For the last week, I’ve been enjoying the cooler weather of Minnesota with my 94-year-old mother. It is still summer up North, but the signs of fall are approaching. The Minnesota State Fair, which begins this week, is traditionally the last gasp of “heat.” Up there, 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) is “hot.” Down here, in Texas, we would call that a “cool” front.

Mom and I took to “walking” around the little lake next to her assisted living. I pushed the wheelchair while she pointed. It was quite a fair trade and a joy to view the late-summer flowers of Minnesota.

Here you see the wild daisies that greeted us each morning and evening on our post-jentacular, post-prandial circumambulations.

Beside the shores of the small lake, the tall cattails waved in the breeze and hid the young ducks paddling from our view. The cattail is a wetland plant who prefers to keep its feet in the water. You can see the unique flowering spikes of the cat tails between the flat blade-like leaves. A curiousity of the Norhtlands, it has always been to me the “cattail”.

Circling back near the building, we found a cultivated bed of pink phlox and purple cornflower. The masses of little pink blooms on the phlox graced my Dad’s rock garden in Iowa. In Texas, we have wild phlox in the spring, but the delicate phlox blooms do not last this long into our summer. Purple cornflower or echinacea is a member of the daisy family, with a wide range and an acquired tolerance for heat that lets those pretty heads lift and smile even now in the Lone Star State and attracts a buzz of friendly bees in the Gopher State of our walk.

A last lingering thistle poked out from the forest edge. The purple thistle is an ancient Celtic symbol of nobility and the national emblem of Scotland. Introduced into the Americas, it has traveled widely and is a bright and welcome sight along our roadways and water edges.

At this time of year in the Land of a Thousand Lakes, most thistles have gone to seed. The rounded, pineapple-shaped receptacles at the base of the faded blooms have dried, cracked and burst open in a cloud of white-feathered seeds. Like tiny parachutes, the seeds float in the wind across the water and over the roads to find a new home for next year’s crop of thistles.

For our northern cousins, it is becoming that time of year before the leaves on the oaks turn colors and the acorns drops. (Can you see the few thistle chutes among the corns?)

Along the roads and paths, the flowers of the sumac bushes have turned to dense spear-head-shaped clusters of reddish-brown drupes, called sumac bobs. On a drive to town, I saw the sumac leaves already red and orange along the hillsides. When the sumac bobs and turns, cooler weather is not far away.

Until then, a white rose blooms in a quiet nook warmed by the late-summer sun and bids me fair winds and good travels as I take my leave until another day.

There is much to be said of the “Yellow Rose of Texas” and for the “White Rose of Minnesota.”

They both show well and have their own special stories,

Grandpa Jim

In the beginning, there was one big island and that island was “the continent.” That first great continent has been called “Pangaea.” The name is a combination of two Greek words: “pan” for entire and “Gaia” for earth. Pangaea was the entire solid earth in one great piece protruding above the waters. The surrounding waters were named in Greek “Panthalassa,” with “thalassa” meaning ocean. The entire land and the entire sea were Pangaea and Panthalassa. And, so it was at the beginning of days.

In time, much happened below the earth and water, and things changed on the surface of the land. Cracks appeared. Earthquakes occurred. Volcanoes grew and erupted, and the lands separated into pieces that seemed to float off into the waters and away from each other. The seas always touched, as they must, even to this day — it is their way. The lands, not so, and still they float.

The writers-about-all-things on the nets of Wikipedia and in the search-rays of Google describe seven lands that can be called continents. The seven, in order of their size, are: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia. Of course, even here, there is disagreement. In many Spanish-speaking lands, the list is six: Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica and Australia. Some whittle this to five by excluding Antarctica, which, apart from a research station or two and the occasional cruise ship, is largely uninhabited. Then, there is the 4-continent approach, which I call the “A-Model” for its front-and-back alliterative niceties, which includes: Afro-Eurasia, America, Antarctica and Australia.

