The cardinal and the cat –
Archenemies in the wild.
When one stays in the house
Their relationship is mild.

The cat doesn’t even see
The cardinal perched outside.
How did we tame that beast
So the wildness in her died?

But it’s all just an illusion
The cat puts on quite a show
She’d stalk that bright red bird
If we’d only let her go.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

Pink petunias
Waving goodbye to summer.
Don’t go – please don’t go!

I love fall, but always feel a little ache at the end of summer when the vivid pinks and purples give way to the sharp and flaming colors of autumn. Sultry beauty ignites and burns itself out in front of our eyes every year. A pang of sorrow, a thrill of anticipation. And the cicada still sings.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

You can’t really tell by looking at this photo whether the sun is rising or setting, can you? The beginning of the day and the end of the day in one frozen moment can look pretty much the same. But if cameras could capture the unseen – what’s in the heart and mind and body – as well as what is seen, you would have no difficulty discerning what time of day this was for me.

Sunrise moments are filled with new energy, thoughts about plans for the day ahead, eagerness to spend time reading the Bible and other things, a spring in my step and a cup of tea in my hand. Ah yes, sunrise is a good time.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Sunset moments are filled with the satisfied weariness of a day spent, a desire to relax and cease all productivity, eagerness for a good night’s sleep, anticipation of reading before dropping off with a good book in hand and a pillow under my head. Ah yes, sunset is a good time.

In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for Thou, O Lord, doth make me to dwell in safety.

But the camera can’t tell you all of that. Curious? It was a sunrise moment.

What would a photo tell about your sunrise and sunset moments if a camera could capture that?

I’ll probably delete this in the morning with a spring in my step and a cup of tea in my hand.

Previous: Grave Musings 6 Lakewood Cemetery

One of the more intriguing things about cemeteries is the epitaphs you see. Sometimes they tell a story, sometimes they let you know what was most important to the person whose marker you’re seeing, and sometimes they leave you with questions. Like this one:

There’s something mysterious and poignant about those two words at the bottom: “We tried.” Does this mean that the Mitchell family tried and failed? Did they try and yet still suffer rejection? And how do the words “We tried” follow the words of faith that preceded them? What brought the Mitchell family to the place where they felt that a statement of their love of Jesus Christ and their love of family couldn’t stand alone? There’s some deep, unfathomable sadness packed into those words at the end.

But no matter – if they truly loved Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, He’s already borne whatever burdens they brought to Him. Whatever they tried and failed, He finished on their behalf.

Hallelujah, what a Savior!

Next: Grave Musings 8 Evergreen

Start at beginning: Grave Musings 1 Maple Lawn I

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

Previous: Grave Musings 5 Rice County Poor Farm

Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis is filled with notable names that we’ve come to associate with buildings, schools, streets and avenues, product brands, and even cities and towns. Names like Walker, Pillsbury, Washburn and Fridley. But over time, we have forgotten the men and women behind the names and the lives they lived. So let me tell you one of those stories, about the family for whom Fridley, Minnesota, is named. It starts out like any old dull refrain from history, but becomes surprisingly sensational.

Abram M. Fridley was born in 1817 in New York State and moved to Minnesota in 1851 in his mid-30’s. He was a farmer and eventually became a Minnesota State Representative. He must have been quite some guy to have had a township named after him, which later became the city we know as Fridley. Abram prospered enough to erect a huge monument in Lakewood, one of its largest.

But we’re not interested in Abram, other than the fact that he was great grandfather to Mary Fridley, born in 1879, and who died at age of 27 in 1914. Cause of death: she fell from a steep bluff at a park while trying to get her dog. Her husband Frederick Price was nearby tinkering under the hood of their 1913 Cadillac with his friend, Charles Etchison, since the car had stalled. Tragic, simply tragic.

The young widower inherited a tidy sum at the death of his wife: $23,000 – a small fortune at the time. But apparently that wasn’t enough money to console old Freddie. A year after the accident, he decided to sue the Minneapolis Park Board for their negligence in not having a guard rail where Mary had fallen. One can almost see him working up a face that combined grief with indignation at the injustice of it all.

What would you do if you were the Park Board? Why, of course, you’d conduct an investigation into the death as part of mounting a proper defense. A funny thing happened during the investigation, however. The expert that the Park Board hired determined that petite little Mary (weighing less than 100 pounds) had fallen farther out than would be expected from a mere fall. Propulsion had to have been involved.

Fred suddenly decided that he didn’t actually want to sue the Park Board after all. Let’s call the whole thing off, he said, in essence, by dropping the lawsuit. Fred wasn’t very smart. His greed had set things in motion that he couldn’t stop.

Mary’s father, David, started to smell a rat and hired his own private investigator, John P. Hoy, a former police detective. Hoy quickly found out that Frederick had never legally divorced his first wife and had been living with yet another woman since the night young Mary died. Price was indicted on charges of first-degree murder on December 1, 1915 and the case went to trial.

A break in the case came when Charles Etchison crumbled under the pressure and guilt and testified against Price in a packed courtroom during the much publicized trial. As reported by the Herald Democrat on January 11, 1916 with the colorful headline “Haunted by Horror of Murdered Woman,” Etchison told all. Price had murdered his wife for the inheritance and had paid Etchison to keep silent about what happened. The truth was that the three of them had been out for a night ride in the car. Price stopped the car and when Mary stepped out on the running board, he “gave her a horrible push and sent her crashing over the cliff. He threw her dog after her.”

