MINT FIELDS

Dad used to listen to Paul Harvey in the truck but I don't have a preference for one thing over another. Sometimes I'll listen to the country station but mostly I keep the window down and try to place the smells. There are some rows of mint between here and Bremen and it always seemed odd, mint in the middle of all this corn.

Jill and I had some mint in our garden, but mostly we had spices and tomatoes, and a little row of beans. Jill though you could make a pasta sauce without basil, but I showed her where she was wrong. We could have had a nice garden this year if somebody had planted it. The ground was getting good.

I pass by Messmore's place again and see that somebody must have carted that horse off. The Amish are good about cleaning things like that up. They're common sense people. That's what dad called them. I bet they think those mint fields are pretty odd, too. I remember Jill always called them Abrahams. "Look at those Abrahams," she'd say when we drove by. I never knew if she meant the Bible kind or the Lincoln kind. She could be funny sometimes, I guess.

I drive through town and look at the buildings. Most of the storefront windows are empty. The mayor says the economy's going to turn around soon, but I don't think anybody believes that stuff anymore. The glass factory closed down a couple of years ago and that took something out of everybody. They sat that Mangum - he's the one that built the place up - they say that when he died he didn't tell anybody the secret to making the glass. After he passed on they tried everything but the glass they made was a dark red, burgundy, like dried up blood, and not light and rosy like Mangum had made. You could see pretty well through his glass, and all the storefronts had at least one panel fitted with it - Mangum's Magic Ruby Glass. I slow down and look inside the old pet store, and all there is are open cages lying around and rusting. I wonder why he didn't tell anybody his secret.