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Autumn is upon us again, and with it comes the house fly. Enjoy this column originally published in the Record on September 27, 1988.
It's hard to believe that Autumn is upon us, already. The signs are unmistakable, though. The apple trees, with their burden of fruit, no longer have to be looked for in the woods; with their red and yellow and speckled crop, they stand out clearly. Some of maple trees around the country look as though they had low-grade fevers. Their green has given way to a flush of dull red. Seems to come earlier every year. Other signs appear as well now. Deer season will soon be upon us. We get the usual compliment of cars cruising past slowly, to see if there are any deer in the lower meadow. It's not the valleys of life I mind so much as the dips – like the dipstick who shot a young deer in our field twenty minutes or so before hunting season started last year, walked down to look at it, decided he wanted a bigger deer, and just left. We came across this column while perusing content for Lee's forthcoming book. We thought it was a timely addition to the blog given all of the hurricane trouble the Carolinas are now experiencing. This text was originally published twenty-five years ago in the Record on September 21st, 1993... Enjoy.
For the first time ever, I was looking forward to the hurricane season this year. Not, I hasten to add, because I was hoping to experience one but because I thought a hurricane might do us some good, as it seems to have done in fact. Only gradually are we beginning to recognize how intimately the elements of our earthly existence are tied together, how a small event here can cause a major event somewhere else, how the warmth of a part of the Pacific Ocean can effect the weather over much of North America. Scientists call it 'sensitive dependence upon initial conditions' and the study of it has generated a whole new realm of science, sometimes called 'non-linear physics,' or, more frankly, 'chaos studies.'  ©Alice Whitney 2018 My apologies for the delay in posting some new (old) material... given all of the fantastic weather, I somehow misplaced the entire month of August. No doubt it's buried in my garden, or floating in a swimming pool somewhere. I love tall tales and hyperbole, and by happy accident, unearthed this piece while digging for something completely different. Let Lee pull on your leg a bit with this column that was originally published in the King's County Record on November 13th, 1985.
The truth, according to someone who should have pretty reliable information on the subject, is seldom pure and never simple. If my neighbors over the years are any indication I would be willing to go out on a limb and venture the opinion that mankind generally has a deep-seated desire to keep anybody from finding out what it is exactly that is going on around the old farmstead. I suppose that it all started out with those two orchard thieves way back when, with their tall tail about the snake telling them what to do. I don't know about you but it always seemed to me that Chief was a little bit gullible on that one. I suppose that he hadn't had much experience with kids at that point - goodness knows, he's had enough since then - but if my youngsters came home with a story about how they really weren't that responsible because it was the horse that told them it would be O.K. to borrow the car, I don't think I would be inclined to go on a vendetta against the whole horsey tribe from henceforth and notwithstanding |
