Back to home page   Golden Leaf   Sean  Autumn 1989          My son was upstairs still snoring and dreaming of more great performance beyond the borders of  our home in Yorkfield, Illinois.   Even the great enticement of his mother’s warm cinnamon roles, scrambled eggs, home fries and ham as well as the numerous calls to rise and shine and Jane’s reminder about his obligations to the family to do his duty did not arouse him from his warm bed.   So he does not know the particulars of the Golden Leaf by eyewitness accounts.  To his defense he had given an excellent performance the previous night and both his mom and dad had a tendency to let him slide in doing chores after performances for peace before the winter holidays.              Jane had returned just the week before taking care of her mother in Auburn.  The trips took a lot out of Jane and she almost had a heart attack when she saw what kind of condition Karl and I had left the house in while she was gone.  Her burst of Welsh temper had softened after I had promised to rake up all the wet leaves that should have been dry mulched in mowing a week ago.  The first snow in November had already melted but the morning was foggy, chilly and damp.             I had been back and forth for a couple of cups of coffee after breakfast to help give me fortification on the tedium of raking and bagging leaves for the garbage.  I had just finished my eighth 30 gallon plastic bag deposit of maple, weeping willow and crab apple leaves as well as  pine cones and pine needles.  The backside of the ¾ of an acre was done before Karl had wrangled his mom to  have breakfast served  in bed and excused him from work because he had a “cough”.  His voice was strained from his previous night’s singing.   I went out grumbling in silence after warming my hands and drying my gloves at the crackling fireplace.              Then two city religious crusaders were scouting out our sacred remote land of Yorkfield at high noon.  Oh, I had seen Jehovah witnesses on previous occasions on my treks in the city and usually just shrugged them off with a terse “no thank you”.  But this was different.  Here was a shivvering black mother in her mid thirties and her daughter of  9 years clutching a big bible too big to hold comfortably in one of the girl’s small hands.  I could see them coming through the intersection from a neighbor’s house.   The neighbors who had recently moved in were still a mystery because they kept to themselves even after Jane’s welcoming basket had failed to break the ice yet.  The minister mother seemed to be wobbling wearily and the child’s teeth were chattering.  I could see her breathe as she approached cautiously.  Neither were dressed for the cold that still lingered even to the noonday.   I guess I felt obliged to offer them the hospitality of our home.             After the woman started with her predictable speech of asking me if I was saved, I told her that I deferred all religious questions to the Druid Priestess inside.   I escorted the mother and child to the front door to meet Jane after she said she did not know what a Druid was.  It was my chance to have elfish fun, to avoid spurious religious debate and give the strangers a chance to get out of the cold.              To my surprise the minister told her child to stay outside and yet the girl was still shivering.  I asked the little girl what her name was. “Deborah” she replied.  I bowed in honor of this great biblical name and then asked her to help me and get warm at the same time.  She was so sweet, helpful and oblivious to the world.  So I made up a game.  “I have lost the golden leaf” , I told her.  What is the “golden leaf”?   This was my cue.  Storytelling is a tradition that had bonded our family all these years.             “Well the golden leaf is usually kept in this very tree as a treasure given to us by our Druid ancestors for taking care of all of nature’s trees”.   I got her attention and motioned that she could help me bag the leaves as I was raking.  I rubbed my hands to show how to keep warm and work.            I continued embellishing my story. “We Druids believe our god is not up there in heaven but down here among us and sleeps in the trees during the winter snow. To show kindness,  god sheds golden leaves once a year to all deserving poor families”.   She started to look over the leaves.  Obviously she had heard about the value of gold even in her pious household in the city.             “It is also the custom of our faith that if someone like you Deborah helps us find the golden leaf that we should give that leaf to them as thanks for helping us with the harvest of gathering up all the other leaves to return them to mother earth.”  Her eyes glowed, the chattering of her teeth had stopped.  “Yes, you may take the leaves and search on your own if we don’t find the “golden one soon.”    I felt that even Jane and Karl would have been proud of my feigned disappointment and sense of holy obligation.             But my gloating over this impish act was soon interrupted by the rushing whirlwind sound of the girl’s mother running out our side door.  She quickly grabbed the girl by the arm and was dragging her away faster than most track stars at Karl’s school.  The girl clutched  a fist full of leaves and pleaded with her mother.  “But mommy, the nice man said we could keep the golden leaf  if we found it.”  “Leave the leaves  - we are getting out of this god damn place.”   The girl looked back at me and in a sad look dropped the leaves on the road where I didn’t have to rake.            I turned back to the sounds of very firm “ah hem”. Jane was standing at the entrance of the doorway motioning me with squinted eyes, arms crossed and a come hither finger gesture.  I never saw any other evangelists in the neighborhood but the golden leaf still descends every fall on that same tree after first snow in the town of Yorkfield ever since.  I caught hell that night and I took detailed notes on what  our Druid Priestess  told the “witness”.  But that is another story.