To me, and in the shadow of Pangaea, it seems that a continent should, in its first appearance at least, be seen as an island unto itself, ground that can be walked end-to-end without feet dipping to touch in that traverse the great surrounding water. As John Donne meditated in 1623: “No man is an island.” As reflected at earth’s first emergence, it could be stated: “Every island is a continent.” To be surrounded by the sea is, for the earth beneath our feet, to be truly free; and in such truce, there is the space a continent can be.

In its Latin and English origins, the term “continent” means connected land. So it is, but should it be? Is every bit of island to be a continent, and are not some islands so great they can and should be more than one continent?

On the land before its splitting, they arose, the men and women that walked its bounded ways. In their pacings of those, their places, the creatures of the land defined its length and breadth and its meaning to them and others of their kind. So, when the pieces broke and traveled, the residents moved with their earth and found it home. For them, they were content. For them, it was their continent. Every bit of island was a continent to those on board who called it home. That, their Gaia, was their earth in its span; and it troubled not their minds to search for more or parse their young narrative with continental discussion.

Then, from where did that discussion arise, and where does it reside today?

Original men and women did not move beyond their island homes, until three things converged: Science, Technology and Commerce. All advances in the history of man and woman occur when these three converge.

Science is the study of all things and the understandings of it. From science arises insight and idea. From insight and idea arise desire. Desire spawns technology to create and make new things to meet and complete those insights and desires. The newly created things of technology awaken yet unknown wants and needs which lead themselves to barter, marketing and a commerce in the things created, which fuels and energizes the cycle to occur again and again.

One day, the desire was travel. The technologies were caravans and ships. The commerce was trade in noodles, silk, sugar, tobacco, corn, tomatoes and potatoes. From Marco Polo to Columbus arose a new idea of island which was “continent.” The convergence of science, technology and commerce had seen a new way for the peoples to divide and call the lands they stood upon.

All of which is fine and good and has stood well by us for over 700 years (Marco returned from Asia in 1269 and Columbus sited the Americas in 1492). You gotta’ love those Italians: First the noodles and then the tomato sauce. The world hasn’t been the same since, and we’ve been running with up to 7 continents adrift in a sea of smaller islands for about that long.

Now, it’s time to move on. Science, technology and commerce have again converged. The science is travel, as it was; the technology is a new stream to pass over and in a new way; and the commerce is the world-wide net. The age of the Global Information Highway is upon us; and in this age, the continents themselves are being left behind and will be largely lost.

With great foresight, John Donne made his statement for the individual: “No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” As only a poet and visionary could know in his use of the singular phrase “the continent,” the earth in its pieces and parts has converged without a mighty crash and fanfare of words. The continents have realigned. They are separate no longer. No mighty cataclysm shakes the earth at this their re-joining. Rather, the cymbals, tambourines and new-age sounds of the Fifth Dimension in the 1969 song “The Age of Aquarius” echo sweetly in the background as we all stream silently together.

Today is the dawning of “The Age of Pangaea.” We are each the parts of the joining of the entire earth in the one great island where it began — and beyond even there. For us, the many on our computers, laptops, pads and hand-helds, the continental distinctions do not separate. We are truly no longer each an island. We are, every man, woman, young adult and child, “a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” As John Donne knew “no man is an island,” we now know and experience “no continent is a island.” The geographic boundaries between the continents have blurred and been lost in the dawning of the new Age of Pangaea, the single virtual continent that is itself no longer an island and is home to all without division.

In January 1964, Bob Dylan released “The Times They Are a-Changin.’”

In August 2013, they have changed — the islands are no more.

Welcome to the New Virtual Age of Pangaea.

May the five lattices guide you.

Live long and prosper,

Grandpa Jim

Lutfisk is not the last name of a plumber from Minnesota.

Lutefisk is a Scandinavian fish dish — of sorts.

The word “lutfisk” is a combination of two words. “Fisk” is recognizable as “fish,” and “lut” is Swedish for “lye.” Lye is a strong alkali or caustic base solution. The word “lye” is an alternative name for the sodium hydroxide pellets you dissolved in water in chemistry class to make the high pH liquid for your experiments. So, lute or lye is strong stuff. What those Nordic (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish) folks did was soak white fish in cold lute until the pH was about 11 to 12, then they soaked that fish in cold water to make it edible again, and then the Nords stored the fish over-winter in its altered form.

