High Water

This spring in the Tennessee Valley has seen much heavier rainfall than we have been acccustomed to have, over the past six or eight years of drought or near-drought. Several times, including last week, TVA has found it necessary to release water from Lake Chickamauga to balance levels, swelling the river where it passes Chattanooga’s river front. Two fishermen lost their lives during an incautious night launching in the teeth of that heavier flow last Tuesday.

Today, crossing the River on the John Ross Bridge, I saw that the barge stage for Riverbend, the music festival three weeks away, has been moved into place on Ross’s Landing. The water has subsided since earlier in the week, but the barge was riding higher than the norm for concerts in the past. If the rainfall pattern continues, the music acts on the barge stage may be even less visible than in the past.

I hope that is all the inconvenience higher water brings. In times of high water, the currents under the bridges can be treacherous and very strong. We haven’t attended Riverbend for several years, the size, crowds and heat finally outweighing some good entertainment. I wish the festival success and a safe ten days, though. Just watch the water level, folks.

Mockingbirds and Poetry

Tuesday on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, the birthday of Harper Lee was observed, with a quotation from her book, To Kill a Mockingbird:

Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird

For a number of nights lately, a bird has been singing in the middle of the night, outside our window. A bewildering variety of calls seem to be in the bird’s repertoire. We suspect this must be a mockingbird, famous for mimicking other birds’ songs. We have noticed daily a mockingbird flying in and out of a large holly bush along the front walk, ten feet or so from the bedroom window.

Such a comforting sound in the still watches of a dark night. And remarkable if there is a nest, and mockingbird youngsters survive the cats that live at our house, prowling the yard and depositing offerings of slain prey on the front step. We have seen no mockingbird corpses yet. Perhaps we will not. I hope we do not, it is still a sin for even a cat to kill a mockingbird.

Addendum: On Keillor’s page for Tuesday there is also a fine poem, “That Time of Year,” by Philip Appleman. Allusions to several poems about seasons of the year and seasons of our lives. I liked it.

Seasons

Rain is in the offing, again. Tonight the waning moon rose after eight, blood red shading to gold then silver as it cleared the horizon and attendant air pollution. The Nerdlinger Weather Supposition folks have opined that today will be partly cloudy, with showers in the afternoon possibly changing to snow showers, and again by Wednesday morning. Snow forecasts in Chattanooga and environs are the least dependable of any predictions, any time.

The season is slowly turning towards Spring, each day a little longer. I will enjoy winter while it lasts, and watch for the first buds, the first flowers. Back to the River walk early today. I haven’t walked there for several weeks, other than the bit downtown. I will go to the marshy areas bounded by industrial sites, watching for birds around the pond at Amnicola.

Winter

After yet another soggy and mild week plus a day or so, cold air has pushed into Chattanooga again, clearing the skies over a swollen river and closed streets from the mid-winter freshets we have recently dodged amongst. Of the seasons I love, winter has a special place, at least winter as I remember it. Arguments about global warming aside, the past thirty years have been warmer than the thirty years before. The snows and ice of my childhood have been little in evidence lately.

Tonight I walked Lucy the Wonder Dog under a freshly clear sky, scoured by a cold front of the clouds and rain of the past week or so. A fattening moon hung overhad, its nearly full light dimming the nearby stars. The air was cold and clear, moisture condensed out and pollution pushed southeastwards. Lights of the city vied with the moon, and I was reminded of my childhood rides in the car across town to my grandparents for visits in the winter, when the grimy smokestack Chattanooga of my childhood glittered with many lights.

Stars, now, they stop me in the night, as Lucy tugs at her leash, while I try to pick out Orion, the Big Dipper and zig-zag Casseiopea, the three constellations I can generally spot. Light pollution makes few stars visible in Chattanooga’s sky, especially when the moon is nearly full, as it is tonight.

Many years ago, I went on a ride deep into the rural depths of Albemarle County, Virginia, with dormitory mates of mine. One of them had borrowed his uncle’s car, and took us out on winding dark roads to his uncle’s farm, where the old, historic house was being renovated. Albemarle County was very historic, so much so that you couldn’t throw a rock without violating a National Register property. It was about this time of year, and bitter cold, much colder than tonight. The mud and gravel drive into the farm was frozen into iron ruts, flanked by crusts of earth with the moisture extruded into blunt, square stalagmites of ice. Inside the house, a few space heaters ineffectually fought the cold. We looked longingly at a bottle of Jack Daniels on a table, but A. R. would not permit raiding his uncle’s liquor.

So we filed out to the car, under more stars than I had ever seen before. It was the dark of the moon, and civilization’s lights were far distant. The density of the stars prevented me from recognizing the few constellations I knew. My friends had to call me with increasing impatience before I got into the car. That night remains in my memory in vivid detail. I love winter.

