I think of this story nearly every autumn. I asked Nic if I could share it. His answer, “Oh gosh. Yes. I would be honored if you would.”

Bittersweet

by Nicholas Dowd

You figure you must be in Seeley Township by now. You park your car as far off the gravel road as possible. Grandma June rolls down her window. She has asked you to wade through the cattails in the ditch to get to  the best clump of bittersweet.

You think to yourself, why is the best stuff always the farthest away?

You wade and high-step and stumble through the thicket. Your Sunday loafers tangled in the undergrowth, burrs by the hundreds attack your new black socks, dragonflies kamikaze your ears.

“Nicky,” she says, “I think the good ones are on over there a little further.”

She points at those most inaccessible. You wonder fleetingly what makes these orange berries so valuable.

Looking back across the ditch you see her face at the open car window, the soft light of an October afternoon makes a halo of her white hair, so you steady on.

Swaying precariously on rusty barbed wire and hoping for a quick win, you point to the orange clump nearest you.

“These right here, Gram?”

You hear the pause as she decide whether or not to settle for second best.

“Oh, those’ll do, dear.”

Even from a distance you can hear the little sigh of resignation in her voice, so you jump down and forge ahead. Those weren’t the ones she really wanted and you can’t disappoint her. A bit further on, you point to the most difficult cluster to reach.

“Or, was it these over here?”

You hear the joy leap back into her voice.

“Oh yes, dear, those would be lovely if you can get at them. Now, don’t hurt yourself.”

For ninety years or so, Iowa autumn fell perfectly into her loving hands – dried cattails, sumac and bittersweet arranged in stunning asymmetry.

© Copyright 2018 Nicholas Dowd

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If you’ve read Leora’s Letters or Leora’s Early Years, you might remember that they both were introduced by poems which were written by Nicholas Dowd. The meadowlark has become a metaphor of the Leora trilogy, even par of  Meadowlark Songs. So unexpected, but so poignant.

I’d savored Nic’s “Morrisburg Cemetery” poem before, not knowing how many of my ancestors were buried there. I knew Clabe Wilson’s mother was there, and her folks, but it turns out there are many more. The timing was just right for Leora’s Early Years: Guthrie County Roots. He seemed glad that I’d asked to include it.

Nicholas Dowd grew up in Guthrie Center, the son of the local pharmacist, who owned *Dowd Drug. It’s likely that Grandma Leora knew his dad, and maybe his mother. Maybe even his grandmother, the seeker of the choicest bittersweet.

He studied English and started out as a teacher, but his career path veered off after volunteering at a nursing home. He retired as the Director of Patient Experience for AMSURG. He and his wife Kris, also a Guthrie County native, live in Nashville, TN.

* I wonder how many dozens of times I’ve been in Dowd Drug! We’d take Grandma there but even after she was gone, Mom, sis Gloria, and I would enjoy a drive “over the river and through the woods” to Monteith (where immigrant ancestors lived, and where Clabe and Leora met), then on up to Grandma’s town of Guthrie Center. Dowd Drug has a terrific gift section in the back, just a fun place to browse. There was also a dress shop next door and across the highway, which is their main State Street.