Wood Thrush-The Singer is come

Wood Thrush - The Singer is come

 For, lo, the winter is past,

 the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;

the time of the singing of birds is come,

 and the voice of the turtle

 is heard in our land;

Song of Solomon 2:11-12 (KJV) 

May 1, 2017 Finksburg: 

I knew that Spring had been fully fulfilled; Summer was upon us.
It was dusk of a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon when I parked and was about to unload my recent grocery purchases when I heard him.  Without a doubt, Summer was here. 


The Wood Thrush was singing in the Red Oaks close by the deck!

He was talking, two or three notes, pausing, then three or four, and pausing again, and so on.  I listened, and in each pause, from deep in the woods, came the answer.  Statement, response, question, answer..........this went on and on.  Conversation? perhaps.  Competitor? maybe.  Courtship? could be.


Mr. Sibley describes the Wood Thrush a "The largest of the spotted thrushes, with distinctive shape: potbelly, relatively large bill, and short tail", and pictures him/her in russet brown, white bib spotted with black dots*. Well Mr. Sibley has had a lot better luck than I:  Twenty years living in these woods and I've never had a really good look at this singer, but I know his voice.  Only ever saw him once and then only a darker image in a shadow.  Very shy, but oh, can he sing!
 
The notes of his song are brilliant, clear distinctive music; flowing like the mountain brook, the crystal flute in the Philharmonic.  It is a little like the song of the Redwing, but more delicate and not so flowing; some of the tones of his cousin, the Robin, but far more sophisticated and fine tuned;  Chantilly lace next on a cotton print apron.


Please don't misunderstand, I'm no bird expert.  Webster's assistance was required for the spelling of ornithology, but my ears are still good (albeit battery assisted) and I like good music, whether it be jazz or bluegrass, and this bird is a Joan Baez singing on the same stage as Bob Dylan; Dave Brubeck vs Jerry Lee Lewis.  (My metaphors and similes may also be a little gritty, but humor me, please.)


My friend usually shows up here around this time of year and spends the Summer, then goes South to some warmer location, presumably Central or South America, Sibley is not helpful here.  My experience is that he sings mostly in the magic times before sunrise and after sunset, times that good photographers love.

He was singing again this morning at first light; perhaps calling is a better word, pauses much shorter, he does not wait for an answer.  Having done very little reading on the subject, I am left to my imagination. so what I say next may not stand up to close scrutiny, but I believe the Wood Thrush sings first, along with other males, to attract a mate, then assists in the nest building, and, when the eggs are laid, sings to his mate at all hours as she sits the eggs. Perhaps he helps.  Once the fledglings arrive both partners' efforts are required to bring their necessary food, and the singing stops for the season.  Presumably their offspring are fed, nurtured, protected, trained and are ready to go with the Summer.  Their departure is done without notice.


So I wait and listen every Spring for my friend's announcement,
then every Summer when his singing stops, I wonder,  "How many more?"


fr




*David Allen Sibley, The Sibley Guide to Birds, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. New York

Earl

 Earl

 Auld Lang Syne      

 Should auld acquaintance be forgot

and never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my jo

for auld lang syne

We'll tak'a cup of kindness yet

for auld lang syne

   .........        

We twa hae run about the braes

and pou'd the gowans fine.

But we've wander'd many a weary fit

Sin' auld lang syne

.........        

ane there's a hand, my trusty fiere!

and gie's a hand o'thine

and we'll tak' a right gude-willie waught

for auld lang syne

 Robert Burns

1788

In the beginning, . . . . . . .



I parked my newly acquired, well used Honda 350 by the door of the fire house as he walked out of the bathroom and glanced at me as I set the kick stand.  He stood about six foot two, maybe 200 pounds of grizzled , bearded and balding, ten years my senior.  I knew Earl from the Company meetings and other activities.  He was quiet but opinionated, capable and strong in personality.  A carpenter by trade, and a damn good one, I later learned.
"Hey mister, can I ride your bike?" as he approached.
I knew he rode. "Sure," and tossed him my keys.
He did not stop walking until his face was about eighteen inches from mine.
softly, as he handed me the keys. "Don't ever do that again."
"Huh?"
"You don't do that.  Your bike is yours, and yours only. You don't let anyone else ride 'er.  They probably won't know the bike, won't know how to ride or worse, won't care.  Hurt themselves or the bike."
"Ok", I said, mostly to myself, as he turned and walked away leaving me standing there watching him as he swung his bad leg over the old Harley, fired it up and roared out of the parking lot on to Main Street and headed home.  That was the beginning of what was to become a close and lasting friendship.

