A Lewisian Year
Aug. 7th, 2021 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scrubjayspeaksPresented in partnership with the Lewisia Communications Board and Lewisia Public Library
Sponsored by The Historical Society
Hello, readers, listeners, and psychic osmosizers! Welcome to A Lewisian Year, a monthly showcase celebrating the rich culture here in the Lake Lewisia district. Each month, we'll highlight some seasonal events, local celebrations and interpretations of national and world holidays, and historical tidbits.
AUGUST
First Harvests
Today, we're all taking a trip out to the community gardens--no, not that one--not the one over there either--look, Lewisia has a lot of community gardens. This is the garden out by the Old Town train station, where they do all the raised beds made of railroad ties and salvaged metal. Let's go early in the morning, to avoid the worst of the heat. Volunteers are out watering right now, to give the water a chance to sink in, rather than just evaporating, so everything feels damp and cool. Water seeps through the walls of the planters, picking out the runes carved there for bounty and health.
Grab a basket and some clippers. Snip a bundle of basil. Pluck a handful of cherry tomatoes. Be careful when you move the pumpkin leaves aside: they're prickly devils and intent on protecting the growing pumpkins hiding among them. Oh, good eye--you've spotted a summer squash that nearly evaded harvest, and it's already big enough to club someone with. The corn, off on the edges of the lot, rustles invitingly, still green and not yet powerful enough (probably) to steal you away for longer than a few hours.
Everywhere you turn, there is something growing, something coming in ripe and full, something ready to eat like a mouthful of sunlight.
It may seem strange to think of August as harvest season, when most places outside of Lewisia have relegated all thoughts of harvest to the window between Halloween and Thanksgiving. In truth, though, harvest has been going on for months already and will only get more intense as the season wears on. Tomatoes have been filling up bowls on kitchen counters since early summer; zucchini have been terrorizing local neighborhoods nearly as long. Growth does not restrict itself to a season; abundance is not the province of a single holiday.
Oh, and if you see any piles of first fruits or bundles of last leaves set in out-of-the-way places, leave them be. They are offerings of thanks from some well-pleased gardener or lucky forager, who does well to remember that we did not make all we receive and so it is not all ours to take. Gratitude is also not something to be kept to one day a year.
Back to School
On the other hand, there is something Lewisians will delay much longer than the outside world: the return to school. It seems like every year, my own schools resumed classes earlier than the last and summer break got shorter and shorter. By the time I was old enough to take on a summer job as well, the supposed holiday seemed little more than a pause in an otherwise overwhelming schedule. So I was surprised to see the number of children and teens freely roaming the town and surrounding areas so late in the summer, clearly heedless of such considerations as syllabi and new backpacks and locker assignments.
Once again diving into the library's records of the Lewisia Herald, I found a persistent tradition of announcements related to the official start of school and the (much later) actual start dating back to the seventies. Various public announcements indicate compliance with state rules about school days even as they offer--sometimes blatantly--alternative instructions to students about how to spend their dwindling summertime. This subterfuge seems to have been prescient, as the eighties would bring about nationwide hand-wringing over the length of the school day and the school year amid broader anxieties about global competitiveness. But while the outside world focused on using education as a training ground for generations intended for industrial work, Lewisia chose a different path.
A survey from 2003 showed that Lewisian students actually spent more hours on educational activities compared to the general population annually, though they spent fewer hours in classrooms and formal school settings. This becomes less surprising once one becomes accustomed to the Lewisian fondness for clubs and hobbies with a strong basis in hands-on learning, community participation, cultural preservation, and self-directed learning. In short, Lewisians don't need to be chained to a classroom desk from mid-August to mid-June, because they're perfectly happy to learn when left to their own devices.
Editor's Note: we have explained that this is all an elaborate misunderstanding on the part of your columnist. Lewisian schools absolutely resume sessions on the state-approved schedule and all Lewisian students receive the required number of instructional days, including make-up days in the event of weather-related school shutdowns. We have preserved the original, definitely incorrect information in this column for educational purposes only, to be used in a unit on fact-checking by the journalism students, who certainly are not currently out by the waterfront learning to make reed flutes and annoying the shorebirds.
Open House Night
It's only been two months since we focused on housing needs as part of Pride Month, but August gives us a wonderful opportunity to see that need met through the Open House Night. Throughout the region, on the last Friday in August, unoccupied dwellings open themselves up in search of someone who needs to live in them. In the evening, tours are conducted at regular intervals at all the known open houses. Come morning, there are at least a few dwellings no longer standing vacant and a few people no longer in need of stable shelter.
