I grew up in Texas, my family having moved there from Rhode Island the summer before I entered second grade. I left Texas at the age of 20 -- how can it possibly have been 47 years ago? (Editor’s note. It isn’t; it’s 51. --RWP) -- but even though I now live in an area of the country where every spring is absolutely gorgeous with white dogwoods, pink dogwoods, purple redbuds, purple tulip trees (Magnolia soulangiana), white Bradford pear blossoms, pale pink cherry blossoms, azalea bushes in many shades, daffodils, phlox, forsythia (I could go on and on), every year around this time I become nostalgic for flat land, mesquite trees, and a field filled with bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush. The photograph (click on it and it will get larger) could have been taken from the front yard of my childhood home (it wasn’t, though --I found it on the internet). All it needs to make the scene complete is a dirt road and what people in Texas call a “bob-war fince” (barbed wire fence). If the photographer had then turned and taken a snapshot in a different direction, you might see a pasture full of Hereford cattle, the reddish-brown kind with faces of white. And if the photographer had turned in still another direction, you might see my mother picking blackberries or peaches or roses or lilacs, or you might see my father coming home from work, carrying his lunchpail, walking up the lane all the way from the paved road where his carpool dropped him off.
As an old poem says, “Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight, / Make me a child again just for tonight!”
I don’t really want to go back; it was not an idyllic period of my life. I am just missing the bluebonnets today as only someone raised in Texas can.
I thoroughly enjoyed your re-run. I can't get too much exposure to Texas Bluebonnets! :::sigh:::
ReplyDeleteHow can it be possible that I don't like this great blogpost? (Commentor's note: Actually, I do like it!)
ReplyDeleteI can certainly see why you loved them. They are terrific.
ReplyDeleteCheers
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ReplyDeleteI love your notion about the photographer turning in different directions to see images from the past.
ReplyDeleteAs far as pure showiness, I guess it's camus that rules the Willamette Valley. I'm trying to think what it might be in NW Georgia, and I don't know that there is one that stands out above the rest unless you include dogwoods and red buds. Is there one that comes to mind for you?
ReplyDeleteSnow, my guess would be that azaleas are at the top of the list for flowering bushes. I have always thought the dogwood trees were gorgeous, but the cherry trees around here sure give them a run for their money. I'd say it's a toss-up.
ReplyDeleteJust got back from Texas last week - beautiful!
ReplyDeleteTony, thanks for dropping by! I do think that bluebonnets, especially with Indian Paintbrush scattered among them, are a beautiful sight to behold.
ReplyDeleteI just popped over to your blog and read some of your experiences at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010. It was very interesting and I enjoyed it a lot. But why have you stopped blogging?