Hear The CAll

StarChild Science Healthy Living Initiative

When I was a small girl my grandfather would hoist me up onto his shoulders on warm summer mornings and take me down the "back alley", as he called it, to the post office to get his mail. On the way down the alley he would ask me to tell him everything I saw in each of the neighbor's backyard garden. What I saw several decades ago has always been with me. My grandfather was a railroad engineer in Saskatchewan, Canada in the 1930's through the1960's. His most enjoyable runs were when he delivered the spring wheat harvest across the country every fall in his steam engine. All the farmers knew him. He was their extended arm, pouring grain into their silos every September without a lick; he was on time, on track. They could depend on him. They used to call him 'chief' when he stepped down out of his steam engine. When he wasn't in his steam engine he would be at home surrounding himself with children. He enjoyed being with children. Children from the neighborhood would knock on his door when they knew he was home and beg him to come outside and swing them on the tire swing he made for his own children in his front yard. That swing lasted long enough for his great grandchildren to swing on it.

I remember the "back alley" walks as if they happened just yesterday. They began the same way all summer long. Grandpa would walk through his own garden, past his blueberry bushes, rows of corn, turnips, radishes; green beans winding up pole after pole; onions and carrots. He would open his back gate with me on his shoulders, turn to the right revealing the "back alley" bare and straight, dirt in chunks, no ditches, and already steaming hot. It was bordered with fences, each one was high and colored white like clouds. The alley had great proportions for a five year old; it was wider than Main Street and prairie-flat. From Grandpa's shoulders I could easily see fresh green vine leaves spreading down the alley side of the fences; large traffic-light yellow sunflowers lopped over some of their tops. I always looked to the very end of the alley at the beginning of our walks because I thought that when we got to where it was small and narrow that meant I would be this close to licking a cold ice cream cone at the Creamery after Grandpa got his mail.

As soon as we entered the "back alley" it was easy to see the air was trafficked by more life than just me and Grandpa: Bees, dragonflies, butterflies and red-throated Anna hummers crossed the alley ahead of us constantly. The bees must have claimed the air first because there were so many of them. They buzzed back and forth, from one side of the alley to the other side while snow white cabbage moths fluttered softly past my head. When grandpa decided to rest, he would lean against a fence and ask me to tell him everything I saw in a neighbor's garden. "Don't tell me how many things you see. Tell me what you see," he would say. "Well," I would begin, "Mrs. Dunsmore's potatoes are pushing right up out of the dirt already." I told him as I looked down into her garden. "And her leeks are tall and straight. They look like green pencils. There's a whole bunch of them." Oftentimes I would watch a few of Mrs. Dunsmore's grandchildren run in and out of the rows of leeks while singing something about 'leekie'. That's when Grandpa would begin laughing so hard he had to bend over to catch his breath. "The leeks are for her cock-a-leekie soup," he managed to tell me as he straightened up. "Mrs. Dunsmore is Scottish you know."

Mrs. Dunsmore planted her leeks and carrots at the base of her backporch steps where it was easy to pull out a handful when she needed them. Her onions were surrounded by yellow crocus flowers just beyond the steps and Prairie Lilies bordered the foundation of the entire back of her house every summer making the bell peppers and amaranth seem small in comparison. Climbing rose bushes laced her kitchen windows while butterflies walked straight into their pink blossoms, as Grandpa said, "as if they owned the joint." I couldn't leave her garden without reaching into it with my nose and inhaling deeply. One morning I told her her garden was the best thing I had ever smelled. "That's because all the butterflies are like flying flowers," she told me. When our "back alley" walks started early in the morning, it wasn't uncommon to see a few of her grandchildren leaning into her strawberry patch in their pajamas, tossing each strawberry into their mouths like they were eating red candy.

