Antigo Morning

It is a remarkable fall morning. The air is cool and crisp, and the morning sun is bright in the cloudless blue sky.

These beautiful fall mornings always bring back memories of my grandmother's house in Antigo, Wisconsin. I don't know why that is. I don't recall ever being there in the fall as we would have been back to school in Detroit by September, but stepping out into the morning light, inhaling the fresh, clean air that chills my lungs while the sun simultaneously warms my face, always makes me think of Grandma Mac and her house in Antigo.   

Looking around, I see some leaves have fallen from many trees and covered the grass. There is work to do to clean up to prepare for winter, but the distinct earthy smell of fall excites me as I think of warm sweaters and cozy, breezy nights by the fire. I am also transported back in time to summer vacations in Wisconsin.

I love this regular reminder of my grandmother and her home in northern Wisconsin.   She was a woman of the earth, a gardener. She nurtured her rose garden, tended her blueberry bushes, and composted her raspberry bushes with great care. It was common for her to send us grandchildren out to the garden, each with our own bowl in hand, to collect a personally curated mix of fruit for breakfast. We would return with a bowl of blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries, and she would pour cream into the bowl, creating a white blanket over the multi-colored berries. There was no cereal, though a pot of freshly cooked oatmeal was often ready for those hungry grandsons as we got older and needed more substance to fill our bellies.  

Grandma's kitchen had a cedar closet near the dining room table. She called it her "Fiber McGee closet."  At the time, I had no idea why she called it that, but I heard years later that it had something to do with an old radio show. It was a large, at least to my memory, dark, walk-in closet that always, even in summer, smelled of cedar, wool coats, deer hunting, and the outdoor activities of men. When I was young, over my grandmother's half-hearted protests, I used to explore the closet, experience those scents, and feel the well-worn, plaid woolen work coats, denim coveralls and faded camouflage hunting jackets once worn by my grandfather or uncles, perhaps even my dad. Hats were hung about here and there, along with mittens and scarves. I could be transported back in time, like through the wardrobe of a CS Lewis novel, and imagine my Grandpa, whom I never knew, grabbing a jacket and leaving for work in his overalls and workboots that still sit in the closet's dark corners. I could sense my uncles returning home after a successful hunting excursion and hanging the hats and scarves on hooks deep in the closet. That may be why the earthy smell of fall reminds me so much of her house. It was perpetually fall in the Fibber-McGee closet.

Grandma Mac's house also had a canning room to the right of the bottom of the basement stairs. It had shelves lined with canned fruits and sauces, empty glass canning jars, and long wooden work benches. I only recall a small window near the ceiling that let a little sun during certain times of the day. It, too, had a damp, musty, earthy smell. The canned fruit on the wooden shelves, cardboard boxes of empty jars, and sacks of potatoes on the floor gave the room dark accents against the white concrete walls, much like the color of the brown leaves on the green grass this morning. The colors may also be a trigger for my memories.

The air in Antigo always seemed clean and crisp. Coming from Detroit, noticeably improved air quality was a low bar, evident even to a youngster like myself. This Northern Wisconsin town was far from any urban population and was mostly farmland. Grandma's house was surrounded by a large potato farm on two sides. Unless we arrived when the farms fertilized the fields with manure, which Dad seemed to appreciate far more than we did, the air always seemed fresh. We also did a lot more running and playing outdoors with our cousins than we might typically do back home, so the sheer quantity of fresh air moving through our little lungs was much higher, and our bodies burned the clean fuel like a Formula One race car. 

For whatever reason, when I experience a fall morning like this, finding myself in the confluence of fresh, crisp air, bright sunlight, and the warm, earthy smell of leaves needing to be raked. I will allow my excitement to rise a little and revel in my memories of Grandma Mac, my cousins, and our summer vacations in Antigo.