When September ends and daytime temperatures are still those of summer, my brother and I will tell each other how happy we are that we do not have potato acreage to put in storage.
Here, our old barns were dug into the earth, true cellars, whose cooling capacity was wrought from clever and observant design, not refrigerant. These barns, like almost everything else, are too warm now. Farmers are not known for their nuanced language, and so “happy” is probably not the right word for it. Happy connotes joy. We are, plainly, merely relieved not to be fighting the weather on that front, too.
“The Farmer’s Riviera” is a phenomenon more than it is Gibson Beach. Way back when, the dune banks were “owned” by the farms that abutted them. Where the potatoes ended, there were spans of goldenrod and bayberry, vegetation before the sand. While not honed on recreational activities, the farmers, dust-caked and sweaty from the hard work of harvest, would sometimes cross those dunes, strip down and swim.
They wouldn’t stay long, just long enough to remind themselves they should do this more often. But, because of harvest, and what would have been the seasonal norm — frost, then snow — that farmer won’t be back to swim in his Riviera until next year.
The ice cream truck played its song over and over. Families streamed up the beach to get some. Whatever fear we have of climate change, it is not worn on anyone’s smiling face. There is no visible, overt dread that October 5 feels and looks like July, only without the traffic.
The Riviera is crowded but not packed. People are taking advantage of the weather and the waves; even the break looks family friendly. As I make my way around the forming line, I pause so that rushing children can navigate the steep entrance and get past me. I hear an adult say to another, “I can’t believe I never knew how nice fall is.”
The setting is surreal to me only because I have history in this place and a fall wardrobe, mainly coveralls.
I swim in the ocean, then, defying my culture, I do not depart but instead spread my towel out and lie in the sun. I cover my face with my dirt-caked baseball cap and tell myself how happy I am that our cauliflower went in late. Were it any closer to maturity, this hot weather would wreck it.
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