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One of the expressions I remember from childhood is ‘blessing in disguise.’ My parents used it liberally.
It had various applications.
When I was a young boy, one fine summer day I accompanied my father from our house to an outdoor incinerator. Open burning was allowed at that time where we lived. My father carried a sizable cannister which he hoisted onto one shoulder.
That field, vast to a preschooler, was named for the people who lived at its east end. One curious thing is I never saw anyone enter or exit the house, but suspected it must be occupied.
It was that field I crossed to take piano lessons from a lady whose husband had once been a missionary to Africa. It terrified me to cross the field at night after my lesson, when the darkness holds terrors unknown to those who go about only during the day.
Her daughter became a pianist as well as violinist, and founded an orchestra group which survives to this day, bringing joy to many.
During certain seasons, the field’s hay was harvested and, for a time before they were taken away, the rectangular bales sat about, waiting to be picked up, reminding me of the Dutch wheat fields post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) once painted.
On its property sat a spreading horse chestnut tree, perhaps similar to the one Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote of in his 1840 poem, “The Village Blacksmith.”