***

Among a lot of other things, Earl was a biker.  Rode a '66 Harley, which was a little more that ten years old at that point.  Never could remember the complicated model designations that Harley uses or the engine names, but it was a '66, mostly stock, except maybe for the pipes which always seemed a bit loud to me, even for a Harley.  Maybe had the baffles out, I don't know; no one seemed to mind, and if they did, they never did say so to Earl.  Like I said, it was an older model with the police type windshield and the trademark squared off bags that Harley uses to this day.  Only one modification.  You see, Earl had a bad leg. His right knee was frozen; would not bend, so he kinda walked funny and could not manage the Harley's rear brake pedal which is, as you know, on the righthand side.  Now, as you also know, the front brake is controlled by a lever on the right handlebar, which of course he could handle, but panic stopping with only front wheel braking is not a recommended procedure.  To solve this, he had mounted a foot pedal just in advance of the left floorboard and had run a cable across the front of the engine and connected to the standard pedal on the right.  Worked fine, except that the left foot also handles the shifter, making things a bit busier than usual and infrequently generating some conflict of interest.  But it worked for him and he rode a lot in those days.  Had been president of the Baltimore Ramblers, a local, long standing and reputable motorcycle club. Didn't ride with them anymore, said they were always in too much of a hurry and sometimes a bit reckless even for his style.

***

I has always assumed that the bad leg was a result of a bike accident somewhere back in time;  he never spoke of it and, out of respect for his privacy and not wanting to bring up unpleasant memories, I never asked.  Actually, I just mostly did not want to piss him off; I had figured out early that pissing him off was not likely to end very well.  Years later, I did ask him and got a most unexpected response. 
"Bike fell on me." he said with a sheepish grin.
You crashed?
I said it fell on me, never had any problems while ridin'.
How th' hell could that be?
Put the kickstand down in soft ground, turned my back on 'er, was looking out over the countryside up a'top South Mountain, and over she come, right on my leg.  Smashed my knee all to hell and gi'me this gimpy leg for the rest of my life.
Couldn't they fix it?
Maybe, but they didn't.

***

I realized that it was not just bad memories behind his reluctance, but mostly embarrassment, and he had found a way to keep riding.  And he rode well.  His years seem to drop away when he rode.  Following behind, as I often was, you would think that you were following a twenty-something year old rider in the way he sat the bike and the way he moved effortlessly in and out of and through traffic.  The old bike only had three forward gears, but carried enough low rev torque to top the interstate grades over Garrett County's "hills" without even breathing hard.  By then I had moved up to an early four cylinder Gold Wing (early version, long before they came from the factory with custom bags and fairings; "rice burner", some called it.) which usually had me reaching for gears at the first sight of an incline, while Earl's old machine just went on over the top without missing a beat or losing an rpm.  It was like he never shifted. (BTW, Earl never had anything bad to say about anyone else's bike, no matter what its pedigree.  Never!)

***

And talk about stability!  I once saw him take off his pullover sweater without ever slowing down from highway cruising speed.  He just let go the bars, and calmly pulled the sweater up and over his head as if he was seated on his couch at home.  And the bike never wavered or swerved; just stayed straight on in its lane, and never seemed to miss a beat. Must've had the throttle locked down.  It wasn't a stunt, he just wanted to take off his sweater. Could not believe it!  That would have been a suicide on my bike.
We rode together a lot, and it wasn't just to ride; we always had a place to go to and a reason for going.  To Garrett County to visit his old friends, to Ocean City to the Fireman's Convention Parade, To Pennsylvania to the York Co Fair, etc. etc.  Harley riders were a bit more clannish in those days.  We stopped at a roadside park on the Eastern Shore one afternoon, and a couple of other Harleys pulled in and joined us.  They greeted Earl like he was a long lost cousin, nodded in my direction and then mostly ignored me once they had seen the bikes.

***

Anyway, here I am, forty years later, cruising down Route 50 in Worcester County in an aging machine from the Black Forest with more years and more miles than the average American vehicle will ever see, listening to the fiddles and banjos of Bluegrass Junction blaring from the speakers and floating along with the ocean bound traffic that is crowding 65 in the standard double nickel limits of the highway.  US 50 is still four lane divided with grade crossings, same as always.  I am in a groove, just drivin' and listenin' and thinkin' and rememberin'.

***

Must have been somewhere along about here that we saw it, Earl and me.  Think we were on our way to Ocean City to watch the parade at the Firemen's Convention.  It was a morning in mid-June, the sun was shining, it was warm but not yet hot, and there was no traffic. We were cruising in the right lane as we usually did; I was leading in the left tire path and Earl was following in the right, a few bike lengths to my rear.  Up ahead, on the seam between the two concrete slabs (it's blacktop now) that made up the highway's right side, something was there that should not have been. A scrawny, skinny white chicken with a few feathers missing!  In the middle of nowhere, and with no apparent reason for being there, a chicken who appeared to have no better idea of where he was or why he was there than I did.  He just stood there on the seam looking for all the world like, as my dad would have said, "an orphan boy at a picnic".  Perhaps he was an escapee from one of the trucks that are always hauling truckloads from one of Purdue's chicken farms to the processing plants in Salisbury, on his way to becoming fried chicken for Royal Farm.