Apparently, once “luted,” the fish would last outside in the cold all winter long and no animal would touch the stuff because of the lye and the smell. In his book “Lake Wobegon Days,” the Minnesota-born writer and humorist Garrison Keillor is reported to have described lutfisk as “a repulsive gelatinous fishlike dish that tasted of soap and gave off an odor that would gag a goat.” Garrison has a way with words. A family member described the concoction more simply: “Fish-flavored jello.”

Nonetheless, many in Minnesota report to like the stuff. Yesterday morning at my Mom’s table in the assisted living, one lady said she and her best childhood girl friend (the two married brothers and became sister-in-laws), would sneak off to one of their houses, only blocks apart, after the brother-husbands had left for work and the kids were off to school, where those two conspirators would make up a whole pan of lutfisk. Smiling, they’d sit together, finish the whole thing and see spots before their eyes. That’s what she said, honest, spots. It seemed she found it a fond memory, spots and all.

Yes, even the staunchly Minnesotan waver on this subject. A relative, who abides well and long in the state of his birth, tells of a young child who regularly accompanied his grandmother to her favorite restaurant. The two ordered lutfisk together, which made the grandmother so very happy . . . until one fateful day. On that day of passage, after grandmother had placed her order for the house special lutfisk, the young boy said to the astonished waiter, “Chicken, please, Sir.” “What?” His grandmother arched her matronly back and with the wisdom of years asked the insolent boy, “Why aren’t you eating your lutfisk?” To which, the child replied sweetly with the wisdom of youth, “Why am I eating lutfisk?”

A good question and from out of the mouths of babes does it arise: Why indeed?

There is a purported golden rule of life that dates back to the times of the Babylonians, Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Phoenicians, Columbus and the Mayflower: If you shouldn’t say it or do it in the presence of a child, don’t say it or do it at all. The enunciation and consumption of lutfisk may be the only exception to this rule in the history of the human race.

Lutfisk has been announced and served to adults and unsuspecting children from time immemorial, and though the spongy fish has turned many to the light of other foodstuffs, many remain enamored with and committed to the amorphous and wiggly expression of strained sustenance. And, I might add, this has occurred with no known damage to the youth of the world. In fact, the senses of those emerging citizens may be better off for their close experience with the preparation, and our younger generation may be better able to make up their own minds in an engaging world because of their exposure to the lye of lutfisk.

I can’t say this next with absolute certainty, but it has been suggested that Columbus carried a pot of lutfisk with him on his maiden voyage to the New World. One unknown chronicler may have observed and recorded the offering of a fish nibble from that basin to the Grand Chief of the native population. After the first polite bite, it appears the chief was ready to provide a very large and distant track of land at no cost to the immigrant disembarkees. That lost record is also said to relate the chief’s insistence to provide directions to the kingdom of his closest rival.

The Romance of Lutfisk: We have hinted at this, in the spots of the sisiter-in-laws, but I would be remiss if I did not, before leaving the subject, emphasize that many have very strong and good feelings and remembrances of their lives with lutfisk. As a young girl, my mother has memories of her father, my grandfather, coming home from the butcher shop and saying, “It’s lutfisk time, daughter.” She remembers the excitement and anticipation. The meal was special and the lutfisk was served with melted butter and boiled potatoes. She remembers the fun of it. Grandpa was a butcher who understood meat and fish and how to cook them. So, I am sure the lutfisk was well prepared and tasty as only lutfisk can be. Mom remembers that it did taste like fish, but not like fish, and how much she enjoyed as a child the meal of lutfisk  with her Dad. I think I can see now how lutfisk managed to be the only exception to that golden rule of life. After all, is there anything more important than the children?

In summary, lutfisk appears to be an acquired taste, that not all may be inclined to acquire, but for which many have acquired very close and comforting recollections — despite the taste.

