Category Archives: chronographia

Chronographia (chro-no-graph’-i-a): Vivid representation of a certain historical or recurring time (such as a season) to create an illusion of reality. A kind of enargia:[the] generic name for a group of figures aiming at vivid, lively description.

I grew up in Georgia. We had no air conditioning. We became a nudist family so we could sleep naked and be a little cooler and feel moral. I had nine fans on a bench by my bed. The wind helped me be a little cooler. I would set my alarm for midnight and take a cold shower in our one bathroom, running the shower until the well ran dry. Then, I’d go downstairs and stick my head in the ice box. Then, I’d take my blanket outside and sleep on the ground where it was cooler. There was a skunk that lived under the back porch. From time to time I had to flee inside to get away from him.

But summer was generally pretty nice anyway. In addition to the smell of fresh-cut grass, chlorine, and hot dogs, we had a big garden. We grew zucchini’s and tomatoes. We would let the zucchini’s grow to 4-feet long. Mom would carve them like pumpkins—she would make them into facial expressions, mainly of Presidents and movie stars. She had a little shed in the front yard where she sold them. It was called “Zucchini Memories.” She also carved likenesses for weddings and funerals. She would also make the zucchinis into Viking ship models. They even had sails made out of lasagna. After they were too ripe to sell, we would eat Mom’s works of art. It was great having George Washington or John Kennedy for dinner!

In addition, we grew what were called “mammoth tomatoes.” They’d flourish in the Georgia summer, growing as large as basketballs in the constant heat. We propped them up with tomato cages made of 2X4s. We used them to make tomato juice that we sold to the hippy weirdo health food store. We had two big wooden vats that we had “borrowed” from Vincente’s Winery a few years ago. We stomped our tomatoes like grapes and bottled the juice in gallon plastic milk jugs. It was a lot of work, but we made enough money to stay in a motel in Florida in winter. As bad as it was, we just couldn’t get enough of that warm wether.

As the days got shorter, we’d get ready to go. We’d get the garden ready for next summer—a summer of giant zucchini’s and tomatoes. it was hellish hot, but the heat made our garden grow.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

Chronographia (chro-no-graph’-i-a): Vivid representation of a certain historical or recurring time (such as a season) to create an illusion of reality. A kind of enargia:[the] generic name for a group of figures aiming at vivid, lively description.

It was a typical winter day. It was five below zero and the wind was blowing 47 MPH—the wind sounded like “Don’t Fear the Reaper” performed by Alvin and the Chipmunks on helium. I looked out my back window and wasn’t surprised to see my neighbor’s four-year old go sliding by on the snow’s surface, like a human sled. His father Jim was chasing him struggling through three feet of snow. I kept watching and saw the little boy get tangled up and stopped by the hedgerow along my property line. Jim got to his kid before he froze to death stuffing him into his over-sized down parka. He saw me in the window and waved and smiled as he trekked past, the ice glistening on his beard.

Jim and his family had moved here from a place that was pretty-much summer all the time. They didn’t know the ways of the Great North and hadn’t done research before they moved here. He had worked as a Tallyman at a 200-acre banana plantation. In August it was 110 degrees in in the plantations’ banana groves. Usually, about 4 workers would die from heat stroke each week. As Tallyman, he was responsible for weighing pickers’ banana bunches as they finished their 15 hour day’s work as “daylight came and they wanted to go home.” Acutely aware of the need to tally rapidly, he started estimating, rather than actually tallying the bananas. His boss caught on to what he was doing and he was fired.

He was forced to leave the land of parrots, coconuts, and alligators, where snow was unknown and you would run over the occasional anaconda on the way to work. He liked wearing shorts year-round and breathing clear air conditioned air. He had learned how to surf and could shoot selfie videos while riding a wave. He had two orange trees in his yard. The season was stuck on summer—on sun, and heat and the occasional hurricane or tornado. As far as Jim was concerned, it was paradise.