Notably, while the tours and guides help the process along and provide much-needed assistance with the bureaucratic details of documenting a home once one is found, the event itself is not put on by the town or any identified organization. No authority in Lewisia dictates who lays final claim to a dwelling. There is a fundraising arm to the event, however, which is managed by Lewisians. This provides funds for repairs that may be needed on any dwelling that has sat vacant long enough to suffer damage.
Also, despite the name, the event is not restricted to houses. Individual apartment units sometimes come up, and there have been a number of previously-abandoned trailers who took on new inhabitants. Occasionally, even less conventional forms of shelter make themselves known, such as heavily modified shipping containers, houseboats (with or without associated bodies of water), and once, memorably, the discarded shell of an ancient and enormous hermit crab. Mostly, though, people end up with slightly down-at-heel houses that need the care of an occupant as much as the people need a place that will be warm and dry and safe, particularly with winter just around the bend.
The Open House Night is not a systemic solution; it isn't a national solution; it isn't enough of a solution. But sometimes the victories look small from the outside: one person safe and warm, one house full and appreciated. For the houses and the people in them, a victory like that can never seem small.
This Month in History
On the night of August 17th, 1893, the Necessary Observance, a trading ship bound for Mexico, encountered a lightning storm at sea that forced it to seek safe harbor. Unfortunately, the stretch of coast it had been sailing nearest to, due west of Lake Lewisia, was and is a treacherous churn of huge rocks and unexpected shallows unsuitable for any sailing vessel not interested in becoming so much driftwood. As the waves came up on deck and the lightning seemed determined to turn the Observance into a pyre before it sank her, Captain J. R. Meade made the bold choice to seek shelter inland--far inland. The ship's crew included a chronowitch, known only as Hawthorn, who was able to find time traces of the vast body of water that once joined Lake Lewisia with the Pacific Ocean in prehistoric times. Through her herculean efforts, and with the support of the first mate's regular offerings of good whiskey as she worked, the Observance rode that forgotten water many miles inland, all the way into the center of Lake Lewisia, where the weather proved substantially less murderous.
With the chronowitch entirely exhausted from the strain of such a journey, the Observance found herself stranded in the lake for some time. Records differ, in fact, on both when and how the ship eventually made her way back to the ocean and the rest of her interrupted trade run. Since there is not (usually) a centuries-old tall ship stranded in the middle of the lake, evidence suggests they did somehow make the return trip.
That's a taste of what August has to offer us. See you next month, when September brings an anniversary for a local business, a second chance at mail, and one last sunset.
Sponsored by The Historical Society
Hello, readers, listeners, and psychic osmosizers! Welcome to A Lewisian Year, a monthly showcase celebrating the rich culture here in the Lake Lewisia district. Each month, we'll highlight some seasonal events, local celebrations and interpretations of national and world holidays, and historical tidbits.
AUGUST
First Harvests
Today, we're all taking a trip out to the community gardens--no, not that one--not the one over there either--look, Lewisia has a lot of community gardens. This is the garden out by the Old Town train station, where they do all the raised beds made of railroad ties and salvaged metal. Let's go early in the morning, to avoid the worst of the heat. Volunteers are out watering right now, to give the water a chance to sink in, rather than just evaporating, so everything feels damp and cool. Water seeps through the walls of the planters, picking out the runes carved there for bounty and health.
Grab a basket and some clippers. Snip a bundle of basil. Pluck a handful of cherry tomatoes. Be careful when you move the pumpkin leaves aside: they're prickly devils and intent on protecting the growing pumpkins hiding among them. Oh, good eye--you've spotted a summer squash that nearly evaded harvest, and it's already big enough to club someone with. The corn, off on the edges of the lot, rustles invitingly, still green and not yet powerful enough (probably) to steal you away for longer than a few hours.
Everywhere you turn, there is something growing, something coming in ripe and full, something ready to eat like a mouthful of sunlight.
It may seem strange to think of August as harvest season, when most places outside of Lewisia have relegated all thoughts of harvest to the window between Halloween and Thanksgiving. In truth, though, harvest has been going on for months already and will only get more intense as the season wears on. Tomatoes have been filling up bowls on kitchen counters since early summer; zucchini have been terrorizing local neighborhoods nearly as long. Growth does not restrict itself to a season; abundance is not the province of a single holiday.
Oh, and if you see any piles of first fruits or bundles of last leaves set in out-of-the-way places, leave them be. They are offerings of thanks from some well-pleased gardener or lucky forager, who does well to remember that we did not make all we receive and so it is not all ours to take. Gratitude is also not something to be kept to one day a year.