***

I had what may not have been my best thought for the day.  At that particular instant it seemed to me that it might be great fun to scare the bejesus outa that poor chicken.  Now, keep in mind that this is all happening at 60+ mph, and careful consideration of all the possibilities and potential results was hardly possible, nor likely.  So, without giving further thought to it, I glanced in my left side mirror and, seeing no other traffic, swerved over into the rightmost track of the left lane and, as I passed just to the left of the chicken, let loose a long blast of my twin trumpets.  (The old 'wing had real good horns).  As touched the horn button, another thought flashed into my head, one much more clear and terrifying; "Stupid! that chicken's gonna jump/fly right up and directly into Earl's path, maybe in his face, knock him off the bike and God only knows what might result." But it was too late, the horn blasted, the chicken jumped and tried to fly, and I was past the scene, and as I drifted back into my place in the right lane I glanced in my right side mirror and saw something that has stuck in my mind ever since.  It is a clear to me today as it was that sunny morning.
It was a small snowstorm, a cloud of white, and, emerging from the cloud, an old Harley with a bewhiskered old rider with horn rimmed glasses and his trademark black half-shell helmet, just cruising along as if nothing had happen.  I breathed a sigh of relief, he was ok, nothing had happened.

***

We rolled to a stop at the traffic light at the edge of Salisbury (no bypass then) as Earl coasted up beside.  He looked over at me with what only can be described as "a shit-eatin' grin", then over the rumble of his idling Harley, said calmly, "I hit that sum'bitch, didn't I!"






I thought, "Yeah, Earl, you did, you really did hit that sum'bitch, but with the front wheel, thank God, not your windshield.", but I just grinned back and nodded.  We rode on.












God, I miss him!

End

Afterword:  That was the first and only chicken I have ever seen on the highway, riding or driving, to this day!.  Earl died a few years later, got to where he could not ride any more, or had no one to ride with, or maybe just never quite recovered from having to bury his Millie. The bike was left to a grandson who restored it to mint condition and rode it until the engine gave out. Last I heard it was resting peacefully somewhere in a basket alongside the rest of the remaining parts, perhaps awaiting  resurrection.




There may be another story there, but I'm not the one to tell it.

Family Reunion 2017

Family Reunion 2017

To:  The descendants of Joseph Renard, wherever they may be:

My wonderful niece, Sharon, recently posted this:

I am Sharon Brady Small
Dortha Renard Brady's daughter. I remember your family coming to Mother and Daddys house when we lived at Boydaville and we came to you house in the middle of a rice field ( seemed Like it anyway ) I'm thinking around Lepanto. Mothers brother Franklin Renard asked about a Renard reunion so we are trying to get one together for June 17th 2017. at Boydsvill Community Center The address,7158 HWY 90, Rector, AR. 72461. We are hoping to get several cousins we haven't seen in a long time or never to come. Where do you live now? I still live close to Rector,

I hope she will forgive my copying this, but it is a good introduction to a proposed reunion.  I would like to add a bit of family information that you may find interesting.

Decoration Day

Decoration Day was first established by a presidential proclamation just after the Civil War.  It apparently had been observed in many different places in the country previously and was intended primarily to honor those killed in the war, both North and South.  It was a day when relatives and friends would place flowers on the graves 
Over the years, and particularly in the Southern states, many graves suffered from the neglect of many years, so Decoration day had become a day not only to place flowers but also to clean the gravesite.  It gradually joined into and became Memorial Day.

Mars Hill

Such was the case in the little hillside church located in the red gravel hills of Crowleys Ridge, a string of hills in Arkansas's Clay County, a low ridge running northeast to southwest, several miles west of the Mississippi and marking the westernmost edge of that great rivers floodplain.
Mars Hill is a country church.  I have no idea of it's origins, philosophy or history.
I have never been inside the white sided building and, if it has more than one room, it is not apparent from outside.  It appears well maintained, dignified and polite, but there are no surrounding shrubbery and the parking area is not paved, just the natural gravel of the hill.  It obviously has withstood the wear and tear of many winters, but it still stands tall and proud.
But it is not the church that is my focus here but the gravesites that fill the hill that stretches upward to the building's left and holds the remains of my paternal grandparents and several of my uncles (none of whom I ever had the honor of meeting).  The site of my grandfather's cabin is within walking distance of the church and graves of grandpa's mother and others are at the Blooming Grove church a mile or so away.  Great Grandma's home was near that church also and my grandfather's brother Eli also owned property nearby.  If the family history has an epicenter, perhaps it is here.

