Signs

Hale's Chapel

Groundhog Day in the USA! Unlike last year when we had bundles of sunshine for shadow making, today is rainy and foul looking. I hope it stays that way. Last spring was obviously delayed by the groundhog seeing his shadow, but this year will be quite different. As soon as I finish writing this blog, I will adjourn to the bedroom and replace my winter wardrobe with the latest 1985 spring fashions. Unless somebody in the family or a close friend dies, I will not wear long pants again until late next fall, and I will don underwear only when I visit a doctor. Life is looking a little better.
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My grandmother very much believed in "signs" such as Groundhog Day. She foretold the weather from what she observed in nature, and she planted her garden by sky signs, among other things. She always planted potatoes during the last dark moon in March. When I was small, I never got to cut the eyes out of potatoes for planting. Do you remember the oft repeated line from the movie A Christmas Story: "You'll shoot your eye out kid!"? For me it was "You'll cut your fingers off boy!". They were probably correct as I have been a klutz with knives all my life; I have many scars from blade encounters, all the way from my big toe to my ear.
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The above photo shows the many-times remodeled building where my grandmother attended school for her three years of formal education at the turn of the twentieth century. She had to walk about three miles to and from her home in the Headtown community to the Hale's community, crossing a very high ridge through fields and woods and over and under barbwire fences on a pathless trek to the one room building. It was later converted to a church, and is now a community center. The first foundation stones are still in place, and all the pretty white is just a covering for the original structure. There are a lot of stories here.
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Happy Groundhog Day!