When Grandpa would cross over to the other side of the "back alley" he would stop at Mrs. Karius's fence. I had to look up into her garden to see her sunflowers because they were so tall and proud. Like yellow soldiers, they were all lined up against the inside of her fence. They were at least as tall as four cattails put end to end. I couldn't help but catch a glimpse of some blue sky when I looked up at the handfuls of seeds crowded in their centers. "Mrs. Karius's sunflowers are taller than you, Grandpa." I would tell him. On many Saturday mornings, a few of her grandchildren would be sitting on her back porch steps eating roasted sunflower seeds out of cornucopias she had rolled out of newspapers. As I watched them, it looked like they were chewing on white diamonds. On some Saturday mornings in late summer, Mrs. Karius's grandson, Johann, was in his baseball uniform ready for a morning practice. He was always tossing the sunflower seeds into his mouth faster than any of the other children. Once, when he saw me looking over the fence, he yelled to me, "Grandma says they will make me strong and we will win the game." He grabbed an imaginary bat and swung at an imaginary baseball and watched it calapult into the blue sky above. "I just put a loaf of my sonnenblumenbrot into the stove," his grandmother told us. "It will get him through the game. He needs the energy from the seeds," Mrs. Karius watched Johann with pride as she shoehorned her baby dill closer to her young heads of cabbage.

When Grandpa crossed over to the other side of the alley he would stop at Mrs. Hildebrandt's fence. If I stretched my neck over the fence far enough, I could see tall dalias lining the fence. Row after row of raspberry bushes were propped up on spindly stakes. "Mrs. Hildebrandt's raspberries are the biggest I've ever seen, Grandpa." "How big?" he would always ask. "They're as big as Grandma's fat chocolate balls she makes for Christmas." I would always tell him. "They're for her custard kuchen for our Sunday potlucks." Grandpa would always pause and watch the bees swarming all over the dalias. "Kind of looks like they are going to take the whole flower with them doesn't it? I must check on my hives tomorrow. I should have enough honey for winter by now," he told me. "Winter is always honey season to your grandma, you know."

ve ever seen." She always came over to the fence to discuss her raspberry strategy with us. "I am waiting for the color to tell me when to pick them. They have a fire all their own, you know." When she was about to tell me one of her garden secrets her voice would dissolve into a whisper, "When they are sweet as sweet can be, I can see them even when it's near dark." Her eyes would twinkle with bits of colored light, like fireflies. "They are the deep red of a garnet. They look like little red lights along the fence. Sweet red lights. It looks like Christmas before it's Christmas." Her chest would quiver as she chuckled at her own words. When we got to the forth fence, Grandpa would stop and ask, "What do you see in Mrs. Bentley's garden today?" "Green beans. Lots of green beans and they are winding up long strings between poles. It looks like lots of tall green teepees." I looked closer into her garden and discovered something I didn't want to think about. Turnips. "I hate turnips. Don't you Grandpa? They stink when you cook them." "Oh, but Mrs. Bentley knows that stinky is good in her kidney pies." We could see Mrs. Bentley bending into one of her green teepees, pulling green beans off their tendrils one after another. As she put them into a basket she called out to us, "Just look at these darlings. They are as ready as they can be. I don't harvest them until I see that emerald color. That's when it's time to put them up for winter." She grabbed at a bean plant then walked over and gave a bean to each of us and continued, "You must plant them at the very beginning of summer to get this color by June. The magnetism in the earth pulls a marvelous, marvelous power into the bean and gives it life." I chewed on the sweetness of the green bean while she offered us to take a close look at its leaf. "The leaves of the bean are shaped like a heart. Do you know what that means young lady?" I was too scared to answer. I just shook my head "no" and nudged Grandpa to cross the alley to another garden. Immediately. And he did.

When we came to Mrs. Knipple's fence, I could see she was busy in her kitchen slapping potato latkes between her palms. "Mrs. Knipple is making latkes again, Grandpa." Grandpa peeked over her fence while telling me, "I'll bet her potato patch is planted at the bottom of her backporch steps again." He stretched his neck to see if he was right, and he was. "Her potato patch is Mrs. Knipple's pride and joy," he told me. "She knows they are not in the Bible but she grows them anyway." When we crossed over to the other side of the "back alley", we came to Mrs. Knee's fence, the tallest fence along the alley. Grandpa would always lift me onto the top of her fence so he could stretch out his shoulders. He didn't have to ask me to tell him everything I saw when we were at this fence. I just blurted it out. "I see the most vegetables of all. There's so much stuff in her garden," I would begin.

