Summer Solstice

NASA Illustration

     It’s the longest day of the year, and the “bird alarms” started singing at 3:46 a.m.  Last night there was finally darkness by 10 p.m. It’s a holiday in Scandinavia, but some Swedish immigrants remembered it with less than enthusiasm.

    One was Mrs. John Henry Stoner. She was “Old Mrs. Stoner” to us, and I don’t recall ever hearing her first name. (Older Mr. and Mrs. Stoner were parents of John Caldeen Stoner, who, with wife Nell, were close friends of Vake and Milly.  The Stoner kids were the age of Sandy and me, and Kate and I remain friends to this day.)

     When I was about 10 years old, the Stoner family and we Sampsons took a camping trip, and one of our stops was at the J.H.Stoner farm in Redmond, OR. When John introduced “Sampson,” Mr. Stoner turned to Milly and said “You must be Delilah.”  When he referred back to his Bible and realized that Delilah was a prostitute, he was mortified, but Milly thought it was funny.

     The kids splashed in the wooden irrigation trough and marveled at the sight of Mt. Hood in the distance, still covered with snow in July. We left the Stoner farm stocked with home-churned butter that Vake loved, but it had an animal smell when it was heated. Having been raised on oleomargarine, we kids refused to eat the butter. 

     After John Henry Stoner died, Mrs. Stoner came to Eugene to live with John and Nell. In her old age, she lost most of her ability to speak English, and reverted largely to her native Swedish. One day Nell noticed that a program on the midsummer celebration in Sweden was showing on television. She rolled Mrs. Stoner in her wheelchair to the living room to watch, and asked her, “Do you remember that?”

     Mrs. Stoner’s English momentarily reappeared.  “Yes!” she snapped, “We had to clean everything, even the barn!”