Now he was headed north—way up north. He had gotten a job at a Walleye packing plant, called “Eye, eye, eye.” His job was to fold the boxes that the Walleyes were frozen in and shipped. It was summer when he arrived, so he didn’t see any difference from where he came from. He was puzzled by the lack of alligators and giant cockroaches.

Then, summer turned to fall. He was resentful, but he got used to wearing long pants and hoodies. Then, bam! It was winter. Around December 2nd he had a mild heart attack shoveling snow. Then it snowed three feet and he was trapped with his family in their little home. That’s when I saw him chasing his wind-borne little boy across the snow.

I had a “Nordic Blaster” snow blower and worked six hours liberating his family from the snow. He opened his garage door from inside and had a banana in each hand, holding them like pistols pointing at me. He asked “Who the hell are you? How did you get here?” I reminded him I was his next door neighbor and he put the bananas down on the hood of his car. He invited me in for a drink.

I went inside and it was about 80 degrees. His wife and the toddler were wearing bathing suits. There was sand spread on the floor and three beach lounge chairs facing the TV. We had Piña Coladas while he whined about moving up here. I got mad and told him to go back where he came from and went back home.

I called him the next day to apologize. His phone message said “I’ve gone back to where I came from. Please leave me a message.” I hung up.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

Chronographia (chro-no-graph’-i-a): Vivid representation of a certain historical or recurring time (such as a season) to create an illusion of reality. A kind of enargia: [the] generic name for a group of figures aiming at vivid, lively description.

I have had numerous conversations with people regarding my favorite time of the year. I see fall and summer as one season—summerfall. That complicates things, but I don’t care—that’s how I see it. Summerfall goes from May until the first frost. That’s when I call it quits and close my swimming pool after a summerfall of splashing around and basking in the sun smeared with cream that smells like coconuts. After pool closing, it’s all downhill. Everything freezes. It snows, and the world is a mess. I can hear the snowplow at six a.m. as it wrenches its way down my driveway, wreaking havoc on my driveway’s gravel surface. Then there’s the pain in the ass of Christmas—driving through a blizzard to eat Aunt Ida’s cardboard turkey with dressing stuffed in its butt that smells like a dirty dock, uncle Dave’s “special” marshmallow sweet potato glop, my sister Pat’s turnip paste, Aunt Jillian’s raw potato cubes marinated in soy sauce and Nana’s Pelican Pie topped with pimento-stuffed olives.

Nana grew up in Florida, near Miami, in the late 30s when there was a lot of poverty. Her family lived in a lean-to close to a marina where rich people kept their yachts. Her father, my great grandfather, taught her how to sneak up behind a pelican perched on a dock’s piling, grab it by the throat, and strangle it to death.

The “swells” sitting in their yachts were always entertained by Nana’s pelican murder and would sometimes throw M&Ms at her to show their approval. She would pick up the M&Ms and go back to the lean-to where her mother (my great grandmother) would make the pelican into pie. One time when they were pulling out a pelican’s guts and entrails, a gold bar fell out on the floor. Somehow, the pelican had swallowed it. Pelicans were notorious for eating just about anything. But a gold bar? Weird.

They took the gold bar to the bank and had it weighed and valued. Now, they were loaded! They set their lean-to on fire and struck out on foot for Miami. They bought a brand new one-room shack. Great-grandfather invested in an orange grove and became rich. Every year at the Christmas party, I ask Nana where she got the pelican for her pie. She won’t tell me. She just throws a handful of cardboard turkey at me and the annual family food fight begins.

Covered in food fragments, stuffed with Christmas dinner, driving 5 mph toward home in the blizzard though two feet of show, with the wipers and defroster going full blast, skidding sideways toward a stop sign and bouncing off the curb, I think to myself that I don’t have much to be thankful for, but then again, maybe I do. I look at the gift Nana gave me. Since I’m stopped anyway, I pick it up off the seat and tear off the wrapping. It’s a picture of her standing alongside Earnest Hemingway, holding a dead pelican over their heads and laughing. It was signed: “To my soul’s inspiration, Ernie H.”

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99