One of the things I always love about summer is the Cherry Festival. So many people come to see the parade and go tot he carnival grounds. I am sad that the Heard Building is gone, but Heard Park still boasts the best ox roast and curly fries in the summer. I always use Cherry Festival week to note the half way mark of summer vacation. Summer mornings have to be the best. Drinking coffee, reading the paper, and listening to the cicadas sing. There is nothing better, except the Cherry Fest Brunch at the neighbor’s house. What a great summer tradition for over 25 years. Sorry, AJ and Willy and Donn, no golf tournaments in the vineyard anymore. It is GONE!
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Summer nights
Summer nights are wonderful in a small town. You can walk the dog, chat with a friend on a front lawn, or go to to the beach to watch the incredible sunsets that splash themselves across the shores of Lake Erie.
Summer noise is sweet – crickets sing and kids laugh as they catch bugs in their mouths as they sail by enjoying every moment of freedom from school.
Another thing I have always loved about small town life is the local recreation schools and municipalities provide children. Learning to swim, or play biddy basketball or soccer has to be the highlight of the summer. I mustn’t forget little league baseball and summer fireworks. MNE used to host wonderful fireworks on July 4, but since the economy took a huge dive, that has disappeared. I loved those great summers when we would invite family for ice cream or watermelon on the front lawn as the fireworks burst into brilliant, flashes of light to remind us that we do live in a free country.
The Cherry Festival is coming soon and we will have more summer noise. There will be squeals of fun as teens whirls around in the carnival rides on those sweltering summer evenings. We will also hear long blasts from the many pieces of fire fighting equipment that come from far and near to march in the festival parade to help us raise funds for our local fire fighters and emergency crews.
Gone, but not forgotten
As I sit here thinking about the vineyard demise across the street, I wonder how many other things change so quickly in a small town.
At the end of last week, the vines were coming down one by one. This week, the big Earth movers came to pull the stakes out of the grown and level the land. Today, the vineyard is but a memory as the brown soil spreads out where the mustard seed used to grow in the rows.
Sorry, Donn, Willie and AJ here will be no more neighborly golfing-through-the-vineyard tournaments during Cherry Festival.
You can see right from our yard to the Mercyhurst North East baseball diamond. This land was part vineyard, part orchard when I moved in 31 summers ago. The aroma coming in the windows in the summer was warm and rich. Now, I will keep the south windows closed all summer, just to keep the DIRT out of my living room and lungs.
Progress is good, but so is harvesting from the Earth. I wonder who will tend to the grapes in 50 years. Will there be farmers who know how to care for these precious fruits we grow along the shores of Lake Erie?
Small town parking
Have you ever noticed that parking fees in small towns are a HUGE bargain? Parking in the mall parking lot can get you a fender bender and you must park on the back side of never during holiday shopping. Besides, in the city the parking fees are outrageous. I can get a parking space for two hours in North East for 20 cents. In Erie 20 minutes costs $25 cents. If you are looking for a great place to shop, sit in the park and read, listen to open air concerts on Thursdays, or get a great cup of coffee, I would urge you to come visit our little piece of the American dream and enjoy the parking without breaking the bank. Besides, the parking spaces are big enough to park a school bus, so there is plenty of space for people who have no clue how to parallel park.
Welcome to the vineyard
Actually, the vineyard across the street is being ripped out today, so I am beginning my blog by writing about the vineyard across the street. I have had a relationship with that vineyard for 31 years. When I moved into this house and town, the vineyard was live and healthy, providing grapes for the Redemptorist priests who lived in St. Mary’s Seminary, a boarding school for high school boys. Since that time, the seminary has closed and and the building has reopened as Mercyhurst North East. However, the vines always remained.
The first year, I was awakened in the wee hours of a warm August morning right before the first day of school to their thick sweet aroma. I raced to the vineyard in my bare feet to taste the sweet grapes, but, alas, they were very sour. As a newcomer, I did not know that grapes do not ripen until the end of September even though they look thoroughly ripe. I also did not know that one should wear shoes in the vineyard because old vines are chopped in early spring and tilled into the ground. Those small pieces of vine litter the rows and do havoc to the soles of one’s bare feet.
Through the years, I have had a great time taking photos of the various seasons grapes must pass through to flourish. I have inhaled their glorious aroma and have made some delicious jellies from their fruitful vines thanks to the priests who gave me permission to cut a basket of these sweet Concords.
As they fall, vine by vine under the hand of a trimmer, I am sad because these are the symbol of my town, where the Grape Picker is the school mascot and where we supply hundreds of tons of grapes each fall to Welch’s for juice and jams that travel around the World.
These glorious grapes also signaled the coming first day of school each year, because I knew once I smelled that first sweet aroma of the season, I would be packing my teacher satchel and head off to teach those wonderful Grape Pickers how to write. Although I am retired from the school, I still wait for the aroma to tell me school bells are ready to ring.
As my blog grows, I will share some wonderful things about this town that make it such a great place to live and grow and some of my favorite memories of teaching.
vineyardmusings 