The Reunion

It is here that the reunion began on a spring day about 75 years ago.

Frank Renard had died in 1924, and some years later, probably on the l930's those of his children who had survived childhood and still lived nearby (less than a day's drive) decided to meet to clean the gravesites and visit.  So each year on Decoration Day, they met in the morning, worked at the church, had lunch (dinner) at one of the closer sibling's home, had the afternoon for visiting before returning home. At one of these occasions they brought materials and poured a concrete cover over all of the several graves to prevent sinkage and erosion.

Who am I?

Who am I, you might well ask.  I am the youngest child of Henry Issac Renard, who was the fourth child of Frank Renard.  I am perhaps the last living grandchild of my namesake, but I'm not sure.  Born Henry Franklin Renard,  youngest of four children of Henry Renard and Lela Mae Corlew, named for my father and my mother's favorite big brother, I grew up on a farm a few miles from the Mars Hill Church. Over time my name shortened to "Frank" and I migrated to Baltimore where I live today, alone, except for Farley, my overweight cat. But this is not meant to be my story, my hope is that I provide enough of what little I know of the family's history to pique your curiosity enough to provide some data to fill in some of the blank spaces for me and perhaps motivate you to drop by the upcoming "reunion" and meet some previously unknown relatives and make new friends, etc. My records are sketchy and my memory is not much better; my documentation is disorganized.  I have hope that someone younger could take what little I have and put together a much better and longer lasting documentation.  Volunteers ?

 The Family

 A lot of what I know of the family's "ancient" history, comes from handwritten notes made by my aunt, Bertha Eva (Renard) Holdifield, written long before Altzheimer's claimed her and therefore dependable.  What her sources were, I have no idea.  According to her notes, Frank Renard's father  was Levi, and Levi was the son of John Renard and Sarah Wilkins who lived in the latter part of the 1700's and early 1800's.  John died in his 30's and, left only one sibling, Nancy, who also died quite young.  John was the son of Joseph Renard, but the dates and places Joseph and the location of John and Sarah  remain unknown.
For Levi, we do have information.  Born in 1820, he married Sarah Roberts in 1847 and sired two children, John and Sarah Elizabeth. Sarah died in  1853 and shortly thereafter Levi married Nancy |Hardisty and fathered a number of children, namely, Eli, Medora, Alice, Levi Z and Frank.  There were others who died as children, etc. but I don't have their names at hand.  Levi's grave is located in a small family cemetery in southern Illinois, which is actually in the backyard of a residence. (seen it).
Levi died in 1884 and Nancy moved with some of her twelve children and a brother (a peddler) to Arkansas. She paid personal taxes as a landowner in Clay County in 1893.  Her son Eli also owned land near her farm in Blooming Grove. (I don't have much information on Eli except that  he had three wives, lived for a time in Kansas and/or Oklahoma and left descendants there. He and his last wife were buried in a cemetery  in Malden Mo, but I believe the markers have long since disappeared.)
Frank, my grandfather, acquired land and married Amanda Scroggins, of southern Illinois. Not sure exactly where, but I can remember cousins from Mound City visiting us on the farm.  Six of Amanda and Frank's children reached adulthood, Lewis, John, Henry Bertha Thad and Rollie. Three others died in childhood and are buried with their parents at Mars Hill.  Lewis died in California and was returned to Mars Hill. He left family both here and in California. 
Amanda died in 1904 and about ten years later, Frank married Minnie Riddle. Their two children, Frances and L. T. have descendants throughout southwestern Arkansas and eastern Texas, many of whom are among my Facebook "friends".

Editor's Note:  This brief and sketchy summary most likely contains lots of errors and omissions due to my poor research and faulty memory. There is a lot more to be told regarding my parents' generation and their offspring, but not enough room here.  I welcome, even encourage, criticism, correction or addition. Let me hear from you, join us in June, you need not even be related, it should be quite a collection of folks.  There is no cleanup to be done this year, Mars Hill does a good job of maintaining the graves, and we won't meet at kinfolk's dining room, we have scheduled a community building. It is not far from Mars Hill.  I hope that we can just get together, visit, maybe sing some songs, have dinner, (everybody bring a little something) maybe some sort of little program, and swap stories and eat leftovers. No sermons and no sales pitches.Your suggestions are not only welcome, they are solicited.  Post your comments here on the blog, or on Facebook, or email me at hrenard@cbmove, or call 443-465-0274, anytime.

Mark your calendars and come join us on June 17, I think it is the Saturday before Fathers Day

fr