Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Beautiful Piece of Writing

I am reading old YANKEE magazines and throwing them away as I go.  Most of them don't have much in them that I want to save, but a few do.  Edie Clark always writes an entertaining column, and I really liked this ending: 

YANKEE magazine, September 1993, “The Garden at Chesham Depot” by Edie Clark, p. 104

 (she is writing about canning tomatoes on a September day):

 

“The day passes this way, me the clerk, an assembly line of one, transferring tomatoes from bushel to pot to jar to the newspaper-covered kitchen table, where they cool.  One by one, they give that reassuring sound: familiar, comforting – a tongue-clucking tock! – that tells me, for sure, that the jar is sealed, that it is safe. Throughout the day, as I pass these jars to the table, they talk like this – tock! tock! – and then wind down, as I do.  After dark, the windows steamed solid, I climb the stairs and fall into bed, tired, happy – and downstairs, I hear one last distant tock! before falling asleep.”

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