Scandi

Unbelievably, it’s mid-August already.  Who hit the fast-forward button on 2005?  This is the phenomenon of middle-age with which I am least comfortable:  the days just fly by, faster and faster.  The more dear they become, the fewer you know you have left, the more they kick it into overdrive and speed by.  Yesterday, my niece looked at me quizzically when I said that a shirt she had bought at the local resale shop would be perfect to wear for a Christmas event.  I said, “I know, for you, Christmas seems like a long time away, but for me, it’s, like, tomorrow.”  And so it goes.

But if the years have to go by so fast, it is good, at least, to have special things scattered throughout the seasons that I can…well, watch fly by with a smile on my face, anyway.  This weekend, we are in Junction City for the Scandinavian Festival.  Above all others, this is my favorite event, and the one that got me started in this business sixteen years ago (another gasp and sigh when I ponder that number…)  Perhaps not completely coincidentally, the Scandi is also the only event we do all year where we make any money.  A lot rides on maximizing our success here.   I’ve toiled for weeks to make product, order signs, spiff up the trailer, gather costumes, tweak the menu; as I sit here clackety clacking away at 6 am, all is in readiness for a day of bang-up business.  

The anticipation and stage-fright that kicked me out of bed at 4:30 this morning will, I hope, be enough to keep me on my feet until 10:30 this evening, when I'll pack the stacks of bills into my back pack and heave myself behind the wheel of “Little Red.”  The drive back to my sister’s house after a fifteen-hour day is magical.  Junction City is out in the middle of Lane County’s mint fields.  This time of year, the mint is ripe and smells heavenly.  The huge irrigation cannons are set to do their work after the sun goes down.  The misty smell of mint on the damp night breeze is what we call the “Scandi smell.”  In days when I am old and decrepit (tomorrow?) and can no longer whip the creaky bonesinto shape to ply my trade, I’ll come back to Lane County in August, and drive down River Road after dark.  And let the memories wash over me like a tonic.