Breathing Easier

A rare day of rain, light and more mist than drops. The moist, cool air and the leaves falling faster with the weight of water makes me think of fall on Lookout Mountain in my childhood. The years-long drought in the southeastern region of the country now continuing makes wet, cool days few, the more to be relished. Some evocation of days when every occurence was new for the child I was, and the changeability of the weather kept the scenes moving.

On the television news this morning, more footage of low water levels in lakes. North Georgia especially hard-hit. No hint of climate change is permissible lest the forces of denial counterattack; “Just normal weather cycles, tree-huggers and lying liberals want to cripple business with regulations and expenses. They all hate America, kill preborn babies and believe we came from monkeys.”

Post-scientific America, the triumph of the Know-Nothings. But I look out my open windows, feel the breezes of autumns past, and enjoy my senses and my memories.

October

Thanks be for October. Fittingly enough for a transitional month, the mornings are fall-like and the afternoons are moderate summer. Love it.

Oh, and another October 10th. The birthday of my friend.

Avoirdupois, Billy. I can’t imagine you being 65.

Knock back an elysian scotch for me.

At the Perpendicular…Autumnal Equinox

Today at 11:44:18 a.m. EDT, at this latitude the sun will hang for an instant exactly in the east. The equinox, when day and night are equal in length. In astronomical terms, days in the northern hemisphere of earth will begin to be shorter than night, as that instant marks the beginning of Autumn.

Of course, leaves on trees will not immediately turn colors and begin to fall, although in the prolonged drought of the past few years, this happens earlier and earlier, nor will temperatures suddenly grow chilly. The great wheel of the planets and their sun work slowly, and the heating of the earth that has been growing since Spring will only reluctantly loosen its grip.

Were all the clocks and calendars to disappear, we could fall back on the stars, sun and moon to gauge our seasons, as generations in pre-history did for thousands of years. In the 21st century, that is unthinkable, of course, the stuff of dystopian fiction. So, just take a walk each evening and pick out the stars, planets and moon, remembering the cycles that rule us all, even in our technologically oriented life.

Hurricanes

After a fairly uneventful summer, the continental U.S. is bracing for the fourth sizable hurricane on an almost weekly schedule. The latest, Ike, is looking ominously like New Orleans may expect another visitation. Late last week, the refugees from Gustav were coming back home to damage and some flooding, but nothing on the scale of Katrina.

Living in New Orleans is always lively, and sometimes terrifying, it seems. I am glad to live far enough inland and at a high enough elevation that some heavy rains is all we mostly get from hurricanes.

One thing I cannot understand is the degree of venom and contempt displayed by many towards the hapless poor of New Orleans, who repeatedly are characterized on blogs and letters to the editor as deserving of their fate for the double sin of being poor, and living in a flood zone. This incivility towards our fellow man crops up frequently on the Chattanooga Message Forum, where I spend too much of my time. The twin mantras for those who despise the poor are, “Exercise Personal Responsibility!” and, borrowing from the late Hunter S. Thompson, “Buy the ticket, take the ride!”

The bottom line for these harsh critics, I believe, is that tax money is spent on victims of disaster, and every penny paid, especially  by these champions of self-reliance, is bitterly begrudged.

A Gift from Chattanooga State

A gift, that is, to all walkers/joggers etc. on the river walk, which runs along the western edge of the Chattanooga State campus. For about a hundred feet, a series of beds of ornamental plants and flowers borders the walk, a chain link fence separating the beds from the walk. Apart from the splendid variety of visual beauty, each short row of plants has an identifying card facing the walk, with the name and formal species of the plants. The plants change throughout the growing season, giving even horticultural illiterates like myself a sense of which plants peak when.

Below is a shot of the garden from the path. I hope to put up many of these shots, somewhat closer, including the tags, on my photo page, Shadowlight.

Horticultural beauty on the River Walk.

Wildlife and Grandchildren

Today my Beloved Barbara and I took the two grandchildren to a local nature preserve and educational park known as the Chattanooga Nature Center. It was a great day for all of us, apparently – especially for the grandparents. On a winding elevated boardwalk over what, in pre-drought days, would have been wetlands, childish voices urged, “Come on, guys!” We vainly protested that we were grandparents, not “guys” but to little effect.

Pausing on the boardwalk along Lookout Creek

From the visitor center displays of snakes and turtles, to the amazing treehouse midway of the boardwalk, we explained (with the help of informative text and photo displays) each wonder of nature to the children. The conclusion of the walk, as with every such expedition, was a visit to the souvenir shop, where suitable stuffed animals were submitted for purchase.

Thinking of the plethora of such toys already in the house, I thought that perhaps more effort towards educating young minds in environmentally sound policies, such as the Nature Center stresses, might be better for forming young minds than stuffed toys.

Fortunately, the grandchildren were keenly interested in many exhibits, especially the sandbox with preserved animal foot castings let the young people match feet to tracks.

We shall return often to the Nature Center. Outdoors activity that we so enjoy, introducing the grandchildren to the facts of nature and species reduction.

Selah.