Several families I know have faced the task of dealing with their family homeplaces. It may be that my generation is the last to feel this pain of letting go the place where an entire childhood was spent since families are far more mobile in the present times with multiple moves taking children from place to place. Roots don’t have much time to grow.
The place where I grew up is for sale now. Through the fall and winter my sister and I worked to get it ready for sale with repairs, a new roof, patching, and painting. With the dreary browns and grays of winter, we didn’t see much progress in terms of curb appeal. Now in spring, with Mama’s yellow rose bush in full bloom, it looks more like our childhood home.
Spring is a terrible time to let a place go. It would be much better to sell in the dead of winter when everything isn’t coming to life. There are too many reminders of the past in spring. You might run into some of the same things I’ve noticed.
You might see a picnic table by a maple tree and remember seeing a watermelon cut and hearing that crack when the melon is very ripe. “Now that’s a good one,” your daddy might have said about that homegrown melon from down on the creek bottom. Before you know it you’ll be remembering all the fish cleaned on that table and the corn shucked and peaches peeled for canning.
When the grass in the yard turns that bright green only spring can produce, you might be taken back to Easter Sunday each year when the thrift bloomed purple, pink, and white, and Easter eggs disappeared under the clumps of flowers. You may have a picture in an album somewhere of children dressed up for church with their Easter baskets by their sides.
After a spring rain shower, goldfinches may have descended onto the yard, bobbing around the yard, indistinguishable from the dandelions dotting the grass. You might remember your mama standing at the picture window saying how those little yellow birds were the prettiest God made.
You might stand in the yard in spring and look toward the fields turning green and remember all the years of making hay. The mowing machine, rake, and baler long gone, you may still recall the look of neat bales of hay scattered about the field where, at 10-years-old, you learned to drive an old Ford truck while helping get up the hay. The little slope will remain where you squeezed your knuckles white holding onto that steering wheel while learning to let out the clutch without making the truck lurch forward, so your daddy would be proud of your learning to drive.
It might be hard in spring when you hear the little spring peepers calling from down on the creek. A lifetime of hearing that sound could come back to you, memories of sitting on the porch steps in the evening, smelling your mama’s supper while the first lightning bugs began to light up the trees. You might remember that peaceful feeling of being a child with someone else carrying the worries of the world.
If you see the walnut trees putting on spring green leaves, you might think back to the hog lot under one of those trees and remember the huge pig Arnold named after the Green Acres TV pig. Arnold cracked walnuts that fell into his pig pen with his mighty jaws causing a loud pop heard inside the house. You might recall your mama telling you the pork chops were not Arnold although you had your doubts.
Because it’s spring you could look across the road where the half-acre garden grew every year of your life at home. You might remember running over to the garden to pull up some spring onions, so your mama could slice them up to cover with vinegar to eat with beans and cornbread. It could make you feel lonely to think of all that is past.
Yes, I’m convinced. When the time comes, spring is not the best season to sell. The smell of honeysuckle, the evening breezes, it’s all too reminiscence risky.