{"id":320,"date":"2008-05-30T07:49:39","date_gmt":"2008-05-30T11:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/2008\/05\/30\/the-cricket-stopped-singing\/"},"modified":"2009-03-13T10:21:20","modified_gmt":"2009-03-13T14:21:20","slug":"the-cricket-stopped-singing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=320","title":{"rendered":"The Cricket Stopped Singing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t know if you can anticipate the way you will feel at the final <\/em>leave taking of someone who you love.\u00a0 I can only imagine how Aunt Meggie felt when Uncle Saul passed away… a person who had been part of her life since she was sixteen or seventeen.\u00a0 But Meggie never betrayed the void that entered her life… at least to me. <\/p>\n

That’s Meggie.\u00a0 Nothing could slow her down.\u00a0 The “Unsinkable Mollie Brown.”\u00a0 On a day that you were seated at table #5 at so-and-so’s Bar Mitzvah or\u00a0Wedding, there Meggie would be…\u00a0 smiling.\u00a0 And she would be up for every dance.\u00a0 She danced with men.\u00a0 She danced with women.\u00a0 She danced by herself.\u00a0 She even danced with me!<\/p>\n

“Your Father was a great dancer,” she told me as we slow stepped to some nondescript number.\u00a0 This I knew.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Yes, Dad was amazingly light on his feet for a heavy-set man.\u00a0 Jackie Gleason, Zero Mostel,\u00a0Lou Costello … and Dad.”\u00a0 I didn’t like to be reminded of this.\u00a0 I didn’t hold it against Dad… it just made me feel clumsy in contrast.\u00a0 I was tempted to tell her that Adolph Hitler was known to be a great dancer, too.\u00a0 Which may have been true; but it seemed a misplaced observation since two dances earlier we had the obligatory group hora, <\/em>and besides, it would\u00a0have sounded like I was rejecting a compliment of Dad.<\/em><\/p>\n

Meggie just danced, and danced.\u00a0 She would take brief pauses at our table.\u00a0 And each time I glanced across the table in her direction\u00a0 I saw one thing, and one thing only.\u00a0 Meggie smiling and mid-flight in some story. If there was a lull in all the activity, looking at Meggie, I would be reminded of Saul and his absence.\u00a0 He would have enjoyed this day, too.<\/p>\n

Saul.\u00a0 Now there was a dancer! Everyone said it.<\/p>\n

I am reviewing this… and other\u00a0times\u00a0and occasions: weddings, family picnics, Thanksgivings & etc. as Meggie and I\u00a0join the locals one morning\u00a0to drink fancy\u00a0coffee and\u00a0feast on the incredible\u00a0jelly donuts from the Chatham Bakery on Crowell Rd.\u00a0 Saul and Meggie had purchased a clapboard cottage in Chatham years ago. It was their\u00a0July and sometime weekend\u00a0retreat from their Woodbury home.\u00a0 Woodbury\u00a0was quiet enough; but they sought\u00a0further distance\u00a0from Saul’s law practice and Meggie’s 8th<\/sup> grade science class in Bridgeport.<\/p>\n

They loved Chatham for its simplicity, removed from the hectic pace of mid-Cape Cod. And yes, today it was more developed; but it was where Meggie settled after retiring from teaching and after Saul had passed away. She sold the house in Woodbury, consolidated the key belongings and moved fully to their\u00a0vacation retreat.\u00a0 Retired from teaching, yes; but not from living.\u00a0 Meggie volunteered at the Hospital in Hyannis three days a week and once a week she helped at the Chatham Library’s teaching adults to read program.<\/p>\n

I loved coming to visit. \u00a0 I loved sharing in the old stories.\u00a0 Many involved my parents, many involved Saul.\u00a0 Those stories soothed my spirit.<\/p>\n

Between sips of hazelnut cream I mentioned, “As much as I love visiting you here at the Cape, when I was a kid I loved going up to see you in Woodbury.\u00a0 In the winter you had better<\/em> snow and in the summer I loved it when Uncle Saul took me on nature walks.”<\/p>\n

I smiled at the memory.<\/p>\n

“You know, at first I didn’t want to go on them.\u00a0 And then he told me that he knew a place where we might be able to find the living descendants of dinosaurs!\u00a0 That caught my attention; but I told him that I thought they were extinct.\u00a0 And he said that’s what everyone thinks.\u00a0 But they just didn’t know where to look for them.\u00a0 He took out two butterfly nets from the work shed and handed one to me… ‘Gee Uncle Saul, are these big enough?\u00a0 Or are we going to just steal their eggs?'”<\/p>\n

Meggie laughed, “I just can imagine Saul taking you on a ‘dinosaur hunt’ with two butterfly nets!”\u00a0 Then she shook her head, got quiet\u00a0and stared away for a moment as if the memory of Saul touched her on the shoulder.\u00a0 She looked back at me, slapped her lap, “Time to go!”\u00a0 She said that she wanted to pick something up from the market.<\/p>\n

