My Turn
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Frog Hollow
by Sam Heatwole
Frog Hollow would be a lot bigger if it was ironed out flat. Texans brag about big. But our neighbors in the hollows of the Appalachians swear there’s more land in the mountains of the Virginias than a crow can fly over in Texas.
Mountain bikes iron it out a little. We acquired a pair of 15-speed bicycles, although most pedaling in our area is uphill, so we use only the lowest gears, with an occasional modest incline to remind us what flatlands could be like.
Shep likes to go with us. Bring out the bikes and he skitters around like a pup, his tail going around in circles. Norma is first after Shep down the lane and Shep shoots out onto the road at the bottom of our lane, heading up past Ivy Moyer’s toward the Brethren Church. Like any sensible dog, he heads uphill while he’s fresh. Still coming down the lane, I follow in third place, ducking the quail that Shep stirs up in his race to get the first half mile behind us so we won’t change our minds.
This morning it’s good he hustles on ahead. Norma stops at the culvert carrying the spring branch under our lane. She has a finger to her lips. A muskrat is cooling himself, legs astraddle the damp mud. Shep would be embarrassed if we told him he’d missed the muskrat, so we don’t mention it. He chases one of Ivy’s guinea hens under the fence; it’s safe there with Ivy’s pet turkey. Nothing on feet frightens that bird, as he’s all too willing to prove; the thing’s a menace.
Up on the hill by the Brethren Church we hit hard top. The little white clapboard building commands a view of the valley as far as the Massanutten Mountain on the horizon. It’s worth a stop today, a quiet moment with morning mists making islands of hills and meadows and fields. The red ball rising over the Massanutten ridge will burn away much of the mist, but now the serenity of this familiar scene fills me with its enduring peace.
Cycling lets us share the life around us. Birds can cope with our sedate pace; there are no reckless attempts by a robin to fly through a windshield. We can hear the warblers if we can’t see them, and be moved by the cathedral-echo song of the veery in the deep woods as we pedal silently by.
I’ve often wondered what the old timers think of us as we cycle past, going nowhere in particular. As Norma and I pump our way in low gear up beside Willard Shiflett’s garden, the sun-dried old man leans on his hoe to watch us.
“Nice morning for a little exercise,” I offer, feeling guilty cause I’m not on my way to work.
But Willard isn’t going to bail me out and agree with me. He waves his hoe at the rows of old vegetation he is clearing out for next year’s planting. “This is exercise,” he says. His nod takes in our slow moving efforts to climb his hill. “But that looks like a lot of work for nothing to me.”
“Lilies of the field, Willard,” I mutter. “Lilies of the field.”
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