The Naked Scarecrow

My father was in the Army in the late 1960s. I grew up in the olive drab world of military bases in what was then West Germany. My family lived in military quarters in Kitzingen. Children of military personnel went to school at Larson Barracks, a twenty-minute ride on the Army-issued school bus (painted olive drab, of course). The school was in an old WWII-era block building, painted the same shade of gray as all the other block structures that housed the day-to-day operations of the military. It was in that dull place that my imagination began to glow, and I first knew I was a writer.

One Monday morning, after a weekend filled with kick ball, I remembered the homework that the teacher had assigned. As the school bus lumbered down the autobahn, I pulled out my pencil, borrowed a piece of paper from another kid and frantically started writing my short story.

Writing on an Army-issued bus traveling down the autobahn is hard enough, but the metal lunchbox I was writing on made things much worse. The pencil slipped with every bump in the road, causing the pencil to break through the paper. By the time we got to Larson Barracks, I had finished my story. I took my seat and was ready when Mrs. Ford asked everyone to pass their papers to the front of their row for collection. Mine wasn’t pretty, but it was there.

The next day, we got our papers back. A silence descended on me. I could hear myself breathing in slow-motion as my body tried to adjust to what my eyes were looking at—an A+! I was brought back to reality by the shrill pleadings of the girl next to me, Michelle Smiley, the kid I had borrowed the piece of paper from on the bus the day before. “Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Ford,” she was waving her hand wildly in the air.

This irritated the teacher, who gruffly told Michelle to quiet down, or she would have to stand in the hallway. For a split second, I thought I was saved. Not so. “But Mrs. Ford,” protested Michelle with the all the angst of an eight-year-old who only got a C on her very neat paper, “I saw Jerri do hers on the bus!” The gig was up. There was a paddle in my immediate future.

But at that dark moment, Mrs. Ford did something that changed my life. It was a profound moment, and even as an eight-year old, I understood that Mrs. Ford had given me a wonderful gift. Without acknowledging the protests of my classmate, she went to the front of the room and began talking in quite grown-up language about intelligence, imagination, and talent. Maybe she was talking to the whole class, but somehow, I felt she meant the dialogue for me alone. When she was finished, she looked straight at me. “Always write what you see in your head,” she said at point blank range. Forty-one-years later, I still think she was talking just to me.

As I grew, I lost interest in many things, mini-skirts, Donny Osmond, and roller skating to name a few, but I never lost interest in writing; it grew with me, keeping pace as I spurted, then stalled, and finally stumbled into maturity. I started writing about gardening back in the early nineties, inspired by a wayward thunder shower, an anonymous neighbor and a naked scarecrow.

Earlier that pastoral spring day, the kids and I had stripped off all of the clothes the scarecrow had been wearing the year before. As simple as this task may seem, it was made considerably more difficult by the family of garter snakes that had taken up residence in the scarecrow’s stuffing. Before the undressing could begin, the beating had to commence.

Armed with a barn broom and a couple of pitchforks, the kids took turns whacking and poking the scarecrow. I stood by with a flat, rusty shovel, ready to wallop any garter snake that tried to wriggle its way up anyone’s pant leg. After a couple of good, hard wallops and sharp pokes, the snakes began their alarmed escape.

Once we were sure the snakes were gone, we stripped the remaining rags from the scarecrow, leaving only a feed-sack head and wooden cross. The kids abandoned their implements of extermination at the foot of the defrocked scarecrow and headed into the house for a late-afternoon snack. After all the stomping and screaming, I needed some serious quiet time, so I headed down the driveway to watch a rambling spring storm rolling in from the south.

I was lost in the gathering storm clouds, when I noticed a green minivan coming up the hill. It was the neighbor who lived at the bottom of our dead-end road. I had seen them move in a few years earlier, but we had never formally met. Rural communities being what they are, I knew all about the newcomers before the ink was dry on their mortgage papers. Our neighbor told me they were members of the Pentecostal church in town. He couldn’t quite remember their names, and I didn’t inquire further.

I always waved when I saw them drive by—a nameless neighbor wave. For a couple of years, the lady in the minivan waved back, and that was the sum or our interaction; but this time it was different. I was in mid- anonymous wave when the van stopped right in front of me. The thick dust from the gravel road hung in the growing humidity of the approaching storm, surrounding the minivan in a pale cloud. The driver’s side door opened, and out stepped a young, reserved woman smiling tentatively. Her long, deep-brown hair was pulled into a heavy, tight braid that fell over her right shoulder, coming to rest at her waist. She wore a simple denim frock, no doubt hand-made.

“Hi,” she hesitated and her shy smile faltered. “I’m Marta. We were wondering what your scarecrow is going to be this time,” she said. “The girls look forward to seeing what it is each year.”

I glanced towards the minivan, where the oldest girl, whose hair was also in a long braid, had wriggled out of her car seat. She had the back window half-way down, and with her little face pressed into the opening she yelled, “Your scarecrow is naked,” then collapsed back into her car seat in a fit of giggles.

Over the years, our scarecrow has stood watch in the garden as a country maiden, an angel, a farmer and countless other personae. When my oldest daughter graduated from high school my mother-in-law made a fabulous purple robe, and our scarecrow matriculated all summer long.

People who know me would tell you that there couldn’t be two more different people on the planet than this woman and myself. We were from different social and economic backgrounds. We were at different stages in our lives. Yet, there we were talking like age-old friends on the side of a gravel road, the impending summer storm completely forgotten.

When the approaching storm broke into our conversation we said goodbye and ran for cover. As I was heading for the house, I decided I would write in my journal about my neighbor and the scarecrow that brought us together. I’ve been writing about life in rural America ever since.

After contributing articles to Countryside on a regular basis for a couple of years, I was invited to join the editorial staff at Countryside Publications. I jumped at the opportunity to work with the staff of such a well-respected publisher.

I think about Mrs. Ford and Marta often, especially in those low moments when I doubt myself and the words won’t come. I think about the two women who passed quickly from my life, disappearing down their own paths. If it weren’t for their inspiration, I would not be who I am today. Thank you Mrs. Ford and Marta, wherever you are.