“Dinosaur eggs?”<\/p>\n

“No,” she laughed, “Mangoes.\u00a0 I want to put up some mango chutney.\u00a0 It’s a recipe that I learned from your Mother… and I saw that the Chatham Village Market had them on special<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

“I don’t remember Mom making it.\u00a0 But as a kid I was a pretty fussy eater.\u00a0 It might have been something that I thought was an adult <\/em>food.\u00a0 Although I have always been keen on eating mangoes just plain<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

When we got to the market Meggie wasted no time and went straight to the produce side of the store.\u00a0 Displayed prominently was good sized table filled with mangoes sold by the mini-crate. I was grateful that this was going to be a quick in-and-out.\u00a0 But was I ever wrong.\u00a0 Meggie picked up one mango from one of the crates and carefully inspected it.\u00a0 Smelled it, and felt the skin, “I want them to be nearly <\/em>ripe… you have to be able to smell the fruit.\u00a0 The texture of the skin is critical.\u00a0 There has to be a little<\/em> give… if it is purely taut, then it has to be kept for a week and I want to make the chutney today or tomorrow.\u00a0 This one is good.”<\/p>\n

She picked up another from the crate, “This one isn’t ready yet.”\u00a0 And she put it in\u00a0different crate.\u00a0 Then she found another she liked, discarded another, discarded another… one was deemed a maybe<\/em> and this she kept in her hand as a just in case.<\/em>\u00a0 I am not sure if the other shoppers appreciated Meggie’s diligence.\u00a0 But that was not her concern.\u00a0 She inspected each and everyone of the original dozen or so mangoes in the crate… and by my count only\u00a04 were considered worthy… and\u00a08\u00a0mangoes from the other crates had to be located and the various crates had to be adjusted accordingly.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

I even got caught up in this pursuit.\u00a0 “How ’bout this one Aunt Meggie?\u00a0 It smells OK to me.”<\/p>\n

She shook her head, “I don’t like the colour.\u00a0 There has to be some red or yellow.\u00a0 Those straight green ones don’t make good chutney.”\u00a0 <\/p>\n

I think she felt obligated to take one of my selections… which she did.\u00a0 I think she would have been just as happy if I had remained outside the market grabbing some sun.\u00a0 When she said that she had to pick up some Granny Smiths for the recipe, I nearly fainted.\u00a0 The thought of another detailed examination of fruit derailed me.\u00a0 She was quick to notice my pained expression, “Don’t worry Jimmy, the apples aren’t all that important.\u00a0 I am just going to pick up this bag.”\u00a0 What a relief.<\/p>\n

When we got back to the cottage it was quickly apparent that I was going to be dragooned into helping to make this chutney.\u00a0 My suggestion\u00a0was\u00a0that we just eat them… I even offered to take some home with me.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

That was met with a wave of the hand, “if we were just going to eat <\/em>them then I would have had to make an entirely different selection… mangoes reaching ripeness over a ten day period.\u00a0 That would have taken more time.\u00a0\u00a0Here, put on this apron.”\u00a0 Aprons aren’t a favorite of mine.\u00a0 This one had one of those clever captions: Give the Chef a Beer<\/em>.\u00a0 “It was Saul’s apron… I don’t know why… for some reason I have kept it.”<\/p>\n

She set me to peeling, coring and chopping of the apples while she handled the messier task of the mango prep, “So did you ever find dinosaurs with Saul.”<\/p>\n

“No.\u00a0 Try as we might.\u00a0 Even though I was a little kid, I knew that we weren’t about to find an undiscovered dinosaur colony in Woodbury.\u00a0 But I pretended that I thought<\/em> it was a possibility… and Saul pretended it was a possibility, too.\u00a0 So even when we were finding other great stuff, we behaved like it was secondary to our real purpose… finding evidence of living dinosaurs, their descendants… or eggs.\u00a0 <\/em>One time Uncle Saul asked me, ‘Jimmy, when we find stegosaurus eggs, we’ll take them home and make an omelet.\u00a0 I think one egg should do for the both of us.\u00a0 What do you think?’\u00a0 I told him that I thought that an omelet was an adult <\/em>food, and that I like my eggs from chickens and scrambled with a little bit of salt and pepper.”<\/p>\n

“Were you scared looking for all the strange stuff?”<\/p>\n

“Uncle Saul had a confident tone and it made me feel safe.\u00a0 The first time we went into this field that led to a pond… Saul knew there would be oodles of things of interest… but I was\u00a0taken by the noise.\u00a0 <\/em>The sounds of the cicadas and the crickets?\u00a0 It was a noisy racket that I found vaguely scary.\u00a0 I mean you heard these loud sounds, where the hell was it coming from?<\/em>“<\/p>\n

Meggie, done with the mango prep turned her attention to the spice cabinet… granulated sugar, dark brown sugar, black pepper, salt, cayenne pepper, cinnamon, ground cloves, allspice and\u00a0ground mustard seed were\u00a0moved to the\u00a0staging area on the counter.\u00a0 I was given a large onion to peel and chop.<\/p>\n