To end, it might be said: To each, his or her own, and be happy that such is so for some, if not for all, and wish them all, “Good lutfisk to you and yours, and watch for the spots in front of your eyes — it may be fun!”

Grandpa Jim

PS: Don’t forget Little Lorraine. The new story has moved under the Flash Fiction pull-down tab. There may be no lutfisk in India, but Indiana is not far from Minnesota, and my Mom’s name is Lorraine, so the possibilities of a lutfisk encounter are real and not just imaginary. I wonder what she’ll think. Hobbes, on the other hand, may be a different story.

Gamification is hot.

The word on the street is that 70% of the corporations on the Forbes Global 2000 list (the 2,000 biggest businesses in the world) are expected to gamify in 2014. Think of 1,400 giants deciding to play the same game and hope you’re not the goalkeeper – that’s what seems to be going on out there on the world’s field of play.

So, what is gamification, and why would those very large businesses want to play?

Games have existed forever. Cavemen threw rocks to knock rocks off rocks – most modern professional sports teams still engage in this form of gaming. Cavewomen searched the underbrush to find new foods and were rewarded with a better dinner and award points from the diners – many game applications have players running through mazes capturing carrots and low-hanging fruits for golden reward currencies and fan-fares of recognition. So, gaming is not new, having fun doing something is not new, and being rewarded for doing something well or finding something new is not new.

So, what is new?

In the early 1970’s electronic gaming made its big advance. In the arcades and on the TV screens, we took turns blowing up spaceships, stacking blocks and eating dots. Then, in the late 1970’s, some smart kids in the back room figured out a way for players to play the same game at the same time. Through the 1980’s and 1990’s multi-player video gaming took off: “BANG! ZOOM! Straight to the moon,” as Jackie Gleason never imagined. The honeymoon was over.

Multi-player video gaming moved into its home in the suburbs and commuted to work each morning, because computer gaming had a job.

Businesses were using computer-based gaming applications to promote their products. Schools were using gaming softwares to teach their students. Politicians, like Howard Dean, were using video games to convince caucusing Iowans to vote for Dean. TV shows were using gaming approaches to hook viewers. Sweden gamified traffic laws to slow down drivers and fund a lottery for safe drivers.

These gaming applications were fine and good, but wasn’t it marketing to promote old ideas? Nothing new was happening, right? People might call this stuff “gamification,” but with due respect, isn’t it the Fuller Brush Man with an old brush and a new spiel. I’m for better marketing, but where’s the new vacuum cleaner.

Then, in 2011, something happened.

Scientists at the University of Washington, a public research university in Seattle, Washington, had been scratching their heads for a decade over the correct structure of a protein. Proteins make up about 75% of the dry weight of our bodies, so they are very important to us and our proper functioning. Well, those eggheads at the University of Washington couldn’t figure out how this one protein was folded.

Now, a protein starts as a long chain, composed of some twenty or so basic amino acids mixed up in an extended sequence, like a string, a very long string – say ten feet long. Then, this string of amino acids folds itself back and around on itself, like a stuck-up and wound-together ball of twine, but a ball with a unique folded structure that is critical to the proper performance of its protein function.

Those scientists were sitting around folding that string for ten years, and they just couldn’t get it right.

One day, and this is the important part, someone said, “Let’s try a game.” Folks were skeptical. Then, the voice in the back of the room added, “Let’s try a multi-player, computer-based, video-game-type, competitive contest, open to all and anyone, to see who can fold our string the best?” “Okay,” someone else chimed in, “but what do we call it?” “’Foldit,’ of course.”

And, they did and the game did it.

57,000 players played Foldit, and in ten days that crowd of gamers came up with folded results that allowed the scientists to map successfully the structure of a protein to fight infections and save lives.

A crowd-based gaming approach had produced a new idea, not promoted an old one.

Two heads are better than one, or 57,000 gamers may beat a roomful of PhD’s at their own game.

True gamification had been born, and the world’s corporations are lining up for the new ideas those gamers may just produce.

