Why did the Woolly Bear Cross the Road

  During my walk this morning along the paved back road north of the Farm, I came to one of those black and orange woolly bear caterpillars on the edge of the road headed across, towards the morning sun. She was moving rapidly in a straight line to the east. I noted where I was and estimated in about 10 minutes I would be coming back past the spot and would see if she had made it to the grass on the other side.

  I knew a little about the life cycle of a woolly bear but asked the internet to remind me. “The Isabella tiger moth, also known as the banded woolly bear, has a life cycle of egg, larva, pupa, and adult. The larva, the fuzzy caterpillar, hatches, then overwinters under debris in a frozen state, thawing in spring to feed before pupating in a silk cocoon. After one to three weeks, the adult moth emerges, mates, and lays eggs, starting the cycle anew, often with two generations per year in many regions.”

  Woolly Bear males and females look the same but some are male and some female and turn into male and female moths. So my designation as a this one as a female was only when I came back and again met her, this time almost across the road but now headed up the road instead of towards the ditch.

  “You have a long walk ahead of you,” I told her, wondering if I should gently pick her up and set her down in the grassy ditch where surely winter cover would be available. Should I intervene like a hands on God rescuing her from possible automobile flattening or should I like the Founding Fathers, many Deists who believed that God created things and then is hands off, leave her to her own devices.

  Crossing the pavement for a woolly bear is surely like a human crossing a desert - no water, no food, and as the sun bakes down likely to shrivel one up. And external forces as likely to be an car tire, a hungry bird or death in the desert without the assitance of a benevolent presence from above.

  The caterpillar, as we understand, does not think about divine intervention, but goes on her way driven by the genetic patterns to fulfill her life cycle. One can hope she makes it far from the road so the winter snowplow wing doesn’t scrape her winter quarters.

  Woolly bears are supposed to predict the winter intensity by their orange stripe on the black body. Sadly the internet says this does not have scientific evidence, but rather the orange and black depends on the age and temperatures she experiences before going into hibernation.

  When I was moving some tarps that had been stored away in the garage, I tumbled out several curled up woolly bears, already having nestled down for a long winter’s nap. I felt bad about forcing them wake up and start all over finding a new winter quarters. That guilt, is what gave me the answer to my road woolly bear, I gently picked her up and carried her far into the ditch beyond the reach of the snowplow, tell her “if you find your winter bed here, you are between the combine on the soybean field and the snowplow wing . Good luck.”

 

Margo's Hope Chest

 

Opening Margo’s Hope Chest

When Margo and I married in 1972, she brought with her a cedar hope chest. I opened it last week for the first time in many years, not knowing what she had left inside.

Inside I found her wedding dress, a carefully packed paper bag of our son Scott’s baby clothes from his first year, several big afghans crocheted by her mother, a few old photos of us, and even a green plastic salad bowl set.

We were married March 4, 53 years ago. I was living in a tiny efficiency apartment then, and Margo was still at home. Together we rented a two-bedroom apartment starting March 1. With two incomes we didn’t need to feel cramped at my place. In the three days before the wedding, Margo and her parents moved her personal belongings — including that large cedar chest — into our apartment. The place was furnished, even the kitchen was stocked, but we still needed our own clothing, linens, radio, and TV. Our wedding shower and later wedding gifts helped fill in the rest.

I came into the marriage with a single set of sheets, a pillow, and a few well-worn towels. Margo came ready to make a home. That cedar chest was filled with linens, towels, and household items she had been gathering since she was 13, when her parents gave her a Lane Cedar Chest — as Life Magazine advertised then, a girl’s preparation for marriage. “Someday,” her mother had told her, “you’ll fall in love and marry, and this chest will help you prepare for that.”

I don’t remember every item that was in the chest, but I do remember one very well. On our wedding night, just after midnight, Margo and I came to our new apartment — me still in my tuxedo and she still in her wedding dress. I helped her out of the dress and hung it up. Then she opened the chest, took out a package, and went to the bathroom to change. A few minutes later she came shyly into the bedroom wearing a short, frilly, see-through nightgown she had saved for that moment. (We will close the scene there and leave the rest to your imagination.)

The next morning I asked her, “What exactly is a hope chest?”

“For ten years,” she told me, “I’ve been putting things in it, dreaming about starting my own home — and about who my husband would be. I looked for nice sheets and pillowcases, towels for the kitchen and bathroom. Mom said most of the basics would come from the shower and wedding gifts, so I filled the chest with the special things — the fancy ones, the handwork I made, and the things we might not be able to afford at first. Every time I put something in, I imagined the man I would marry. I think of it as a chest of dreams.”

Last week, when I opened it again, I found that carefully taped paper bag filled with Scott’s first-year clothes. Tiny sleepers, little jackets, a baby blanket — each one still carrying a memory. I could picture her folding them neatly, tucking them away because they marked such a joyful time. Having only one child, those clothes were treasures to her, a way to hold onto the wonder of being a new mother.

I wish I could remember every item that was in the chest when we married. What I do remember is how it symbolized her hope and preparation for the life we were going to share. I used to tease her that I had always hoped to get a woman with a chest — and I was very satisfied that my dream came true.

Opening it now brought back those first years together and reminded me of the life we built from the contents of that chest — and from the love that filled it. I feel honored to have been the man who lived out the dreams she had packed away, one hopeful piece at a time.

Opening that chest felt like opening her heart again — and remembering that I was the man she had been saving all those hopes for.

It has been a hard day here, saying yet another goodbye to Margo — the woman who filled that cedar chest with her hopes and dreams and trusted me to share them for a lifetime. She’s been gone seven months now, but opening the chest brought her back to me for a while, as if the dreams inside could still whisper her love.