BERRY TALES: Thoughts on Indian Summer and a memorable Civics teacher

It seems there is an Indian Summer happening here. The woods are changing and the leaves are falling but the crisp coolness of Autumn is slow to arrive. I somehow knew October would come quickly, it always does, this little fleeting pocket of the year I love. This place where I hear the sound of the mill from my backyard and the slow moving trusty tractors filled to the brim with sweet stalks of cane are up ahead on the backroads, roads I have traveled for most of my life. These are the sights and sounds of home. The days are shorter now and waiting for the full Hunter Moon to hang from the sky, overlooking the fields, giving more light for the farmers. The gold and purple wildflowers are covering the meadows and ditches and the last of the summer butterflies are hovering over late summer zinnias and pentas. Full grown lizards and dragonflies are scurrying in these last days of warm weather; they know cooler weather is ahead, just as the squirrels know and just as the trees know to take in the remaining chlorophyll stored in their leaves; all of the living things are preparing for winter, all are scampering in this Indian Summer, for winter is near. It seems like it was yesterday when it was spring and I would sometimes find butterflies and lizards as babies, showing up unexpectedly in the garden, tiny little gifts from nature that had the seemingly insurmountable task of growing and staying alive throughout the summer months. Many of them did; the dragonflies lit on my clothesline when I was hanging sheets in mid-July and the lizards scurried along the deck banister hunting and growing. I see only a few now and these few have made it … the bugs of summer are changing with the season.

The seasonal tilt of the planet causes a new and interesting cast of light in my house. From the color and the outdoor beauty of October, I walk into a scattering of light, inside light that is beautiful and wonderous. I have ample “normal” light from electricity but the miraculous light of the sunrise and sunset is there also, the spiritual lights that flow through crystal prisms in the morning and disperse through my keeping room window in the early evening, magical sunbeams that find their way inside. It is as though I have a beautiful and restoring visitor each day and for the thirty-five years I have made it a point to welcome this dance across these rooms, this dance that makes me feel happiness, happy that the natural world has no interest in the noise of the world.

As a final note, with nothing to do about the season but with everything to do with life and how you live it, I ask, “How do you make civics class interesting”? My answer would be to have Lawrence Narcisse Jr. teach it. Mr. Narcisse is one of the teachers I have remembered through all of my life with admiration. It was 1969 in a classroom in New Iberia High School. I was a timid freshman sitting in this somewhat new and huge school in a potentially boring Civics class. Our teacher was this young, meticulously dressed in a suit, tie and polished dress shoes, man armed with knowledge and an obvious love of teaching. He stood in front of the classroom of wide eyed fourteen year olds and explained the three branches of government. He was accomplished and well prepared, a teacher that was, by anyone’s stringent standard, a role model, someone who obviously loved his profession and was there to enlighten and inspire young minds and he did. I read recently that he has passed. I write this to acknowledge that I still remember his engaging Civics Class and, because of him, I have a decent understanding of the importance the three branches of government are to our country. Thank you, Mr. Narcisse for a job well done. I include you in a list of teachers who taught their students “how” to think, to gather the facts, deliberate and make our own “educated” decisions; he did that.

Until next month, have a spooky Halloween, look up in the sky Wednesday to see the Full Hunter Moon, be thankful for our farmers, and find a way for your harvest to be “enough.”

PAM SHENSKY is a wife and mom to five.