Have a productive day, and have fun at whatever you’re doing.

You may want to let the kids keep playing.

Who knows what may result,

Grandpa Jim

PS: An overarching observation with respect to gaming in its many forms may be that the common and shared purpose of all games and gaming is simply “to find something.” That’s it: Find Something. The first “find-something” of computer-based, multi-player video gaming is to find the prize and, in so doing, to be entertained. The second expression of the “find-something” principle is the use of gaming to help potential customers find the product of their dreams, to use video gaming technology to market an existing widget. The third application of “find-something” to video gaming is the use of gaming maneuverings to find a thing that was only a possibility but then becomes a reality, to establish a new idea which can become an entirely new product, like electricity, the telephone or space exploration — a key on a kite for Benjamin Franklin, a can with a string for Alexander Graham Bell or, if you really want to get crazy, an equation, E-mc2, from the greatest game developer of all time, Albert Einstein, as a way to get everyone to find the new physics. Now, that third “find something” is really exciting, and it might be suggested that only the third is true “gamification.” But, then, what’s in a word? It’s the results that count or electrify or ring your phone or blast a colony to Mars and beyond. . . .

As the end of the month approaches, many of us are reflecting on those who have left this world to journey in another place. For mine, they seem close. Part of me knows they always will be close, and part of that knowing is remembering. They have their jobs and tasks to do, and I believe a big one of those is to watch over us. One of our jobs is to keep a thought on them, to remember who they were and what they meant to each of us. The memory is a most amazing place and in our thoughts a bridge to far lands and close friends.

My nephew shared the following memories of my Dad and his Grandfather:

“My Grandpa was someone who always had interesting things to say. I would ask him questions about engineering and science, and he would reply to them in a fascinating, intelligent manner. He would sing songs like ‘You are my Only Sun Shine’ and ‘Ragtime Cowboy Joe,’ and he had all sorts of short wise sayings and was a very gentle man.

“The last thing I discussed with him before the stroke, which changed him for good, was the old vacuum tube radio and record player cabinet. He had a box of vacuum tubes downstairs, and he agreed to look at the machine with me to see if we could get it working. Unfortunately, the stroke claimed him before we were able to complete this. That was almost eight years ago. I still have that box of vacuum tubes.

“I was fascinated by the old computer that he had in one of the rooms. He told me that the machine was separated into a game system part and a computer part, and that he remembered a kid who used to really like playing the original Nintendo.

“One of his projects was the old convertible that he had in the garage. He bought it many years ago, and it sat there unused for as long as I could remember. A day dawned near the time when he got his stroke when either he or someone else got the car working again. He took us for a drive and he gave my Dad a chance to drive it. My Dad noted that it handled like a truck.

“Grandpa would enjoy going out to eat with Grandma and the family. Such outings included the times when we ordered pizza for everyone. Back then, the taco pizza actually included little pieces of tortilla. When I was really young, he would sometimes draw characters like Mickey Mouse on the restaurant napkins.

“Then the stroke happened, and he no longer spoke much, but he was still a joy to be around. His friendly, cheerful demeanor and hearty appetite made up for his lack of speech. For many years he could still walk and would help grandma out with her wheelchair. There was a wit to him that shone through in spite of his muteness, and he would even be interested by things like business magazines and engineering work.

“The departure of my Grandpa is very sad, as all deaths are sad, but it should be noted that he had a wonderful, full life, and he will live on in our hearts forever. We will never forget the wonderful ways in which he touched all our lives and the stories that he left behind with us. I have no doubt that he has gone on to heaven, as he possessed the gentleness of a lamb, the strength of an ox and the brain of a college professor. We will miss him.”

Good thoughts and good memories.

For your enjoyment, here’s the refrain from that favorite of Dad songs, “Ragtime Cowboy Joe”:

“He always sings

“Raggy music to the cattle

“As he swings

“Back and forward in the saddle

“On a horse

“That’s a syncopated gaiter

“There’s-a such a funny meter

“To the roar of his repeater.

