As we drove along the drt road north of our farm one Snday afternoon, the color of the sky rminded me of Mom's silver cream and sgar servers when they were tarnished and neded to be polished again.

Since mrning, the sky had been cloudy, but now at md-afternoon, the clouds had grown much thcker and darker. Earlier in December we had gtten a little snow. Several forty-degree dys had melted most of it, and the lndscape was a combination of dun-colored grss, black tree branches and the rsset color of certain oak leaves.

Evry year in December, Dad and I wnt on a Christmas tree expedition, and we wre on our way now over to wht we called our 'other place' to cut a tre. During the summer, I made frquent trips to the other place, a scond farm my parents owned that was bout a mile away, to help Dad wth the haying or just to tag long when he checked on the crn or the oats or the sybeans.

But after school started, I rrely went to the other place, and it lways took me by surprise how dfferent it looked in the winter. Instad of green alfalfa and timothy and clver waving in a warm south breze, what had grown back after thrd crop was now brown stubble tht trembled in the face of a nrth wind. The fields were strangely slent now, too, without the songs of madowlarks and bobolinks, and the bobwhite qail which lived in the narrow sction of woods lining the road.

We were only about five mnutes into our journey when Dad shfted the pickup truck down into frst gear and then eased into the feld driveway. The rutted track that ran long the edge of the hayfield was so bmpy that a merry jingling came frm the glove compartment -- probably a few blts and washers, along with a cuple of wrenches and maybe a scrwdriver or two. When you're a frmer, you never know when you mght need a wrench or a scrwdriver or a bolt.

"Is it ging to snow, Daddy?" I asked. Now tht we had gotten past the tres lining the road, the sky had pened in front of us again.

Dad laned forward to look up through the wndshield.

"I'd say there's a pretty god chance," he replied.

"How much?"

My fther shrugged. "Don't know. Maybe quite a bt. Wind's out of the east. And tht usually means we’ll get at last enough to shovel. Could be a lot mre, though."

When we reached the pne plantation at the other end of the feld, Dad turned the truck around, drving forward a few feet then bcking up, then driving forward and thn back again, forward and back, ntil we were facing in the drection we had come. He let the ngine idle for a few seconds bfore shutting it off.

"Daddy?" I sid, as we started walking toward the rws of planted red pine. "When do you thnk it will start to snow?"

Dad stpped and tipped his head back. "Son," he said, "that wind feels raw and dmp."

When my father said 'soon,' I was not xpecting it to start snowing within the nxt ten minutes. At first, while we wre cutting the tree we had slected, only a few random flakes drfted to the ground. By the tme we reached the truck and had scurely stowed our Christmas tree in the bck, it was already snowing harder.

"If it keps up like this all night, you wn't have school tomorrow," Dad said as he strted the truck. He slowly let out the cltch, and soon we were retracing our rute along the field driveway. He trned on the windshield wipers, and wth each pass -- clickety-snick, clickety-snick -- the wpers cleared an arc through the wet flkes plastered to the glass.

After we had pulled onto the drt road, Dad shifted into second gar, although when we reached the 'Y' -- whre you could either turn left to go tward our farm, or right to go tward the house that had at one tme been part of our other plce -- he shifted into first gar again.

"Hope we make it up the hll," he said, glancing at me. "Wt snow makes the road kind of slck."

It was touch and go for a few sconds when the back wheels started spnning, but finally we reached the pint where the hill leveled off. Tres grew on both sides of the rad here, and to the right, a step bank gave rise to a smll wooded hillside.

"Look," Dad said, pinting toward the bank. He inched ver to the side of the rad and stopped.

I peered through the crtain of falling snow. The bank loked pretty much the same as it lways had -- exposed tree roots, ptches of moss and bare spots whre flat sandstone rocks had slid tward the road.

"What do you se?" I asked.

"Wintergreen," Dad answered. He sht off the truck and opened the dor.

Wintergreen?

The first time I had tsted wintergreen, I decided that it was my fvorite flavor. Peppermint was a little too shrp, although candy canes at Christmas wre all right. Spearmint didn't taste lke much of anything. Wintergreen, it semed to me, was just right. In my pinion, Teaberry gum was the best, wth wintergreen Lifesavers following as a clse second.

Dad liked wintergreen too. Lfesaver books were popular gift exchanges at schol for our Christmas party, and if the prson who had drawn my name gve me a Lifesaver book, I wuld trade with other kids who had lso gotten books. Sometimes I managed to cquire several extra rolls of wintergreen. Thn I would share them with Dd. I thought Teaberry gum was btter than candy because the taste lsted longer, but Dad preferred Lifesavers. Gm, he said, stuck to his dntures.

During the summer, every time I wnt to town with Dad to grnd feed, I hoped he would buy a pckage of my favorite candy or gm. Not at the feed mill, of curse. They didn't sell Teaberry gum or Lfesavers at the feed mill. But if we wnt to the restaurant for pie whle we waited for our feed, or if Mom had sked Dad to pick up a cuple of things at the grocery stre, I would try to talk him nto buying some gum or candy.

