At this time of year every year, as we near the Fourth of July, flowers at our house turn red, white, and blue. Or the floral equivalent thereof—blue is hard to come by in flowers. Unlike the neighbor down the street, who plants a patriotically themed garden every year, I can take no credit for the celebratory display.
The wife of the contractor who built our neighborhood, as I understand it, chose a couple kinds of plants for the houses: a climbing red rose and a deep purple clematis. Many householders, over the last sixty years or so, have retained the flowers and managed to keep them going. They’re blooming all over right now. The colors are striking. Especially at our house.
The original owners, from whom we bought the house, allowed the rose and the clematis to climb a porch pillar together, and they bloom simultaneously, so the colors intertwine. As the petals of spent blossoms fall onto the walk and the lawn, many of them land butter-side-down, and the underside of the clematis is so pale as to seem white. Thus, thanks to the long-ago decisions of the contractor’s wife, our gardens celebrate Independence Day.
Another color is blooming near the Cascades park along the Huron River: orange. The color dominates the procession of people bringing their own tubes to the park. And, given the size of the tubes, the parade of park-goers doesn’t look so much like a bunch of folks with water toys; it looks like a legion of tubes marching themselves to the river, a living cartoon.
Personalized signs have also sprung up in yards all over town. The Ann Arbor District Library’s summer reading game starts the day after school lets out. Everyone playing the game has the option of putting up a yard sign with a short saying of their choice, and judging by the number of signs that pop up on Day One, the game is fabulously popular.
The signs are free and reusable. Some folks stick with their messages from one year to the next. Sue’s sign, for instance, says CASIMIR again this year, in honor of a now-one-year-old baby. And ARMABONKA, one of my favorites, is back for a second season. Some messages are descriptive, such as YELLOWHOUSE. Some are proclamations, such as BOOKSTAR and COSMIGHT. Some, like UNICORNWORLD, are fanciful, and at least one is prescriptive: LUXESTO. Be a light.
Some folks who put up signs choose to embellish them, which is a bit of a trick in that space is limited. Many signs bear clear indications of having been roughed in first, to make sure all the letters fit. In others, the designated letterer skipped that step. Adding adornments demonstrates a flair for planning aforethought. JETAIRPLANE features a rather dashing drawing of a plane. SMILEYFACE has a rakish grin. And sculptures of a rabbit and two toads accompany HOPPY READING.
Out and about the neighborhood this week, I also saw two tender dad vignettes that made me reminisce. The first was on one of the beastly hot mornings of the current heat wave, when Rascal and I were out for a shorter-and-earlier-than-usual walk. As we were chugging back up the Georgetown hill, I glanced up to see a youngish man sitting on his porch with his shirt off. He was cradling his newborn in his arms, and looking at the swaddled infant with ineffable love. We shared a smile, and he turned his gaze back to the little wonder in his arms. It was a nostalgic moment.
The second vignette was another dad with his toddler son. This child had been running around in his little bathing suit, and Dad was cleaning off the boy’s bare feet. What delighted was Dad’s technique. He scooped the little guy up over one arm and held him on high while he brushed off the grassy feet. It brought to mind the easy physicality of young children and a cherished memory of such a moment with my husband and one of our grandchildren.
She and her brother had been wearing their swimsuits and playing with squirt guns in our back yard one summer day, and now it was time to come inside. Grandpa knelt down to rinse off her feet and towel them dry. She maintained her balance by hanging on to his head, chatting all the while. We still smile when we think of it, all these years later. That grandchild now has two children of her own.
All in all, summer is well underway in our part of Michigan, exuberant with flowers, bristling with reading-game signs, and full of love.
27 June 2025
Now I must think of what I might write on a sign. I have no idea. I’m not even sure if I’d go with a real word or a made up word…or if it would be in English or not. Too many words to choose.