Twine

Nostalgia visits us all.  I wonder whether nostalgia for the good ole days is wrapped up in Francis Johnson*s Twine Ball in Darwin, MN.  I grew up in Minneapolis, and even though Darwin is west of the Minneapolis, I had never heard of it.  There are no major roads which head due west. 

 I understand people in the Great Depression used to save bits of string, tied together, wrapped in a ball, so they could use the bits as needed.  Twine is harder to save, and once wrapped into a giant ball and surrounded by a weather proof gazebo, its purpose is for pure amazement and to attract people to head out west on small country roads.  It becomes a destination.  My encounter with twine brings up different memories.

Francis Johnson of Darwin, Minnesota

Is responsible

For the largest twine ball

In the world.

The second Saturday in August

Is designated as

Twine Ball Days

Every year.

I wonder if it used to be a week-long

Celebration.

I know twine.

Every summer we found mounds of leftover twine

From the hay bales the burros were fed all year,

At the Cabin

On the Lake

In the Barn

In the middle of the North Woods

Of Minnesota.

Everyone went North in the summer

To the Cabin

On the Lake.

Ours had burros and a big red barn

Surrounded by trees.

Ours had burros,

Their brays echoed

With the loons across the lake.

Ours had leftover twine

In the hayloft.

We used twine to lash together forts

And treehouses

In the woods.

Here in my fifties

I find myself invested

In determining the use for every bit of twine

I have saved

On the twine ball

Of my life.

What a hokey image.

What will be tied together by my twine

Today?

There may indeed be good use

For all of it.

Twine,

Stories told of twine,

I lay them out end to end to end

Here In my fifties I unroll the ball

And look for the other end.