"I see enough carrots to fill a truck. They're everywhere. And I see onions. Oh, and celery. She's even got Black-eyed Susans planted in with her onions." It wasn't difficult to see that Mrs. Kanee was a gardener in a class all her own. Grandpa would tell Grandma that even the butterflies were grateful because Mrs. Kanee planted Black-eyed Susans. "She's got enough in her garden to feed an army," he would tell Grandma. Mrs. Kanee's potatoes and onions were never at the base of her backporch. All summer long they were mixed in with her carrots in the sunniest part of her garden; her tomatoes were next to her cabbages; her squash was wandering around carefully placed stepping stones all the way out to the front street. They partnered with mint all along both sides of her house. One morning while I was looking over at her garden, Mrs. Kanee suddenly came out of nowhere. She was carrying a handful of ripe sunflower-yellow Morgan tomatoes. Just before she got to the bottom of her backporch steps, she suddenly stopped, noticing her fennel in bloom. She bent down into the clump of young fennel and pulled some flowers from their stems then dashed up the steps and into her kitchen. When I called out and asked her what she was making for lunch she told me, "I am harvesting my garden. My brother from the Deutschland is coming to visit and he loves my shakshouka." When I asked Grandpa what shakshouka was he told me, "It's a Jewish dish. I think it means 'shake' – thrown together –like Grandma does with her stews. It has lots of vegetables in it. It's a very popular dish made with eggs and tomatoes and lots of onions, carrots and stuff. Jewish people eat it all day if they want to. Shakshouka is just as popular with Jewish people as Dagwood sandwiches are with us." We watched as Mrs.Kanee folded her fennel flowers into her shakshouka. She then gathered a few fresh eggs into her apron from her chicken coop beside her house and returned to her kitchen, stirring and stirring for her brother's visit.

Every time we arrived at the post office after a "back alley" walk Grandpa and I were hungry. Sometimes he would jokingly tell me the look of the bell shaped structure on the top of the post office building was what made him hungry. "That thing looks like an onion," he would say. "Blame it on the Ukraines." As we sat in the Creamery he would read his mail while licking his ice cream cone slower than I licked mine. Once in a while he would look up and say in his soft, deep voice, "Give us this day our daily ice cream cone." Then he would wink and go back to reading his mail while I stared at the onion shape on top of the post office building, wondering why Ukrainians would do that to an onion. Some times I would imagine a huge raspberry from Mrs. Hildebrandt's garden on top of the post office building instead of an onion. One summer I got so good at imagining that I went further with my imaginings: I imagined one of Mrs. Bentley's turnips up there on top of the post office building. I especially liked this image because I couldn't imagine that vegetable on a plate! But the image that held my attention for several summers was one of my favorite things to imagine on top of the post office building. It was Mrs. Knipple's potato. Maybe I liked this image so much out of sympathy for the potato–for that was the only vegetable along the "back alley" that was thought to be too ugly to be put in the Bible. It just seemed fair to me to place it on top of the post office building for everyone to see and admire it. Why, it was the vegetable that gave us french fries, creamy casseroles of all kinds– cauliflower, green bean and onion. Purresuppe, Mrs. Knipple's leek soup, wouldn't exist without the potato. And, it was the only vegetable along the "back alley" that was capable of making into hash browns for breakfast. You couldn't make much of a Sunday dinner without potatoes, either. I was ready to challenge anyone who took exception to these attributes of such a homely, ugly vegetable. I was ready to tell anyone to ask Grandma about the importance of the potato. And Grandpa.

Sometimes in life a memory of something far away in time and space can bring you closer to it. Even though I have been away from the "back alley" for several decades, the memory of one afternoon in Grandpa's own garden claims a lasting hold on me to this day. I remember a conversation I had with him. I was eight and he was fifty-two. We were sitting on little chairs under a blueberry bush eating blueberries when I asked him, "What did the very first day on Earth look like, Grandpa?" He looked straight at me for the longest time before replying, "Well, let me think about that. That's a big question for such a young person." He pulled another blueberry off a bush while I pushed on for his answer. "Was it beautiful and sunny like today?" A long and somewhat awkward silence passed before he found his answer, "Yes, it was just like today. Beautiful and sunny." Somehow Grandpa's answer to my big question made room for me to feel bigger, older, right there on the spot. From that afternoon on I never climbed up on top of his shoulders on our "back alley" walks again. I always walked alongside him. Holding his hand.