“How they run

“When they hear his gun

“Because the Western folks all know

“He’s a high-falutin’, rootin’, shootin’,

“Son of a gun from Arizona,

“Ragtime Cowboy Joe.”

Keep singing, Dad, and telling those stories.

Son Jim

On July 5^th, two days after Mary’s mother Me-Maw died peacefully in her garden, my 91-year old Father died peacefully in Minneapolis, Minnesota with my 94-year old mother nearby to hold his hand.

My Father grew up on a farm in Iowa. Dad had just turned seven when the Stock Market crashed on October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday, and the Great Global Depression started. He always felt they were lucky. The family grew their own food — so they ate, even though they had no cash money. I remember him telling me how they put milk in their bicycle tires, because they couldn’t afford new tubes. I’m not quite sure how that worked, but it was a good story and I’d always think: How did he do that? Dad was a resourceful fellow who was good with his hands. He became a mechanical engineer, started his own firm, and helped build schools, churches and hospitals. He loved his work, he loved to help people, and he loved to eat. I knew his time might be close when my sister sent me an early-morning email saying Dad wasn’t hungry. Dad was always hungry – he grew up during the Depression, and he always cleaned his plate.

We all gathered for the funeral. Mary and I rushed home after MeMaw’s funeral, changed clothes, packed our bags and headed for the airport. It was a good meeting: the 4 children and their spouses, 10 grandchildren and significant others, and 13 of the 15 great grandchildren. Not as big a crowd as that of Mary’s relatives, but a very nice family gathering for a sad and happy celebration of Dad’s, Grandpa’s and Great Granddad’s life.

On the day of the funeral, it was Farmers Market at the church’s upper parking lot. I liked that. We parked below and walked up for the service. Red geraniums lined the steps. I thought how much Dad loved to plant and work with his hands in the soil. He had a rock garden full of flowers, and his white and purple phlox were famous for streets around. The phlox is still one of my favorite flowers, it was one of the first things I drew in grade school, and I seek it out on spring car trips to discover the early blooms. Dad often grew a red geranium in a pot on the back porch. I have one beside the front step that looks much like these.

The petunia is another favorite. In Iowa and Minnesota, the petunia grows all summer long. In the Texas heat, they last only to early summer. I plant them nevertheless. These potted sentinels graced the lane where the hearse was parked.

On the hill nearby, the wildflowers waved.

Among those flowers, the purple prairie clover looked out. This is wild clover. On Dad’s farm, they grew sweet clover. It was full and purplish red and when you pulled out the petals, you could suck the sugar out of the white base. As kids, we loved to visit that field and taste the sweet clover.

Black-eyed susans were bouncing in the mid-day breeze, reminding me of dancing ballerinas and “Corky.” Corky in her tutu is the picture downstairs of my Mom as a girl. Dad met Mom in Nice, France during World War II. Dad had been in the artillery, but they discovered he could sing, play an instrument and tell a joke – corny, but he was always something of a jokester. Well, the folks in charge transferred Dad to Nice to help entertain the troops on leave. My Mom was there with the Red Cross, doing the same thing. One day, they met on the steps of a casino that had been turned into a theatre for the troops. The story is that Dad found out Mom was from Iowa and promptly told her that he was going to marry her. Apparently, Mom was not so taken with him. She slapped him so hard she knocked him down those stairs. Dad was persistent. He sent her a single rose every day. At the end of the War, she hadn’t said “Yes.” They both returned to their separate homes in Iowa, about 100 miles apart. The rest of the story is that one day Dad was out there on the tractor plowing in the field, when a sibling rushed up yelling that a girl was on the phone. Dad jumped off, rushed inside, rushed out, jumped in the car and took off. The tractor was still running. I was born about a year later. You gotta’ watch out for those dancing ballerinas.

Butterfly weed. That’s what they call this golden orange wildflower in Minnesota. On the hill as we drove off following Dad in the hearse, the butterfly weed was bright as the sun. When we arrived home a few days later, a little orange flower was in a pot on the front bench. They looked the same. My granddaughter with my mother’s name had left it for us.