It gets worse, sorry. Mary didn’t die. They heard faint cries from below and Price ran down to the bottom of the cliff, beckoning Etchison to follow. He grabbed Mary by the hair and dragged her to make it look like she’d fallen farther. Then he took a large rock and hit her in the head, finishing her off. The article says “In a few minutes, the flickering spark of life had left the woman.” I don’t think newspaper articles are written like that anymore. The dog ran off, uninjured, for those of you who are concerned about his fate in this grisly tale.

Price was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Ironically, when he died in prison, his remains were cremated at Lakewood Cemetery.

Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors. – Proverbs 1:19

I wanted to find a photo of Mary Fridley, but I think I’d have to go to a historical society or look through newspaper archives, neither of which I have access to. I looked on the internet to no avail. I did find a little snippet that indicated that Price was a traveling salesman who had two previous marriages and a criminal past by the time he lured unsuspecting Mary to the altar. Tragic. Simply tragic.

Graveyards are interesting places with sometimes unexpected stories.

Next: Grave Musings 7 Epitaphs

Start at beginning: Grave Musings 1 Maple Lawn I

I’ll probably delete this in the morning. Poor Mary…

We stopped at a rest area on the way home from Idaho last week. I walked around soaking in all the sun and heat and appreciating the summer-charged colors of the sky and landscape. Way across the corn fields I saw two round metal silo tops reflecting the sunshine like beacons, which trilled me in a way I can’t explain. I took a photo with my phone and then deleted it. Some things can’t be captured.

However, I did keep the photos I took of the top of this concrete teepee at the same rest area. I love how it looks against the sky and the clouds, and how dramatically the color changed when it wasn’t in shadow.

What would we do without cameras to help us see and remember?

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

My mother gave this dried arrangement to me when we were in our first year of marriage. It has survived five moves over 35 years. A few pieces from a money plant didn’t make it, and at one point my brother gave me something that I added to it. I don’t think I would ever have guessed in that first newlywed year that I’d still have this all these years later. It has been a silent and inanimate witness of feasts and famines, births and deaths, and joys and griefs. Whither we have gone, it has gone.

There’s something quite impressive about that kind of longevity and perseverance. I like to think it symbolizes the longevity and perseverance in our marriage. We two have been through much together and though we are getting older and “drier,” our marriage has endured, strengthened and matured. Young love is giddy, but mature love is steady, which is no less romantic, believe it or not. And we have discovered that the three words “I love you” are no more important in a marriage than the four words “Will you forgive me?”

The author and foundation of our marriage, our love and our forgiveness is Christ. May He continue to teach us how to encourage and sharpen one another in this grand life He has given us.

I probably won’t delete this in the morning.

P.S. I took about 15 photos of this dried arrangement in all sorts of lightings and backgrounds and from different angles. In the end, I liked this one the best – the first one I took. 🙂

Almost nothing signals late summer to me like the sound of cicadas. I understand that in some southern states this year, the cicada population is going to be prodigious – 1.5 million per acre in some areas. As if we needed another reason for this to be a “special” year.

I went out tonight in search of cicadas, but they are elusive, their noise coming from everywhere, but invisibly. I am surrounded by their shrill mating call which rises and falls and at sunset disappears altogether. They are the sound of my childhood, of hot August days, of early bedtimes when they got to stay up later than I, of humidity and that one oscillating fan that I wished would just blow on me all the time rather than moving back and forth. When the cicadas started their annual song, I knew the end of summer was coming and school would start soon.

Look at these photos I took tonight and hear the electric buzz of the cicadas in the background. They are there. Summer is coming to an end.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.

You’ve probably been wondering why I haven’t used any French language in my posts until now. (Right?). Many eons ago I took French in college – nearly 2 year’s worth – and although I’ve forgotten most of it, the words for apples and potatoes still hangs around in my brain occupying valuable space that should be used for more important information.

Anyway, we got a few early “pommes” at the same time as we harvested our first “pommes de terre,” of the Yukon variety. If you’ve never harvested potatoes, you’re missing an experience like digging for treasure. It’s one of my favorite crops to harvest. The only hazards are 1.) unearthing a toad – happened to me once – and 2.) finding a potato that rotted underground. That makes me cringe just thinking about it.

The word “pomme” in French used to mean just “fruit,” not necessarily “apple.” So potatoes are more literally “earth fruit,” rather than “earth apples.” I’m just doing my bit to bring a little international flair into your lives. You can thank me the next time you’re at a party and you realize you can enliven the whole conversation with that tidbit.

At this point, you may be wishing I’d stayed with haiku. I’m still warming up to get back into my regular blog post stride. Things will get better.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning and throw it like a rotten potato as far away as possible.

The Painted Lady
Graces us with her presence.
The Dame of Gardens.

I’ll probably be done with haikus for awhile after today, but the big question is: will I delete this tomorrow? Stay tuned!

We said our “I do’s”
Thirty-five years ago now.
Enjoying the fruit. 😃

I’m probably NOT going to delete this in the morning.