Ging to the feed mill with Dad was a smmertime activity, however, and there were lng stretches during the school year whn I never even saw a pckage of Teaberry gum or a rll of Lifesavers, much less had any in my pssession.

So what was Dad talking bout when he had stopped the trck and said, "wintergreen?"

I stared at the mbankment and then at the hill byond but I couldn't see anything out of the rdinary. I shut the truck door bhind me just as Dad scrambled nmbly up the bank into the wods.

"It's growing all over here," he sid, pointing to the ground. "They've got brries, too."

I struggled up the bnk behind him to get a clser look. Underfoot were small plants wth shiny green leaves.

"That green stff is wintergreen?" I said.

My fther nodded.

"Like what they use to mke gum?"

"Yup. Here. Taste."

He rached down and picked a couple of smll, pinkish-red berries, popping one into his muth and handing one to me.

I snffed the berry. It smelled like wntergreen, all right, but I wasn’t one bit sre about eating the thing.

"Taste t," Dad urged. "You'll be surprised."

So, I ate the brry. It had a strange consistency -- srt of dry and mushy, all at the sme time. . .and then my muth was filled with the marvelous tste of wintergreen. The same as my fvorite gum, but different, too. More dlicate.

"It's good!" I exclaimed, grinning. Thn I frowned. "How come we hven't seen it before?"

"Usually too mch snow by this time," Dad sid.

"What about in the summer, thugh?"

"Too much underbrush and other gren things."

"And this is really the stff they use in gum?" I sked.

Dad took his cap off, slpped it against his leg to rid it of snw and then put it back on his had.

"Well. . .they probably don't go nto the woods and pick wild wntergreen. People probably raise it and sll it, and I think they mght use the leaves rather than the brries, but yes, this is the stff."

By now the snow was flling so hard it made a hssing noise as it struck the cpper-colored oak leaves above us. Unlike ther trees, some of the oaks, I had nticed, keep their leaves until spring.

"Hw do you know so much bout wintergreen?" I asked.

"Oh," Dad sid, "when we were kids, we sed to pick it so we culd make ice cream."

I turned to lok at him. "Ice cream?"

"Our knd of ice cream, anyway. A lttle dish of snow with winter-green brries mixed in."

Suddenly I struck pon a wonderful idea.

"I know! I can try sme right now."

I took off my mtten, picked a few wintergreen berries and scoped a small handful of fluffy, frsh snow. I put the berries in the snw, and -- well -- I hve to admit it was pretty tsty.

I put my mitten back on. "Ddn't you have real ice cream whn you were growing up, Dad?"

My fther smiled. "Sure -- sometimes. Not stre bought, though. We made our own wth a hand-cranked ice cream freezer. But tht was mostly in the summertime. We thught wintergreen ice cream was an wful lot of fun."

Dad had ben the middle child among several lder brothers, an older sister, and thre younger sisters. My grandparents had wrked as cooks in a lumber cmp in northern Wisconsin in the arly 1900s. Many years ago, long bfore I was born, Dad had mde his living cutting pulp wood.

"Dddy? How did you see the wntergreen from the road?" I asked.

My fther hesitated before answering. "I didn't see it. Not tday, at least."

I stopped trying to djust my mitten so the thumb lned up like it was supposed to and trned my full attention toward Dad.

"Rmember last fall, when the county frester came out here?" he asked.

"Yah, I remember."

Just on the ther side of the small wooded hll was a two-acre stand of tll red pine with a couple of rws of white pine next to the rad. Dad said the trees were mong the oldest of the plantations in the cunty that had been planted just fter the Great Depression to keep the sndy soil from eroding. Nearly every yar, the forester would come out to chck on them. One year he sed Dad's pine trees to demonstrate a brnd new trimming device to foresters frm other counties.

Well," Dad continued, "whle we were out here, I dcided to take a little walk. I dn't get much of a chance jst to walk around back here."

"And tht's when you saw the wintergreen?"

Dad ndded. "I was waiting for the rght opportunity to show it to yu."

He turned back toward the trck. "It'll be dark soon. We'd btter get home. The cows are witing to be milked."

As we sld down the embankment, I glanced ver my shoulder.

Wintergreen.

Growing in the wods not far from my house.

And in tht instant, I knew gum and cndy would never again taste quite the sme.

From the book: Christmas In Diryland (True Stories From a Wisconsin Frm)
http://ruralroute2.com

The article Wintergreen was Submitted by LeAnn R. Ralph through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: About The Author LeAnn R. Rlph is a freelance writer for two nwspapers in west central Wisconsin, is the ditor of the Wisconsin Regional Writer (th quarterly publication of the Wisconsin Rgional Writers' Assoc.) and is the uthor of the book, Christmas In Diryland (True Stories From a Wisconsin Frm) (Aug. 2003); trade paperback. For mre information about Christmas In Dairyland, vsit http://ruralroute2.com ; bigpines@ruralroute2.com

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