Yellow

August is a yellow month.  Goldenrod shows up along the roadside, mixing in with the white queen Anne’s lace and the blue chicory.  The schoolgirl in me remembers this.  Goldenrod means summer is sliding down to fall.  It’s time to squeeze the fun and freedom out of every precious day left. The early turning sumac leaves are yellow too, and even orange.  Across Averill all the leaves of one branch of a beech tree are yellow.  In the back yard, the mullein, now taller than me, is crowned with yellow flowers.  In the fields the tops of the corn stalks are pale yellow, but on my plate the shucked corn is dazzling yellow.  My adult brain knows there’s still plenty of summer left, but the old resistance to the end of summer kicks in unbidden at the presence of all this yellow.

The rhythm of life is so different after you leave school.  I remember the first year I worked in a year round job, seeing June start and realizing I would not have the summer off, seeing August come and knowing that I had nothing to lose. Yet all the yellows of August still have that echo of loss. The time of plenty and ease is ending.  The days are shortening, the mornings cooling.  But now I look forward to the coming seasons, to fall and winter, without dread.  The tourists will leave us alone after labor day, having left merchants and arts organizations their annual windfall.  The Village coffers will be filled with parking fees and fines. It will be easy for us to park and shop and eat in our favorite restaurants.  And then by Thanksgiving, or just after Christmas at the latest, the snow birds will head for Florida or Arizona and the Village will belong to the faithful few again.

One of the joys of Cooperstown summer is the opera season.  It’s nothing short of amazing that we have both a beautiful opera house and an incredibly talented company in a Village with a population of around 1,800.  It would be the envy of medium sized cities.  This year, along with classical operas, they staged an excellent performance of Oklahoma.  (My sister Aviva told husband Peter that our sister Tamar was coming up and we were going to Oklahoma together.  Are you crazy, he asked.  What’s in Oklahoma?)  Everything about the show was first rate – singers, dancers, direction, sets, costumes and the fabulous orchestra.  And they didn’t mess with the show – it was very close to the original Broadway version.  We had the original cast album when I was a kid, and I knew nearly every song by heart.  Next week Aviva and I will see our last operas for the season, Cosi and Butterfly.  I’m sure I’ll enjoy them, but Oklahoma  was the real treat of the season.  Lovely to remember when we could sing “The land we belong to is grand” without reservation.

This year the yellow of August signals the beginning of a vital election season for the League.  We’ll be busy, showing up everywhere we can, helping people update their registrations and reminding them how important it is to vote.  We’re bringing the journalist J.J Green up from DC where he covers the Pentagon to talk to the community about recognizing and combatting mis and disinformation.  We’re so lucky that he’s a friend of one of our board members.  He spoke to our annual meeting by zoom last year, and he gives our little League credit for inspiring him to write “The Noise War” about mis and disinformation.  There’s more anxiety and uncertainty about this election than any I can remember, and the environment is ripe for disinformation – about the presence of ICE at polling places, about the acceptance of mail in ballots and when they will be postmarked, and so on.  As JJ advises, we’re working to inoculate the population, making sure they have easy access to reliable sources, and making sure they’re suspicious of any “news” items that are clearly aimed at getting them worked up.  We have some bad actors locally, and a contentious race for County Sheriff, so there are plenty of opportunities for mischief.

With the coming election season, August feels more like a beginning than an ending this year.  Still, when the purple asters join all this yellow later in the month, I’ll probably feel that pang again – time  to squeeze each day and hour before summer ends.