Reflections (I)
2021
Foliage susan april
O
ne weekend every October, Dad would pile the family into the station wagon and take one of his “long short cuts” to New Hampshire to see the leaves turn. I didn’t understand that meant leaves changing colors. I thought they’d literally pirouette on their stems, like the ballerina in my jewelry box. Never happened. When I got the concept of fall foliage, I was sad. Because leaves changed from green to another color meant they were going to die. Except, it didn’t happen to all trees. Some tall and straight ones would keep their green color, even after the snow came. Dad informed us these were called evergreens. But mom laughed and said, Voyons, Charlie, don’t be so highmighty. They’re Christmas trees. I didn’t know the names of trees. Not until my sister and I went on our own fall foliage adventure. Denise was four years older—technically, three years and eight months. Our expedition happened in October 1965. It was close to Halloween, but not exactly. Perhaps, the weekend before. Denise was working on a Cadette Girl Scout merit badge, patch number 9-444, Plant Kingdom, Trees. I was nine, almost ten, and in fifth grade. She was thirteen, turning fourteen the end of March, a freshman in high school. For the merit badge, she’d have to go out and collect leaves, seeds, acorns, pinecones, etc. and carry them home in something—a paper bag would do nicely—then press the specimens between sheets of wax paper, using a hot iron. I didn’t one hundred percent understand this process: can you iron a pinecone? The activity also involved carrying a notepad, a pencil, and The Golden Guide to Trees. Denise fanned its pages in my direction. I saw tree pictures fly by and along the trailing edge of the last page, two paper rulers. Hey, can I see that? See what? Those rulers in there. Never mind about that. Do you want to help? I considered the alternative: I could stay behind in the fenced yard with my brothers, who seemed to live in a tree house which they called a fort. It was stocked with rocks, plums, smashed bits of brick and, most importantly, Dixie cups filled with sand that they lifted from the sandbox after the neighbor cats would—you know—use it as a sandbox. But it wasn’t the sand they pitched at my head. It was the things in the sand. Or I could walk with my sister whom, let’s be frank, I wished I could be not more like but exactly like, with her curly blonde hair, nonstop girlfriends and boyfriends, that forest green Cadette skirt and matching shoulder sash and its tale of merit badges, silver and gold stars, felt troop numbers, and oval cloisonne pin that spelled the Girl Scout Council name out in letters so small I couldn’t read them, but knew it meant she belonged.
The Lowell Review
61
