Don't miss this!

Betty Fasig has posted her first story on this board and no one should miss it. It can be found under "To new Members" on the Welcome forum. I never can get enough of them.

Dear Dick,
You always make my day. And Sue, thank you for your kind comments.

Tonight is a night just like the night that Ho Chi went to the dance in the moonlight. The moon is full and round and the frogs and crickets are in full song. I imagine she is remembering that night as well.

How does the moon look from your window or porch on this night? Are clouds sailing along? Perhaps there is a storm? In the big city, do the lights of the town drown out the light of the moon?

We have a tree that is about 60 feet tall. It blooms big, white trumpet shaped flowers that smell very sweet on the eve of the full moon. In the morning, they cover the ground under the tree. I have often wondered what creature pollinated those flowers because in a short time, the tree produces foot long bean pods and spew forth a zillion seeds.
It is called a China Princess. I would call it a Moon Flower Tree.

Love,
Betty

I didn't know we could post stories!

Cool!

Betty Fasig wrote:

The moon is full and round and the frogs and crickets are in full song. I imagine she is remembering that night as well.

How does the moon look from your window or porch on this night?

Hi Betty,
Your writings stir two kinds of good feelings in me
The crickets and the frogs sang so strongly at night in my childhood years in Bangladesh - which happens to be so much like Florida in every possible way. The crickets buzzed an almost electronic siren-like noise... I can't quite describe it, but it was always pretty electrifying and intense in the late evenings. (As you are in beautiful, tropical Florida, you would know exactly what I mean?)
With heavy summer rains bombarding the tin roof of our house and loud booms of thunder, the chorus of frog songs in the surrounding paddy fields was an added distraction to my nightly sleep.

Here in southern England, where I am now, the summer full moons always hang rather low in the sky and the moon casts a yellowy glow into my garden, it's light being reddened by haze and atmospheric pollution.
This past couple of evenings, with the moon growing toward full, it's actually been a real delight to watch.

No, Betty, even the lights at the Circle K convenience store on the corner don't block out the moon and stars. From our 6th floor balcony the clouds are beautiful and ever-changing because those we see far to the north are lake effect clouds over and near Lake Erie. A thunderstorm is truly spectacular.
The closest thing I have seen to it is when we lived high on Hanna's Hill in Cooperstown, New York and could watch as a nor'easter came swooping down over Lake Otsego, the village and the place where the Susquehanna River begins. I've been in many countries and all over this one but the area of the Northern Catskills that lies between the Catskills and the Adirondacks is the most beautiful I have seen. You would love watching the deer and big snowshoe hares that came to our yard to eat in the winter and all the other wildlife in the area, including bears. Oddly enough there were no poisonous snakes although just to the south where the Susquehanna makes a sweeping turn there were rattlesnakes on the far side and a little to the north beyond the Mohawk River there was a differerent breed of rattlers. The million or more visitors to the Baseball Hall of Fame every year or to see the setting of James Fenimore Cooper's books rarely see the best features of the beautiful area.
You would also enjoy walking the old Mohawk warpath that ran through our property. In times of peace, the Mohawks used a trail on the east side of Lake Otsego (the Glimmerglass of Cooper's stories). When they were at war with the Oneidas or some other tribe they would follow a path on the west side for purposes of observation. Until we moved there I thought "warpath" was just an expression, not something that actually existed.