On early summer nights I would lie in bed in the dark and listen to a Nightingale singing from somewhere down the "back alley". Fluting tones I had never heard before would rise into the night air at a sparrow's speed. These tones would suddenly change into long shaking, vibrating sounds that Grandpa called trills. This was followed by the sound of strings being plucked ever so gently. Each plucked string, I imagined, was the sound of a butterfly stepping around the petals on Mrs. Dunsmore's roses "as if he owned the joint". This was followed by garbling sounds, like murmurs, then came a cluster of rapid, loud but happy sounding phrases. These busy moments were followed by short pieces of silence. Within a week of hearing this nocturnal symphony I learned that these pieces were a preamble to another set of fluting tones, plucked strings. While listening to the Nightingale, I wondered if Grandpa could hear what was coming out of this little throat when he was resting in his steam engine out on the big prairie. I wondered if Mrs. Hildabrandt could hear it. And even the postman.

What was the Nightingale saying? What's his story? I would ask myself. When I was five he was saying, "I'm a happy chappy." When I was eight he was saying, "I'm still a happy chappy." And when I was twelve he was saying, "Baby, I could really dig it here! This is where I want to be. This is heaven." And when I was fourteen I tried to harmonize with him; reach the high notes, the trills, while burying my head under my pillow; spend the short pieces of silence with my eyes closed while counting the beats of my heart before he started up again. When I was sixteen I realized he was especially good at what he did and I adored his wildness. Every one of the gardeners loved his singing except Mrs. Bentley. Mrs. Kanee warned us all that Mrs. Bentley would be kvetching all day after listening to the singing all night. And every summer she was right. Mrs. Bentley once told Grandpa that she wished the Nightingale would stop singing his 'big songs'. "Life is not a song," she would complain. "Life is hard work. Just look at my garden. I have no time to sing a song. Small or big." Mrs. Hildebrandt said the Nightingale was in love. And she went on to tell me how I could make my days on Earth always be bright and sunny. She told me that the garden is a wide pathway to love. "You are young. But you will hear a 'call' maybe many times in your lifetime that will be a 'call' to love. I don't know when it will come, or how it will come, but everyone who listens to life hears a 'call' to love. When you answer your 'call' in life you will know that you mattered in your lifetime here on Earth because you are doing what you truly love to do. You are doing what makes you jump with joy, can't wait until the next day begins. That's what the Nightingale is doing. He is answering his 'call'. He is answering to love."

One Saturday night near dark, a few summers after asking Grandpa my big question, I heard the faint sounds of a violin down the "back alley". I crept out of Grandma's house and walked down the alley in the light of a full moon toward the sound of the violin. I stopped when I found the source of plucked strings and stepped up onto an old tree stump next to Mrs. Hildebrandt's fence. I peeked over her fence and saw that it was Mrs. Hildebrandt who was playing the violin. Several of her grandchildren sat quietly on her backporch steps, listening. I could see her floral print dress in the moonlight. Her white hair was gathered high into a bun. A large garnet red ribbon swirled around her bun and draped gracefully onto her neck. As I stood there and listened to her play, I noticed her eyes never opened from one piece to the next. I was charmed by her rapid trills, clusters of strong melodious phrases followed by short pieces of silence. Each time she plucked the glimmering strings I could hear they had a vibrance all their own. During the silent pieces I was sure Mrs.Hildebrandt could hear the beating of my heart. When she stopped playing, she placed her violin into her kitchen and then gathered seeds out of a paper bag. She walked over to a bare piece of soil and began planting the seeds. In moonlight.

