JOY ALONG THE WAY: CASING THE VICINITY

Being in good shape, having "raced, jumped, hurdled and swayed" with the Olympic athletes, I strolled down to "my" persimmon tree last week to see how the crop, if any, was coming along. I circled the tree, stopping at intervals to look up for a long time into the green leafy branches.

While thus circling, standing and looking upward, several motorists, passing by, slowed to see if they could see what I was apparently seeing. I was prepared with an answer should any have asked me, "What is it?"

I was going to say, "There's a Cheshire cat up there, but it is gone now, leaving nothing but its smile. Those who knew of Wonderland Alice's cat would have saluted and moved on, smiling. Others might have thought that I thought I had treed a 'coon, cub, cuckoo or cockatoo. You never know about people looking for long moments up into a tree.

Alas, I thought, there aren't going to be any persimmons. "Late freeze," I grumbled. "No persimmon pudding this fall." Then, suddenly, just as if the Cheshire cat had reappeared, I saw the little green marbles of persimmons. At this time of the year, they are the exact same shade of the leaves and until the roundness of them comes into focus one could think, as I did, they were just part of the foliage.

There were hundreds of them. Maybe, I thought, In addition to persimmon pudding, there would be plenty for persimmon bread, too. Although, I've never had the patience to prepare the pulp. It takes a lot of persimmons, put through a sieve, to come up with just one cup of pulp. You surely get more seeds than pulp when engaging in this activity. But the seeds, washed and dried, are pretty. Could make a handsome nature necklace if you can poke a hole through the spoon. I'll let you figure that out.

It also takes a lot of nuts and flavorings to take the "wildness" taste out of any baked persimmon product. Just as they are from the trees, ripe or sun-dried, suits me fine. It is the 'possum in me. I can sulk, too. Real good.

Having strolled as far as the persimmon tree, I inched on down to the creek to stand and stare. The banks have been shorn closely, eliminating any edging of the yellow flowers that in past years have trimmed the banks.

I try to imagine where the footbridge on the promised walking/biking trail will cross the creek. "Along the bank, past the tennis courts," they, the planning people, said. I wonder if they mean past the tennis courts as you're going upstream or downstream. The Troll and I think it should be just where the old Troll bridge was. Otherwise, going against the creek's flow, past the tennis courts, would jam it right up against the traffic bridge, or (say it isn't so) attached to the traffic bridge.

I think the Troll, by squatter's rights, ought to have some say-so about the location. He wouldn't like it, nor would I, his spokesman, if the footbridge is anywhere near the traffic bridge. There'd be too much motor noise drowning out the silvery call of the meadow larks that live in that vicinity or the call of the red-winged blackbirds that usher in the spring about the time one wants to get out and walk or ride. It would be a distraction for the motorists to slow and wonder what the hikers were looking at in the water, which might be the wake of a muskrat or a bull frog ready to leap into the creek, upset by human traffic.

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.