"Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush."
- Doug Larson
When I read the above quotation I immediately thought of my friend J. who had come over with her parents to visit one lazy Sunday afternoon in March. It was an early spring. The fields were too wet to work and puddles of water mixed with ice and snow dotted the farm yard.
We were about 9 or 10 and we decided to go outside for a walk and leave the adults and other siblings in the house. Armed with rubber boots and lots of warnings from our parents (that would be our mothers only) about falling in the water and getting our feet wet we finally left the house to explore.
We spent the first while outside dutifully walking around the brownish murky barnyard puddles. We played a bit putting sticks in the water going through one side of the culvert and running across the gravel road to wait for the sticks to come through on the other side.
And then we decided to walk out into the field.
Who would have ever thought that a stubble field of #2 Black soil covered in barley straw could harbour such a boot sucking knee deep splotch of mud? I had only taken one step and I knew I was in trouble . I immediately pulled my foot back and successfully extracted myself and the boot from the mud hole of doom.
Unfortunately my friend J had been walking beside me with a great deal more zeal. As I looked over I could see her white socked covered foot being pulled out of her boot which was by now sunk up to about a half inch from the top and then seeing the same white socked foot not so gently falling back into the mud just next to the boot and disappearing until only the ankle was showing with the edge of the pant leg just as quickly sinking, sinking, sinking.
That's when I heard the call. That sorrowful spine chilling call of desperation and panic resounds in my head every spring whenever I spy the wet syrupy mud on a field newly blackened by the flush of spring water. These are the words that taught me what adrenalin was; these are the words that triggered the inner voice to say "Run Penny, Run!". These are the words that I think of anytime in the spring when my husband pulls out the rubber boots and announces he's going for a walk to check the water. It is because of these words of 50 years ago ringing in my ears that I worry and wait until I hear the door opening marking his return.
- Doug Larson
When I read the above quotation I immediately thought of my friend J. who had come over with her parents to visit one lazy Sunday afternoon in March. It was an early spring. The fields were too wet to work and puddles of water mixed with ice and snow dotted the farm yard.
We were about 9 or 10 and we decided to go outside for a walk and leave the adults and other siblings in the house. Armed with rubber boots and lots of warnings from our parents (that would be our mothers only) about falling in the water and getting our feet wet we finally left the house to explore.
We spent the first while outside dutifully walking around the brownish murky barnyard puddles. We played a bit putting sticks in the water going through one side of the culvert and running across the gravel road to wait for the sticks to come through on the other side.
And then we decided to walk out into the field.
Who would have ever thought that a stubble field of #2 Black soil covered in barley straw could harbour such a boot sucking knee deep splotch of mud? I had only taken one step and I knew I was in trouble . I immediately pulled my foot back and successfully extracted myself and the boot from the mud hole of doom.
Unfortunately my friend J had been walking beside me with a great deal more zeal. As I looked over I could see her white socked covered foot being pulled out of her boot which was by now sunk up to about a half inch from the top and then seeing the same white socked foot not so gently falling back into the mud just next to the boot and disappearing until only the ankle was showing with the edge of the pant leg just as quickly sinking, sinking, sinking.
That's when I heard the call. That sorrowful spine chilling call of desperation and panic resounds in my head every spring whenever I spy the wet syrupy mud on a field newly blackened by the flush of spring water. These are the words that taught me what adrenalin was; these are the words that triggered the inner voice to say "Run Penny, Run!". These are the words that I think of anytime in the spring when my husband pulls out the rubber boots and announces he's going for a walk to check the water. It is because of these words of 50 years ago ringing in my ears that I worry and wait until I hear the door opening marking his return.
Call Mother! Call Father!
Call Anybody!
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