Old poem reminds of value of savoring the moment
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Michael O'Leary / The Herald
Ann Anderst, of Snohomish, treasures an edition of The Cincinnati Enquirer published Oct. 9, 1969, 40 years ago today. The front page includes a poem, “…Autumn,” written by her late father, William Trutner. He worked as an editor at the newspaper.
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Ann Anderst, of Snohomish, treasures this edition of The Cincinnati Enquirer published 40 years ago today. The front page includes a poem written by her late father.
That Thursday, she got up to find a surprise on the front page of The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Her father, William Trutner, was the newspaper's copy desk chief. As he always did, he had brought home the night before a fresh-off-the-press copy of the next morning's paper.
“It was right there beside the doughnuts,” said Anderst, who lives in Snohomish and works for the Snohomish County chapter of the American Red Cross.
She hadn't seen her dad's byline in the paper before. There it was, at the top of Page 1, next to a story about the Cincinnati Reds missing out on a shot at the National League baseball pennant.
Her dad, a former high school English teacher, hadn't written an article, but a poem called “... Autumn.” It was printed atop an illustration of scattered red and yellow leaves. Aside from that color, it was a typical black-and-white newspaper of its time.
Trutner hadn't said a word to his daughter about any poem. Anderst said Wednesday that until the piece was published she had never known him to write poetry or anything else.
“He wasn't a real braggy kind of guy,” she said. Anderst said her father had a gentle way of viewing the world.
Trutner, she said, had been a popular teacher at McClain High School in Greenfield, Ohio, near the family's rural home. William and Ruthanne Trutner raised two daughters on a farm, where they grew corn, alfalfa and soybeans.
“He was everyone's favorite teacher, a ‘You're doing OK, kid' kind of guy,” she said of her father, who died Oct. 5, 2005.
Working summers at the Enquirer to earn extra money, Trutner “caught the newspaper bug,” Anderst said. By the time she and her sister were in high school, he was a full-time newspaperman. He drove 60 miles each way to and from work in Cincinnati.
Anderst thinks that maybe her dad was driving to work one fall day when he stopped to enjoy the view and jot down the beginnings of a poem. Trutner's free verse invokes images of scarlet maple trees, blue sky and the solitude of Henry David Thoreau's Walden Pond. The poem includes the interruption of farm machinery bringing in a harvest of corn.
Anderst was at home organizing file cabinets when she found a copy of the entire front page, which she now has framed. Over the years, she has often read her father's evocative words.
“Every year about this time, I pull out this old clipping and re-read this poem — 40 times now, maybe more,” she said.
Anderst, 56, has busy days working as the local Red Cross chapter's annual fund manager. Her husband, Bill, teaches science at Lake Stevens Middle School.
“All of our lives get so hectic. I think the poem is about making sure we take time to find life's balance,” she said.
Fall foliage couldn't hide the turmoil of the 1960s. It's right there in the framed newspaper. One headline reads “Viet War Slowdown: Army Unit Closing Here.” Another article, “Nixon Sticks With Choice,” is about a congressional battle over Judge Clement Haynsworth Jr., who was nominated by President Richard Nixon for the U.S. Supreme Court, but later rejected by the Senate.
In that political climate, in the golden season of fall, an Ohio newspaper editor stopped to take note of timeless beauty.
“While much has changed since the '60s, I would like to think that Dad is right. It's about savoring the moment. Work hard. Appreciate life,” Anderst said. “It stands the test of time.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Story tags »
• Snohomish • Family‘... Autumn'
You turn onto the gravel road, round a bend and the world you know disappears in a swirl of dust.
You stop, get out of the car. The stillness is overpowering.
You fill your lungs with the sharp, clean air and look about. Clusters of orange-red bittersweet cling to the sagging wire fence. Beyond the fence, heads down, a dozen white-faced cows mow their way on the grassy hillside.
And atop the hill a grove of sugar maples blazes scarlet against the blue of the sky. You lean back against the car, breathe deeply again.
Ecstasy. You realize that Thoreau had the right idea.
Would that you had a Walden of your own.
Here's where it is, Autumn seems to say. Here's where you find peace, tranquility, freedom from care.
And she's right. You sense a sort of earthy nirvana, a feeling of belonging, of being in tune.
You start and turn at the sudden intrusion of a machine sound. Below the road, a cornfield stretches as far as your eye can see, its rows tall and straight, its leaves faded yellow, rustling ripe.
The rumbling sound you heard comes from within the field. It crescendos and a monster corn picker surges into view devouring two rows at a time, snapping off the ears, ripping loose the husks, sending the golden harvest tumbling into a wagon behind. The farmer smiles, waves a friendly greeting and disappears back into the field.
Autumn makes her message clear. Work hard, she says. But relax too.
Appreciate beauty where you find it. Love life. And when you feel the walls closing in, come ride with me.
— by William Everett Trutner, of Leesburg, Ohio
published Oct. 9, 1969 in The Cincinnati Enquirer
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