“Uncle Saul looked on the ground near us… left and right.\u00a0 He got real quiet and prepared to drop his butterfly net on something, he motioned me to be still.\u00a0 Still? I was scared shitless! I thought that he had just found a diamondback rattler or something!\u00a0 He pounced, and when he was sure that he had his quarry, he looked at me and smiled.”<\/p>\n

Meggie brought her eyes up from the counter, “Dinosaur eggs?”<\/p>\n

“I only wish.\u00a0 No, it turned out to be my introduction to the cricket.\u00a0 Not counting Jiminy Cricket<\/em>, I had never seen one before.\u00a0 This one certainly didn’t look like Jiminy!\u00a0 But Uncle Saul carefully took it out of the net, and held it in his palm so I could have a better look.\u00a0 A black thing… no vest or top hat!”<\/p>\n

I peeled and cut three carrots.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

“Uncle Saul showed me the cricket, ‘See.\u00a0 It has rear legs that are big like a grasshopper.\u00a0 They can jump, too.\u00a0 Now they don’t sting or bite or bother us at all.\u00a0 But they make that wonderful chirping <\/em>sound you hear.\u00a0 It’s their song.<\/em>‘\u00a0 And he returned the cricket to an open patch of ground so I could see it hop.\u00a0 And\u00a0the thing\u00a0stood stock still.\u00a0 I asked how they made that chirp.\u00a0Uncle Saul smiled and pointed to its big hind legs, ‘He uses those legs for more than jumping… he rubs those legs together to make the chirp!’\u00a0 Well, I thought that was impressive!”<\/p>\n

Meggie brought out her brewing pot, put in all the ingredients, spices… added a cup of raisins and dumped in a quart of apple cider vinegar.<\/p>\n

“So I asked Saul, ‘Why do they chirp Uncle Saul?’\u00a0 And he told me, ‘First you got to know it’s only a guy <\/em>thing.\u00a0 Lady crickets can’t sing<\/em>.\u00a0 The males use two different songs<\/em>.\u00a0 One is to tell the other guys, I’m here!\u00a0 I’m working this block, shove off!<\/em>\u00a0And that song also<\/em> puts the ladies on notice, I’m here! Let me take you home to meet Mom!<\/em>\u00a0 And then there is the other <\/em>song they sing… and to the lady crickets it sounds like Frank Sinatra singing I Only Have Eyes For You.\u00a0 <\/em>See?'”<\/p>\n

“Let me take you home to meet Mom?\u00a0 Yeah, that’s pure Saul!”\u00a0 And Meggie laughed and laughed.<\/p>\n

“I was hoping to see our cricket give a demonstration of his song, at this point he didn’t even show off his jumping skills, ‘This one doesn’t look like he’s interested in singing?’\u00a0 Uncle Saul looked at our quiet cricket and told me, ‘If they have a tushie rash<\/em> they can’t sing… no matter how much they want to take a lady back to meet Mom!”<\/p>\n

“Tushie rash?\u00a0 And you believed this?”<\/p>\n

“Well, it seemed reasonable given the explanation on how they made their songs<\/em>.\u00a0 And I knew what a tushie rash felt like, and I knew I<\/em> would be in no mood to sing either.\u00a0 Besides I was a little kid and\u00a0thought that\u00a0Uncle Saul\u00a0was our family’s\u00a0designated naturalist. He told me, ‘You know Jimmy, whether a cricket is singing his song to other guys or to the ladies, he sings because he is happy<\/em>.\u00a0 And it’s a sad day when a cricket stops singing.'”<\/p>\n

Meggie finished the preparations for the chutney, covered the pot and put it into the fridge.\u00a0 “There.\u00a0 That should be fine.\u00a0 It develops its full flavours over night, tomorrow I’ll cook it, and put them up into jars.\u00a0 You will have to come back for yours.\u00a0 But here, this is a mango I didn’t use… eat it in three days.”<\/p>\n

It might\u00a0have been Mom’s recipe; but Meggie took possession of it… and anything else that might have pertained to mangoes.\u00a0 I took off the apron and handed it back to Meggie.<\/p>\n

“You know…\u00a0 I was watching a program on the Animal Channel and it was about crickets!\u00a0 The part about the chirping coming from the legs is a common misconception.\u00a0 The chirping is actually generated under its forewings.\u00a0 So if they didn’t sing it wasn’t because of a tushie rash… it was more like an underarm <\/em>rash… which I also know about.\u00a0 Something else, the Emperor of China would keep crickets in bamboo cages for pets.\u00a0 They knew about their songs, too.\u00a0 They knew\u00a0their songs\u00a0made for a happy home.”<\/p>\n

Meggie smiled at me, looked at the apron, paused for a moment, folded it and put it back in the pantry.\u00a0 “Uncle Saul used to sing I Only Have Eyes For You <\/em>to me.\u00a0 Uncle Saul could hold a tune… and\u00a0my, what a dancer he was!”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t know if you can anticipate the way you will feel at the final leave taking of someone who you love.\u00a0 I can only imagine how Aunt Meggie felt when Uncle Saul passed away… a person who had been … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meggie-saul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}