We drove between the fields of white markers, row-on-row under the blue sky, and stopped for the interment ceremony at Fort Snelling National Cemetery. The old soldiers were already there, standing at attention with their vintage rifles. The squad gave Dad a 21-gun salute, and the officer-in-charge presented Mom a neatly folded American flag. The children held their ears. We all cried a bit. Then, the kids ran and played between the white stone markers.

My granddaughter with Corky’s smile pulled a rose from one of the arrangements and placed it in my lapel. I have it still. As we left, I watched the white markers of the soldiers climb the far hill and thought, “It’s really not that far.”

For each story, there’s an end and a new beginning.

Grandpa Jim

It is with sadness I inform you that Uncle Joe’s mother died in her garden on July 3^rd. MeMaw, as she was called by her 12 children, 27 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren, was picking tomatoes. My wife and Uncle Joe are two of those twelve children. The garden this year was one of Me-Maw’s best. A son-in-law found her resting peacefully between the rows, a smile on her face. The bowl of tomatoes was placed carefully on the ground. Not a tomato was lost.

I walked the garden the next day, the Fourth of July, and took these pictures. The day was cool for Texas, like MeMaw had arranged the weather, and the sun was bright and welcoming.

Down past the tomato plants and over in the corner, I found the watermelons. One was already inside on the counter waiting for the arrving relatives and friends. Over the next five days, until the funeral on Monday, July 8^th, I think we had watermelon for every meal.

The cantaloupes were not quite ready. Here’s a pair peaking out to watch the garden strollers. Whenever I looked out, someone was walking in the garden between the plants.

MeMaw’s garden is so old that the okra grows wild, pushed back to make room for the other vegetables, but always left to bloom, produce and seed for the next year. See the little ones here — with a morning yellow and black-centered flower hidden between the leaves. It’s best to pick the okra small, because the small ones are the tenderest and the best for canning. Folks were in the building beside the house canning or packing vegetables every day – okra included. I don’t think it will stop.

Most of the tomatoes had been picked by the time I reached the garden. Here are a few green waiting for the next days to ripen, and one red waving goodbye. There’s nothing quite like a fresh tomato.

The green beans were wiggling and stretching, hoping to join their friends in the kitchen.

Along the side of the house is an old peach tree. That tree has weathered many a storm. It’s not as big as it used to be, and it bends some where it hangs over the sidewalk. Despite the many seasons, I found peaches ripening on its branches, proving the worth of that old friend. MeMaw loved her peach jams, jellies, pies and cobblers.

Not far away are the pomegranates. An odd fruit, about the only thing that ever happened to a pomegranate was to get eaten by a kid. Eat and Spit. Spit and Eat. It was great fun for many a child over many of year.

The poppies were gone. After the poppy flowers bloom, MeMaw would wait for the pods to dry on the stems. She’d know they were ready when she’d shake them and hear the little black seeds inside rattle back and forth. Then, she’d snip the pods, sit in a chair on the back porch, carefully cut the tops off the pods and pour the seeds into a bowl. When the bowl was full, MeMaw would transfer the precious cargo to plastic bags to store in the cool of the freezer. The seeds would patiently wait there until rescued, ground and boiled into the sweet-tasting poppy seed mixture for poppy seed kolaches and buchta. Me-Maw’s poppy seed buchta was the best.

Back to the porch and Grandma with those pods, MeMaw always saved the “empty” pods because she always left a few of the tiny black seeds inside. She’d take those pods and throw them over the plowed garden for next year’s poppies and next year’s poppy seed crop. There was always a next year for MeMaw.

This year someone else will spread the poppy pods. Next year, there will be poppy flowers to welcome MeMaw’s garden.

We miss you, Dear One, and look forward to seeing you again,

Grandpa Jim

The following is an overheard conversation that occurred a few weeks ago outside the NorthPark Mall in Dallas, Texas:

“The sun is the highest I’ve ever seen it.”

“No, it’s the highest in the sky that you’ve seen the sun since last June 20, 2012. This is June 21, 2013. It’s the summer solstice.”

