To everything there is a time and a new season

It was a late November morning in 1976 and I was sitting at the kitchen table eating my oatmeal and peanut butter toast.

The floor was so cold that I lifted my legs up and tucked them underneath myself Indian-style. I warmed my hands around a cup of hot chocolate.

The morning radio was chirping out the news while my mother’s coffee pot perked away.

My father was getting ready to go hunting and was making himself lunch to take along with him.

He made a couple of sandwiches and put them in a bread bag with some apples he had brought up from the cellar.

The kitchen windows were frosted over and it was still quiet and dark outside.

The radio took a break from weather and a familiar song beganto play: “For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.” I liked the lyrics and the melody. They were words that made sense to me and that I could understand.

Back then I had no clue they were written thousands of years before.

But I liked that the song spoke of a time for everything.

And on this day… it was a time to hunt.

I watched as my father packed his daypack, pulled on his two layers of wool socks, tied hisboots and went out the door.

When the door opened it felt as if the entire season of winter had blown in.

The cold, stiff air hit my face as it blew past and wandered around the room touching everything in its path.

I scratched away at the icy window so I could watch my father pull out of the yard and drive away in his truck.

The day seemed to drag along.

There wasn’t enough snow to play in and it was too cold to go out and explore.

So I just waited for my father’s return. I was anxious to see if it was not only his time to hunt, but also time to bring home a deer.

The wait was long and painful and I played with every toy in my room to pass the time. I made tall towers with my Lincoln logs. I made entire cities out of cardboard for my Matchbox cars—but he still hadn’t returned. Like the song said, it was a time to wait. At least that’s what my 10 year old ears heard: “a time to love and a time to wait.”

So I went into the living room with my Civil War book, wrapped myself in a blanket next to the woodstove and did just that.

The melody of the song kept going through my head so I started singing my own made-up lyrics to myself: “a time to read and a time to feed.”

I continued with the silliness until I heard the familiar sound of my father’s truck coming over the hill.

It was dark outside again. I rubbed the frosty window with the warm palm of my hand but all I could be see were the truck headlights.

Before long it was a time to listen…to listen to what my father had to say about his day.

Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller, lives at Inlet. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com