that special time of year

There's something special about this time of year. Last week, I went for a walk and noticed that the Queen Anne's Lace is in bloom. It has a delicate scent. Once you breathe it in deeply, you notice it among the subtler smells of mid-summer. And this weekend, the crickets started their chorus, picking up where the spring peepers and still-single frogs had long ago left off.

Then, early this week, as I was driving home, I noticed that one of the local farm stands on my route wasn't just advertising pick-your-own flowers and a sale on "Impatien". Yes, it's here -- fresh corn on the cob, not that pale imitation "home grown (yeah, in Florida)" stuff. We've eaten it twice this week already, and the trick of the summer will be to eat as much as we can without getting sick of it, or more accurately, without Robert getting sick of it.

Tonight when I stopped off at the stand, I noticed an older picked-through pile of corn and a small, undisturbed pile laid on top. I sniffed it all the way home. The corn was probably less than two hours old from stalk to plate. And you could taste how close it was to the earth with those first hot bites.

The corn brings back such fond memories. My grandparents lived in Michigan when I was young and we'd spend long summer visits with them. At first, they lived in a big ranch house next to a farm. But then they moved across town to an antique house surrounded by four acres of land. My grandfather put in a huge garden, and we were often privileged to be there when the first ears of corn were sampled. There, the corn was even fresher than it was tonight -- not until the water was boiling did we go to the fields and pick and shuck the corn. We'd sit on the back porch at the picnic table and inhale sweet kernels covered with butter and salt. My grandmother would shut her eyes and say "Wilson, I declare that this corn is scrumptious." Somehow we always also managed to eat the dinner she'd prepared.

Tonight, I raise my chewed cob to Wilson, my grandfather, and to the many farmers still toiling away so that I can eat fresh corn on the cob, just picked.