“What’s that?”

“In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice is the first official day of summer. It’s the day when our sun, ‘sol’, appears to stand still, ‘stice’, as high up in the sky as it will get. After the summer solstice, that burning fireball reverses its path and starts moving south again. Today, on the summer solstice, the northern half of our planet enjoys the most sun, the most daylight, of the whole year.”

“Cool.”

“No, warm, even hot, because on this day up here in the north you see more of our star than any other day.”

“Is this as hot as it will get?”

“Nope, this is Texas, it will get hotter.”

“Even though . . . the days will get shorter?”

“Yep?”

“Why?”

“The short answer is the atmosphere is recovering from the cold weather and heating up slowly. The more precise answer goes something like this: Even though the heat input is at maximum on the solstice day, the rate of heat input (gain) striking the Earth continues to be greater than the rate of heat dissipation (loss) from the Earth for some time. In fact, through much of the summer, more heat is entering the Northern Hemisphere than is leaving. So, until the days get much shorter and the heat loss exceeds the heat gain, the average daytime temperature keeps increasing. As autumn approaches, the balance falls back, and the shorter days start to become cooler.”

“Cool.”

“Right. I knew you’d get it.”

“But . . . now it’s getting hotter?”

“You got it there — fry-an-egg-on-the-street-and-eat-it-with-hot-sauce, hotter-in-Texas hot. And, here is a picture of the egg popping in its frying pan on the concrete:

“For that egg, you will, of course, need a liberal ladeling of hotter-than-hot Texas hot sauce. So, for you to try, here’s a local bottle of one of our favorite salsas with its fire-engine red label, jalapeno man with shades and the warm warning: “Not Responsible for Obsession.”

“To salvage those burning taste buds, you quickly pick some cooling mint:

“Then, you rush into the kitchen, where Ms. Mary crushes that fresh mint into a pitcher of ice water with fresh lime for that oh so refresing: Ms. Mary’s Summer Mint Water:

“Smacking your lips and beginning to feel your mouth again after your jentacular repast from the street, you stare at the quintessential Dallas, Texas summer bloom — the white crepe myrtle:

“Responding to a hushed cry from inside, you rush back to spy the rising Texas sun burning through the roofs of Uptown Dallas:

“Swiveling your head, you catch the mists before the Opera in Paris, France evaporating at the solar assault of the Lone Star State, as you quickly pull the shades and save the scene:

“As a matter of fact, I just looked into my crystal ball and the temperature in Dallas will hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius) for the first time next Thursday, June 27^th. On Friday, June 28^th, the triple digits will soar to 104 degrees F (40 C), dropping back to 100 F on Saturday, followed by a cool front.”

“Cool. Why?”

“Because the weather in Texas is unpredictable. You know that?”

“How cool?”

“Well, today, if today were Monday, July 1^st (and it is, but don’t tell everyone), the high at 3:53 pm was 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31.1 degrees Celsius), and that’s really cool for a high in Dallas in July.”

“If that were today (and I’m confused, because I thought we started talking today, June 21^st), then what would be tonight’s low — whatever night it is?”

“You are perfectly right to be confused, because today is June 21^st and today is July 1^st, and the predicted low on July 1, 2013, tonight, is 64 degrees F (17.8 C).”

“Cool . . . I think.”

“You can say and think that again (but, please don’t), because the average low for this evening in Dallas has been 75 F (23.9 C), for a predicted difference of -11 degrees F (-6.1 C) with where tonight is going.”

“Will it actually be that cool in the middle of the beginning of a hot summer?”

“I don’t know. I can’t predict the future. Can you?”

“Tomorrow, I can . . . I think.”

“Cool.”

* * *

And, you stay cool in the hot weather, if you can – even if you have to jump back and forth, fry an egg on the sidewalk, cover breakfast with hot sauce and gulp a big glass of Ms. Mary’s Summer Mint Water to stay refreshed and have fun with the sun.

Happy Summer!!

Grandpa Jim