hitchhiker

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Locally, the yellowing foxtail grass is an early prelude to autumn. There are many species in the genus Alopecurus, which literally means “foxtail," so it’s hard to tell one from the other.

The tall grass grows in tufts and produces green flowers in dense tubular panicles that mellow to golden maize in color, its seeds waiting to be spread. One of the dried flowers looks all the world like the last part of the fox as it disappears into its den.

Grass seeds are dispersed in a variety of ways, often they hitchhike as Tom Joad noted in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. (As you may recall, the novel begins with Joad hitchhiking back to his boyhood home.)

“The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled, broken, dry grass, and the grass heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dog’s coat, and foxtails to tangle in a horse’s fetlocks, and clover burrs to fasten in sheep’s wool; sleeping life waiting to be spread and dispersed.”

Joad's life had been asleep as well, but that was about to change as his family was about to be dispersed cross country.

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let's migrate

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“And over the grass at the roadside a land turtle crawled, turning aside for nothing, dragging its high-domed shell over the grass. His hard legs and yellow-nailed feet threshed slowly through the grass, not really walking, but boosting and dragging his shell along,” writes John Steinbeck in his 1939 novel "The Grapes of Wrath."

During October, the YWCA of Knoxville and Knox County Public Library are sponsoring “The Big Read.” Everyone is encouraged to read or reread “The Grapes of Wrath,” a work that won Steinbeck the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1940.

In the novel, the Joads, a poor family of sharecroppers, are driven from their home by drought, economic hardship and changes in agricultural practices. The Joads are forced to sell most of their possessions, load their truck with what’s left and drive 2,000 miles from Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl to California’s lush, green central valley. Becoming migrant workers, they hope to start a new life. But, like the turtle, their journey is not easy. In fact, it's damn hard.

On Sunday, October 26 at 1 p.m., I will lead a symbolic migration along the Will Skelton Greenway to the land of opportunity, i.e. Ijams Nature Center. Along the way we’ll discuss flora and fauna both in the Tennessee Valley and the book. To make the nature walk even more memorable, period attire is suggested.

For more info or to sign up call Ijams Nature Center: 577-4717, ext. 10.

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