In the time of the tiger lily

The bru­tal heat and humid­i­ty that had tor­tured most of the coun­try for weeks but spared Kentucky until now have the Bluegrass sim­mer­ing like burgoo. 

The pun­ish­ing sun broils these city streets, and one could drown in the sul­try air.

When I began writ­ing the first draft of this on the fourth Sunday in July, morn­ing tem­per­a­tures were in the low 60s. By the end of the week, the humid­i­ty made after­noon tem­per­a­tures feel like they had hit triple digits.

Here in the heart­land, sum­mer can go from heav­en­ly to hell­ish in no time.

This is not my favorite season. 

I don’t like walk­ing out my front door into a steam bath, and I can do with­out nasty flies, noisy lawn­mow­ers, and noi­some odors of smol­der­ing garbage. 

If it were left to me, it would be April or October through most of the year.

But I must admit that sum­mer has its charms. The days between the sol­stice in mid-June and the dog days of August are nor­mal­ly mild and wonderful.

The sea­son is her­ald­ed by wild­flow­ers, includ­ing milky Queen Anne’s lace, blue vio­let chico­ry, and my favorite, orange tiger lilies.

The orange tiger daylily, Hemerocallis ful­va, which isn’t a real tiger lily, is ubiq­ui­tous in this part of the coun­try. It grows along coun­try lanes (thus the name, “ditch lily”) and in people’s front-yard flower beds. 

Most of the flow­ers have wilt­ed or fad­ed away, but for a brief moment, their vivid mar­malade col­or dis­played against summer’s deep emer­ald hues and azure skies brought beau­ty to our world.

But there is much about sum­mer that is beau­ti­ful: Blackberries right for pick­ing. Billowing clouds. Great blue herons in flight. Fireworks on the Fourth of July. Old Farmalls and ’57 Chevys on dis­play. Red, ripe toma­toes at the farm­ers’ mar­ket. Oil and acrylics, ceram­ics and sculp­ture at art shows. Glorious sunsets.

The sounds of sum­mer are of car­ni­val music at the coun­ty fair, ban­jos and fid­dles on the band­stand, the thwack of wood or clink of met­al against leather at a base­ball game, the cheers of crowds, the laugh­ter of children.

And then there are the scents and tastes of the season.

In his 1983 book, Seasons, the late John Ed Pearce of the Courier-Journal described the aro­mas of summer.

“Summer smells good – not pun­gent and ripe and smoky like fall, not sweet and fresh like spring, but with myr­i­ad scents and fra­grances all its own,” he wrote. “Summer is the smell of lilacs. Roses in the after­noon sun. Chlorine in the pool …. More than any­thing else, sum­mer is the smell of new-cut grass.”

I would add anoth­er – the tang of bar­be­cue min­gled with the sharp scent of wood smoke.

Which brings us to taste.

Fall and win­ter have their com­fort foods – chick­en and dumplings, meat­loaf and mashed pota­toes, or spaghet­ti mari­nara. But sum­mer eat­ing is the best. Garden-fresh toma­toes, pep­pers, and cucum­bers for sal­ads. Homegrown green beans and new pota­toes. T‑bone or tuna (or any­thing) on the grill. Cold beer and hot dogs at the park. Lemonade. Peach cob­bler with vanil­la ice cream.

Where there’s food, there’s often activ­i­ty, espe­cial­ly out­doors when it’s warm.

When I was a kid, my friends and I rode our bicy­cles for miles, slept in the woods and built camp­fires, fished for bluegill, caught craw­dads, jumped off the high dive at the city pool, and played soft­ball in the vacant lot until our par­ents called us to come before dark. 

As a teenag­er and twen­tysome­thing, my sum­mer pas­times includ­ed cruis­ing the streets and back roads late at night with friends, going to field par­ties along the riv­er, hik­ing and jog­ging, play­ing ten­nis, shoot­ing tar­gets with .22s, watch­ing movies at the dri­ve-in and lis­ten­ing to Led Zeppelin or R.E.M.

These days, my arthri­tis and oth­er health issues lim­it my phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, but I still enjoy going to ear­ly sum­mer fes­ti­vals. Among the best are the Berea Craft Festival in the woods at Indian Fort Theater, the Woodland Art Fair in Lexington’s leafi­est city park, and open­ing night of The Stephen Foster Story at My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown, where cast mem­bers min­gled with the crowd and kids played games.

On qui­et sum­mer nights in Bardstown, I went for walks along the mead­ows, woods, and sun­flower fields of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth. There I encoun­tered herds of white­tail deer, red­tail hawks, red­wing black­birds singing amidst cat­tails, tur­tles, egrets, king­fish­ers, and grass carps big­ger than my leg.

Once there was a young black bear that I didn’t see, but oth­ers did, includ­ing a game war­den who assured me it was in the corn­field nearby.

The most won­drous sum­mer spec­ta­cle I ever encoun­tered at Nazareth was a sun­set that was love­ly beyond belief. 

I was leav­ing the con­vent when I noticed oth­er peo­ple dri­ving slow­ly and gawk­ing at some­thing in their rearview mir­rors. Then I saw it. The sky was ablaze in orange. Not a pas­tel orange tinged with blue and pink like an ordi­nary sun­set, but blood orange and saf­fron, as though Mother Nature had paint­ed the sky the col­ors of a tiger lily. 

I got out of my car and took pic­tures, but my lim­it­ed pho­tog­ra­phy skills couldn’t do it justice.

Another sum­mer day at Nazareth, I was walk­ing the trail that runs along­side twin lakes and noticed con­cen­tric cir­cles on the water, which meant it was rain­ing ahead. As I came over a hill, there was a glo­ri­ous rain­bow. I was in awe.

That time, I had no cam­era, so I tried to cap­ture the expe­ri­ence in words.

This is what I wrote:

Against a slate-gray sky,
A kalei­do­scope of col­ored light
High above a hunter green for­est
And amber waves of grain.