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My dad, late one afternoon in the second week of June, departing
from the village of Fjord, in Galloway County, Wisconsin, and
destined for the Amish store to get oatmeal, bread flour, and rye,
chose the back roads that wind through gentle hills of farms and
woods. The soon-to-be-summer scenery was serene, with young
corn leafing nicely, mown hay awaiting the baler, and cottonwood
“snow” drifting on the breeze and catching sunlight that leaked through
the soft greens of oaks and maples. Horse manure decorated the
roadways, but perfume from a particularly lovely form of phlox
also reached our noses. Mom napped, in front beside my father,
while Aunt Jeannette, in back with me, offered observations. She
commented on crops, remarked on reputations of rural restaurants,
and pointed out a Victorian house in which Aunt Francine rented a room
fifty-some years ago while teaching school before her own children came along.
In an unfenced garden a slender woman all in black—crisp long-sleeved
dress, snug-fitting bonnet, black boots and stockings—but wearing no
gloves upon her pale hands, stood tall. She hoed dark soil all alone.
In the evening a friend of mine in Utah phoned. When she asked “What’s new,”
I thought before I answered. Then I said, “Not much that’s worth reporting, but
please go ahead and ask me: ‘David, what seems to be unchanged?’”
♦
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