There are five seasons here, and this one is a mess. Why do the schools get spring break in March? They should take a pollen break now. This place should close down in April, the way France does in August, and everybody should go somewhere else.
When we planned our house, the builder said he would build a foundation under the porch. “Why?’ I asked.
“Because most people end up enclosing them in a couple of years.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Pollen.”
When the house was done, I noticed a gap between the screen and floor all around the porch. I pointed it out.
“Scuppers,” the builder said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Pollen.”
I thought the pollen stories were local exaggerations, like the ones we tell our children about blizzards in the old days. You know, “When I was a kid, I walked five miles to school through a foot of pollen, uphill both ways.” That kind of thing.
I figured you’d get up one morning and there would be a little yellow dust here and there, you’d sweep it off, and that would be that. I never imagined you could lose a golf ball in pollen — while it was still in the air. My mission before next April is to find a pair of yellow golf shoes so it won’t matter how much gunk gets on them. Yellow golf balls may have failed everywhere else just because they were ugly, but around here they must have been invisible.
It would sure be nice if someone would figure out a use for this stuff, apart from the obvious biological one. There is an awful lot left over after the trees are finished with it. Maybe pollen soap would be a big seller with the natural products crowd, especially if the jaundiced look becomes stylish. Or pollen candles — if they don’t explode.
You’ve seen those occasional stories where some desperate Northerner ships snow to Florida for Christmas? Well, how about pollen in Alaska in January? A little touch of spring in the dead of winter. Yellow snow.
Maybe not.
When Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote about a bright golden haze on the meadow, they didn’t have a clue. Poor old Curley couldn’t even have seen that old weepin’ willow or the little brown maverick if they had been in the sandhills instead of Oklahoma.
There may be a movie in this. The governor of California could make a comeback as “The Pollenator,” an android from the future, returning to ensure the continuation of plant life on Earth. Something like that. They could film it here in April, a little economic filler between opens. I might write the script. Don’t steal the idea.
My grip on mythology isn’t what it might be, but I think it was Sisyphus who was condemned to keep pushing a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again. That’s what it’s like sweeping the porch. I keep telling my wife we might as well wait until it’s over, but that doesn’t sell well at my house. “We’ll track it in,” she says. So? Tracked in, blown in, what’s the difference? I guess we could stock up like survivalists and stay inside for a couple of weeks. Pollenists?
But, thankfully it’s about over, or so I’m told. It already seems eternal. I suppose yellow scum will be pouring out of downspouts and car washes for weeks, but I’ll be happy when every step doesn’t produce a yellow puff.
There is one feature I’ll miss. I’ve found that balls leave pollen tracks on the greens. This has been very helpful in reading putts.
Fred Wolferman lives in Southern Pines.
