October – The month of hot sun, cool air and shorter days. It’s also the month that middle-school lit teachers bring out “The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow”. I was a wimpy kid. I never liked horror stories (well maybe Poe), but the supposedly scary “Sleepy Hollow” just never gave me a fright. Maybe it was because Ichabod Crane was such a preposterous character. Maybe it was because he was wimpier than I was and made me feel brave, or maybe the headless horseman was just not creepy enough.
Over the years the story became a distant memory, but the name Ichabod remained intriguing. It’s a ridiculous name, an icky name, one with sharp edges, like the pointy elbows of Irving’s scrawny school master. These days it's common to find kids with uncommon names – Aloysius, Esau, even Jedidiah, but I’ve yet to find an Ichabod.
In the Old Testament Ichabod was the son Phineas, the son of Eli. The day he was born the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines, his father was slain in battle and his grandpa fell off a stool, breaking his neck. The shock of it all sent his mother into early labor and before she died she named him Ichabod, meaning, “the glory has departed”. It was a bad day – a bad day for Israel, a bad day for the Eli family and a rough start for the baby. His name only pops up once more in the Bible and then it concerns his brother Ahitub and not Ichabod.
What on earth triggered this meditation on Ichabod? The summer of 2009 in Coloroado was hands-down the most glorious summer in my memory. Every day seemed to be filled with sparkling, azure skies, billowing thunderheads and then hours of crackling lightning for our evening diversion. It was never too hot and never too dry. Daily rains brought forth a feast of wild flowers and kept the water bill low. Then two weeks ago ice and snow hit the Front Range with the leaves still green on the branches. The usual blaze of color from carpet-bagging maples and native aspen never arrived. Frosted leaves wilted, went straight to brown and now wait for a gale to finish their embarrassing finale.
The glory has departed.