Back to School
On the other hand, there is something Lewisians will delay much longer than the outside world: the return to school. It seems like every year, my own schools resumed classes earlier than the last and summer break got shorter and shorter. By the time I was old enough to take on a summer job as well, the supposed holiday seemed little more than a pause in an otherwise overwhelming schedule. So I was surprised to see the number of children and teens freely roaming the town and surrounding areas so late in the summer, clearly heedless of such considerations as syllabi and new backpacks and locker assignments.
Once again diving into the library's records of the Lewisia Herald, I found a persistent tradition of announcements related to the official start of school and the (much later) actual start dating back to the seventies. Various public announcements indicate compliance with state rules about school days even as they offer--sometimes blatantly--alternative instructions to students about how to spend their dwindling summertime. This subterfuge seems to have been prescient, as the eighties would bring about nationwide hand-wringing over the length of the school day and the school year amid broader anxieties about global competitiveness. But while the outside world focused on using education as a training ground for generations intended for industrial work, Lewisia chose a different path.
A survey from 2003 showed that Lewisian students actually spent more hours on educational activities compared to the general population annually, though they spent fewer hours in classrooms and formal school settings. This becomes less surprising once one becomes accustomed to the Lewisian fondness for clubs and hobbies with a strong basis in hands-on learning, community participation, cultural preservation, and self-directed learning. In short, Lewisians don't need to be chained to a classroom desk from mid-August to mid-June, because they're perfectly happy to learn when left to their own devices.
Editor's Note: we have explained that this is all an elaborate misunderstanding on the part of your columnist. Lewisian schools absolutely resume sessions on the state-approved schedule and all Lewisian students receive the required number of instructional days, including make-up days in the event of weather-related school shutdowns. We have preserved the original, definitely incorrect information in this column for educational purposes only, to be used in a unit on fact-checking by the journalism students, who certainly are not currently out by the waterfront learning to make reed flutes and annoying the shorebirds.
Open House Night
It's only been two months since we focused on housing needs as part of Pride Month, but August gives us a wonderful opportunity to see that need met through the Open House Night. Throughout the region, on the last Friday in August, unoccupied dwellings open themselves up in search of someone who needs to live in them. In the evening, tours are conducted at regular intervals at all the known open houses. Come morning, there are at least a few dwellings no longer standing vacant and a few people no longer in need of stable shelter.
Notably, while the tours and guides help the process along and provide much-needed assistance with the bureaucratic details of documenting a home once one is found, the event itself is not put on by the town or any identified organization. No authority in Lewisia dictates who lays final claim to a dwelling. There is a fundraising arm to the event, however, which is managed by Lewisians. This provides funds for repairs that may be needed on any dwelling that has sat vacant long enough to suffer damage.
Also, despite the name, the event is not restricted to houses. Individual apartment units sometimes come up, and there have been a number of previously-abandoned trailers who took on new inhabitants. Occasionally, even less conventional forms of shelter make themselves known, such as heavily modified shipping containers, houseboats (with or without associated bodies of water), and once, memorably, the discarded shell of an ancient and enormous hermit crab. Mostly, though, people end up with slightly down-at-heel houses that need the care of an occupant as much as the people need a place that will be warm and dry and safe, particularly with winter just around the bend.
The Open House Night is not a systemic solution; it isn't a national solution; it isn't enough of a solution. But sometimes the victories look small from the outside: one person safe and warm, one house full and appreciated. For the houses and the people in them, a victory like that can never seem small.
This Month in History
On the night of August 17th, 1893, the Necessary Observance, a trading ship bound for Mexico, encountered a lightning storm at sea that forced it to seek safe harbor. Unfortunately, the stretch of coast it had been sailing nearest to, due west of Lake Lewisia, was and is a treacherous churn of huge rocks and unexpected shallows unsuitable for any sailing vessel not interested in becoming so much driftwood. As the waves came up on deck and the lightning seemed determined to turn the Observance into a pyre before it sank her, Captain J. R. Meade made the bold choice to seek shelter inland--far inland. The ship's crew included a chronowitch, known only as Hawthorn, who was able to find time traces of the vast body of water that once joined Lake Lewisia with the Pacific Ocean in prehistoric times. Through her herculean efforts, and with the support of the first mate's regular offerings of good whiskey as she worked, the Observance rode that forgotten water many miles inland, all the way into the center of Lake Lewisia, where the weather proved substantially less murderous.
With the chronowitch entirely exhausted from the strain of such a journey, the Observance found herself stranded in the lake for some time. Records differ, in fact, on both when and how the ship eventually made her way back to the ocean and the rest of her interrupted trade run. Since there is not (usually) a centuries-old tall ship stranded in the middle of the lake, evidence suggests they did somehow make the return trip.
That's a taste of what August has to offer us. See you next month, when September brings an anniversary for a local business, a second chance at mail, and one last sunset.
