Northern Lights - Nez

 Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis)

By Nez Nesmith

I don’t remember the first time I saw the Northern Lights in Lyman. It seems like

we saw them pretty much several times every year. Even when the sky was

overcast, or it was raining those lights shone through. To those of us who grew up

in northern Washington State (Lyman) seeing the Northern Lights (or Aurora

Borealis) beaming over the mountains was not that much of a big deal. It was

pretty commonplace, and once you had seen them as a kid, the excitement wore

off and their appearance just wasn’t all that special. We just took them for

granted.

Oh sure, sometimes the show was more extraordinary than usual, especially the

ones with a lot of dancing and loud colors. Those usually got our attention… for a

while at least. If the sky was fairly clear the show could go on for hours. It was

pretty spectacular. But for us younger adolescents with our short attention spans

it was just doing the same old thing over and over. Pretty soon it became boring.

Plus, they don’t hold a lot of pleasant memories for me. Memories, yes, pleasant,

not so much.

I remember when Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Mac and cousins Diane, Laree and

Terry were visiting us in Lyman. They were from Mapleton, Oregon (which is

about 150 miles southwest of Portland). The Northern Lights were putting on a

show for them that first night. They could sometimes see them from their home

but not like this. They were mesmerized by the quick movement and the colors,

shades of green, pink, purple, white and aqua, and how fast they would change

from one color to another. It was instantaneous. If you blinked it was different.

Anyway, my teenage cousin Diane, who was a bit of a prima donna and as we kids

had always thought, a big showoff, had been taking clarinet lessons in school and

had brought her clarinet on the trip with her to show us how well she was doing

with it. And, since she hadn’t yet had the opportunity to show off her clarinet

prowess, she thought she might do so while the Northern Lights were playing and

attempt to add a little music to the light show. Neither my sister, who also played

clarinet, nor I, who played violin, had any thoughts about joining Diane’s musical

incursion. As far as we were concerned she was on her own. We just knew it

wouldn’t go well. And boy-howdy we were so lucky that we didn’t because to us it

was a totally utter and laughable disaster.

At first, she couldn’t figure out which note to begin with, and when she finally

decided we just heard one squeaky note after another loud squeaky note, if you

could call them notes. And she couldn’t figure out the rhythm of the light show to

where her clarinet could join in. (The light show had its own rhythm.) It was bad,

really bad. Then, of course, everyone, including her whole family and all of the

rest of us (about ten people), except one, laughed loudly at her attempt at playing

along with the dancing Northern Lights. And her dad even pleaded with her to

stop. She ran off embarrassed and crying, which I’m sure any one of us would

have done were we in the same circumstance.

Then, our Mom, the only one who hadn’t laughed at Diane, gave us all a

definitively scowling look and followed after her. Mom spent most of the rest of

the night consoling Diane with calming comments and encouragement and made

every single one of us who had laughed at her playing apologize to Diane, one at a

time. As I approached her I had a smirk on my face, and I swear I couldn’t help it

but suddenly I just laughed out loud again. But instead of crying of humiliation

Diane suddenly attacked me and beat the hell out of me right there in the kitchen.

Mom sat there and watched and smirked, as if to say, “You asked for it Buddy”.

Diane was a girl so I couldn’t even fight back or defend myself and there was

nowhere for me to run. Diane was almost three years older than I and bigger. I

was just a little pip-squeak of about eight. I didn’t stand a chance. She was strong

and hit me hard. Now I was humiliated and crying. After Diane was done Mom

consoled me by giving me a whipping with my own belt and sent me to bed.

With a cigarette dangling from her lips Aunt Kathryn came to my room and vainly

attempted to console me. Her constant chuckling didn’t help.

A memory snapshot of the early 1950’s. Unpleasant memory maybe, but lesson

learned.