house," as they call it, off in the woods on a curious leaf-strewn gravel road with a galvanized gate gaping open at the entrance. Here they are far away from their cranes and sawdust-burning stove machinery that they hope to sell off as running business someday.

They grin and wave at me as I drive in and invite me into the cute little hunting camp that they are remodeling. I didn't know that they have this other house besides the one from whose porch they throw and then hand-feed apples to the deer. They both give me a sheepish look when I ask how long they've been working on it and what they're doing. "Well," Valerie begins, "we were just going to fix up the closet, make it a walk-in. . ." She points to the corner of the camp's footprint where there is evidence of a recent struggle and the hopeful look of a bedroom and maybe something more. "But then we really didn't like the staircase--it was here," she says tracing her finger across a mark in the fireplace, right beneath the loft. "So we took it out. And then we took off the paneling on this wall, to put on the outside wall of our walk-in closet, and we discovered that the squirrels had chewed through the wall behind the paneling. So we have to take that out too. And then we looked at the wiring. . ." They chuckle good-naturedly and throw up their hands. "It's all her idea--naw," Gailyn pipes in, and looking at his wife fondly. He, on the other hand, dreams of the day when the house will be finished and he will walk outside and whistle and have the chickadees flock about him, landing on his hair and crumb-filled hands as they did when he was a boy.

* * *

"Bridge may be icy!" my seventh and eighth graders chorus to me as the wheels of the minivan I am driving begin their climb up onto the Mackinac Bridge, heading north, heading home from the lower peninsula's Camp Au Sable after several days of conference-wide company. Later when we stop at a rest area on Route 2 along lake Michigan, they pop out of the car so joyfully that a woman giggles and says we look to her like a van full of clowns. I laugh along with her as my charges run in to the bathroom. And then I race along with them down the boardwalk to the sands of the beach, all of us inhaling the smell of leaves and water and cleanliness, and there they scrawl in the water-lapped sand with a mixture of fingers and shoe-heels, "We are home!" Somehow I feel as if I want to tack an "eh" onto the end of that. I think so too.

A Reaper Resting

O there'll be Joy when the work is done,
Joy when the reapers gather home,
Bringing the sheaves at set of sun
To the new Jerusalem,

Joy, joy, there'll be joy by and by
Joy, joy where the joys never die
Joy, joy for the day draweth nigh
When the workers gather home.


Grandma Madeline LaClair
5.3.1928 - 7.12.2011