The Old Field and the New Ground
Today, in a telephone call, my mother talked to me about the Old Field and the New Ground. She had asked me what I had done over the weekend, I talked about pulling haole koa stumps out of the ground on Sunday, and that led directly to the Old Field and the New Ground.
The usage dates from when her family was living in New Hall, alone on that ridge, some distance from the hamlet.
My mother explained that the Old Field had been sufficient for the needs of my grandparents and the four children then living with them--my mother, my Aunts Opal and June, and my Uncle Bernard--but my grandfather had gotten it in his head that the crops would be better if they cleared some new ground on the top of the ridge.
My Uncle Bernard was not able to dissuade him, and so it fell to him to clear it. This involved digging tree stumps up out of the ground by hand, a Herculean task that took my uncle more than a year. "You should have seen the machine they had," my Mother said, by way of comparing what my Uncle had had to do with what her neighbors had done recently with a machine in their yard.
Yet my Uncle Bernard had done it, at the cost of his studies and other pursuits. He was something of a self-taught scientist, my Uncle Bernard, having made radios for himself out of parts that he bought or scrounged, and having built a violin for himself, too. "Baked it," my mother will say, "in the oven." But all of that came to a halt on account of the New Gound.
"We didn't need it," my Mother said, "and Bernard told him we didn't need it, but Daddy wouldn't listen. Thought the New Grould would be good and fresh." She said this by way of a lamentation for my Uncle Bernard, whose sufferings were still fresh in her mind as she spoke, and causing her no little anguish.
When my Mother talks in this way, it transports me to another time and place with such vividness that the feel of it lingers with me for hours afterwards. "The Old Field," "the New Ground," usages like "light bread" and "fat back" all go to evoke a reality that feels as though I could touch it, if I just reached out to it.
I don't have any pictures for this. Maybe I will someday, if my Mother and Aunt June and Kristina, Maia and I make another road trip to New Hall, War and Welch. I hope so.
John, Monday, August 28, 2006
The usage dates from when her family was living in New Hall, alone on that ridge, some distance from the hamlet.
My mother explained that the Old Field had been sufficient for the needs of my grandparents and the four children then living with them--my mother, my Aunts Opal and June, and my Uncle Bernard--but my grandfather had gotten it in his head that the crops would be better if they cleared some new ground on the top of the ridge.
My Uncle Bernard was not able to dissuade him, and so it fell to him to clear it. This involved digging tree stumps up out of the ground by hand, a Herculean task that took my uncle more than a year. "You should have seen the machine they had," my Mother said, by way of comparing what my Uncle had had to do with what her neighbors had done recently with a machine in their yard.
Yet my Uncle Bernard had done it, at the cost of his studies and other pursuits. He was something of a self-taught scientist, my Uncle Bernard, having made radios for himself out of parts that he bought or scrounged, and having built a violin for himself, too. "Baked it," my mother will say, "in the oven." But all of that came to a halt on account of the New Gound.
"We didn't need it," my Mother said, "and Bernard told him we didn't need it, but Daddy wouldn't listen. Thought the New Grould would be good and fresh." She said this by way of a lamentation for my Uncle Bernard, whose sufferings were still fresh in her mind as she spoke, and causing her no little anguish.
When my Mother talks in this way, it transports me to another time and place with such vividness that the feel of it lingers with me for hours afterwards. "The Old Field," "the New Ground," usages like "light bread" and "fat back" all go to evoke a reality that feels as though I could touch it, if I just reached out to it.
I don't have any pictures for this. Maybe I will someday, if my Mother and Aunt June and Kristina, Maia and I make another road trip to New Hall, War and Welch. I hope so.
John, Monday, August 28, 2006
posted by John at 8/28/2006 08:24:00 PM
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