From Over the Hill: The First Grasshopper by Peter Bloch-Hansen blochhansenpeter@gmail.com First, an error. Last month, I mentioned two trees cut down at the corner of Mondamin and Scott Sts. This occurred at Kains and St. Catherine Streets, a block east. I deeply apologize.
incredible, huge hind legs. Such fun to chase -- if you could catch them. How could such little things move from a standstill so suddenly, jump so high and leap so incredibly far? And so fast! Now, maybe (probably) this is just a boy’s attitude, but when you could catch them, grasshoppers were great to put (for a little while) into a glass mayonnaise jar with a blade of grass or two, just to look at and watch. You had to punch some air holes in the lid with a nail, but back then, the jar lids were metal, not plastic (sadly), like now. Then, after a while, you would let them go. And go they would! Young children don’t yet have the tools of science to learn about the world, only their eyes and ears and noses and fingers. And … imagination! The imagination of childhood can create whole worlds and magical truths to explain everything and to record wonders. And those childhood worlds do not surrender to adulthood easily. No matter how much knowledge and hard experience we pile on top of them and pack down solid, they remain, and sneak their way up -- sometimes just a feeling, a scent in the air, or a glimpse or a sight of something – may a grasshopper. Anyway, they come on us so quick and suddenly, we can’t escape, transported instantly back to that time when we could make anything we wanted be true. Now, in my view, this is a great gift to us, a precious one, maybe a subtle hint of a truth higher and deeper than any we learned in science class or in the school of hard knocks. No, the childhood world, for all its delicacy, grace and lightness, is exceedingly tough and enduring. If it’s to die, it has to be deliberately killed, its only trace then, a deadness in the eyes. But if still alive, it makes our eyes shine so bright!
So, onward. One afternoon in early October, I saw a grasshopper hopping (naturally) across a sidewalk, the first one this year. It set me thinking and more, remembering – something I suppose we seniors do often. And, I think there’s something about warm weather that prompts memories of early childhood particularly. So, this grasshopper. Nothing special really, and that’s really what got me thinking. When I was seven, we lived in a new subdivision, one recently carved out of working farmland – large lots, lots of grass. Lots of room to run around, lots of room for every sort of outdoor games. It was a wide world of grass and a surprising number of trees too. So, late every summer, after the cicadas were done with their amazing, mysterious songs – where were they coming from, anyway? -- grasshoppers appeared – green ones, brown ones, grey ones, yellow ones, lots of them. Suddenly, one day, just … there they were – like magic! All over the place. Oh, they were wonderful – their see-through wings, their shiny skins, their big, big eyes, their sideways jaws and
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Page 12 Boomers and Beyond – Elgin • November 2024
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