Something's Missing

As I looked around over the last few days, I remembered times in my life when I missed the changing colors of autumn. This year the color of the leaves seem so vivid and wonderfully bright. While at the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society on Wednesday I saw the most beautiful maple trees. Someone planted them in a row along the grounds of the Flax Scutching in Stahlstown, Pennsylvania. They blazed with an intense fire-like red. The sun made them glow brightly against the green grass background.

Driving home from shopping Thursday, another tree displayed rich orange hues with a green underpinning. Each color complimented the other making an orchestra for my eyes. A few other trees wore a deep crimson coat and were scattered among trees that still wore their summer greens.

These views were things that I missed when I was stationed in Orlando, Florida while enlisted in the U. S. Navy. I liked to see and hear the ocean. Threes bearing orange trees surrounded me, but the orange hues of that fruit scattered throughout the foliage wasn’t the same. Recently I returned from Sacramento, California. It was too early for the trees of tangerines, lemons, and oranges to be ripe. Their deep green seemed almost invisible in the shadows of the dense leaves.

I missed the beauty of Pennsylvania autumns while I was stationed in Keflavik, Iceland. They do have trees and winter; and the trees do lose their leaves, but the major difference is, their trees are little more than shrub height. The trees on the island were decimated by frequent over-harvesting of fuel for homes and ships. Because of the deforestation and winds, the trees never recovered and their leaves don’t seem to change their colors.

This year I missed the annual Ohiopyle Volunteer Fire Department’s Buckwheat and Sausage Festival. The pandemic caused them to cancel this fundraising event. I’ve worked with them in some capacity for the best part of fifty years. Washing dishes, cooking buckwheat cakes, or frying the sausage. I always was glad to help, but as I’ve aged, those two days would wear me out. I missed the camaraderie and taste of the slightly sour buckwheat cakes and spicy flavor of the sausage.

I also miss the social event of the Flax Scutching. It was an annual gathering of farmers to cut and scotch the flax plants. The tough fibers of the flax plant was harvested and separated before it was spun into thread. The thread was used to weave into linen or mixed with wool to make linsey-woolsey for our ancestors’ clothing. Alas, it also fell victim the Corona Virus.