As I walked back to my room, I was sure Mrs. Hildebrandt had answered her "call". Her garden, her grandchildren, violin, her raspberries were not the only things that were part of her "call". Now, seeds tucked into the soil in the light of the moon were added to it. When did she hear her call? I wondered. Where was she? Was she with her grandpa? How old was she? Just after I crawled into bed, it wasn't long before I heard what I longed to hear— the Nightingale singing his nocturnal symphony out of his tiny throat once again. That's his "call", I told myself. He's jumping with joy. I layed there in bed wondering where and when I would hear my "call". How old will I be? Who will hear it with me? Will I be all alone when I hear it? Can I share my call with someone else? Can I swap calls with someone else? Will I hear it in the summer? Will I hear it when I am eating one of Grandma's chocolate Christmas balls? Will I be in a garden? Walking along the "back alley" with Grandpa? Picking blueberries for a blueberry pie? Will I hear it while I'm licking an ice cream cone at the Creamery? As I grew older I wondered even more about hearing a "call". Mrs. Kanee told me a bar mitzvah was easier than hearing her "call". "At least you know when a bar mitzvah is going to happen!" she would tell me. And Mrs. Dunsmore told me her first communion was a lot easier than hearing her "call" because at least she knew when she was going to receive it. Mrs. Hildebrandt told me she first heard her "call" to become her own gardener when she tasted the first rapberry she ever planted. "It was full of sunlight," she told me. "Full of sunlight. I never tasted anything so wonderful as that first raspberry." I continued to wonder about hearing a "call". Could whole neighborhoods hear a call? Main Street? A city? A town? A nation? Could they hear a "call" to love....? I wondered.

While helping Mrs. Hildebrandt weed her, as she called it, "lunar patch" of carrots, I asked her, "Why did you plant these carrot seeds in the moonlight, Mrs. Hildebrandt?" She looked up at me, straightened her back, laid her hands into her lap and replied, "I did it for my grandchildren." She kind of wanted to leave it like that. "What do you mean?" I pulled at the weeds like I was pulling an answer out of her. "I invite my grandchildren over to spend early summer nights with me so they can hear the Nightingale singing. They can hear him answering his 'call' to love. I play the violin in my garden in the light of a full moon while they watch me so they can sense everything matters to our garden, even the moon." She moved a ladybug from her arm, placed it arm's length behind her then returned to pulling at the weeds. "You see, when the moon is full, big and round, it kind of talks to the earth. It says, 'Earth I am so close to you now. I can pull on every bit of you, even your water.'" She looked up and chuckled, then went on. "All the water on the earth is pulled away from the earth and toward the moon. Even the water here in the soil in this garden. All this pulling pulls water into the seeds that are in the soil. And the seeds germinate quickly because of the water that moves into them." She bent down closer to the soil and added, "It's kind of like a love thing. This pulling."

"It pulls on the water? In this garden?" I asked her as she lifted a handful of weeds out of the soil and placed them into a nearby bucket. She straightened her back again, laid her hands into her lap and looked straight into my eyes. "All things communicate with one another. That's how nature works. The moon and the earth talk to one another, kind of. Only they talk magnetic talk. They push and pull on one another all the time. When the moon is very close to the earth, the pull between them is very great indeed. This great pull force pulls on the water in our oceans and the rivers. The water in our ponds and the wetlands is pulled toward the moon as well. Even the water in our creeks is pulled away from the earth and toward the moon."

"Was it a full moon on the first night on Earth?"

When grandpa returned from his trip to Quebec I asked him, "Grandpa, how do you know you matter?" He answered quicker than I thought he would. "When you understand that love makes the world go around."

Now, many decades later, food fairs, eat-ins, food festivals, the slow food movement, foodies, gastronomic fairs, are all blending in with one another offering a rich seasonal mix for healthy living. Culinary festivals, fests of all kinds- garlic, tomato, artichoke, mushroom, strawberry, kiwi- are springing up as quickly as annuals on our food landscape. Church potlucks are bringing God into the care and cultivation of the earth. Congregations are planting collard greens, beans, sweet potatoes, and herbs to nourish both the body and soul at the same time. Food, faith, and gardening have struck a chord in many a congregational heart. The urge to "plant" new congregations sides along with the desire to "grow" in faith. Faith is like a seed to the members. It has to be planted and tended. Local harvests are spreading into shopping centers, junior college parking lots and local parks. Local organic produce such as spinach, cauliflower, tomatoes, dandelion greens, biblical roots of all kinds, flowers and honey, fresh figs as big as your fist, raspberries and jams spread out under umbrellas in an unheard of part of the work week for such events, on Thursdays. Neighborhoods unfortunate enough to find themselves in "food deserts" in large cities are readying beds for beets, cabbage, swiss chard, red beans and corn for grits behind parishes and in abandoned neighborhood parking lots.