“Todays episode is brought to you by the color green, and the number 9.” With temperatures in the low seventies, any signs of the weekend snow storm are all but gone. Green lawns and tulips are emerging from the soil, awakened from a dry winter slumber; taking in the much needed water. Soon the mail box will be overflowing with seed catalogs, like some pagan cornucopia signaling the arrival of the planting season. The sound of my wifes’ Mantis, the favorite tool of the home gardener will soon be riping through the soil, coughing occationally like a contagiuos T.B. patient, misfiring on the old gas left over from last fall.
The paint chips for the house “make over” have been resuffled, and with the intensity of some mad hatter magician I’ve been asked to pick a color, any color. Spring has arrived, home projects and gardening are in the air, life is good.
When I was young my Mother never really had a garden, with six kids, and a full assortment of shovels, a garden seemed a given. The soil had other ideas, it was rather poor and our backyard was mostly clay and broken bits of shale. This concealed the fact that we lived on what was once a landfill. The unearthing of an old rusty bed spring and some bald rubber tires while prepping the soil for grass seed several years later, would eventually reveal the ugly truth. I remember the first year we moved into our house, there was no yard. Just a scrap of dirt that would barely support the tumbleweeds growing back there; there was however the “Cherry Tree”.
This was Mom and Dads’ first home and they were very proud and excited, coming from Wisconsin the general thinking was; if you watered it, it would grow. At some time during the purchasing of the house the Realtor must have mentioned that there was a “Cherry Tree” in the backyard. So for the first two or three weeks Dad would go out in the back yard every night after work and water his dirt patch. The tumbleweeds were thriving but his 3-1/2 foot “Cherry Tree” looked like a withered old stage prop, a left over from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. I think my Dad’s patience finally got the best of him. One evening, as he was dragging the garden hose across the scrapple it got wrapped around the “Cherry Tree” and he gave it a good tug. The “Tree” toppled over like a drunken sailor, cursing under his breath he walked over to the “Tree”. Upon closer inspection it was found that his “Cherry Tree” was actually an old sawed off limb some one had stuck in the ground! That weekend, stacked on top of the rubbish headed for the dump was his “tree,” nothing was ever mentioned of my Fathers Green Thumb again. Mom never did establish a garden, but sod was eventually put in, almost sacrilegious to anyone from the green state of Wisconsin.
We never had video games as kids, they weren’t invented yet. But shovels, we had shovels, and the shovels did come in handy, but not for gardening. They were very instrumental in the construction of the “escape tunnel”. This was an engineering project that would have made “Colonel Hogan” proud. It ran from under the dog house along the foundation of our house for about 15 feet. The plan was to take the tunnel to the front fence only another 35 feet, thereby giving us an unseen avenue of escape, from what I don’t remember! We would take the dirt from our diggings and scatter it in the flower garden, located in the Northeast corner of the yard Aka; “The Great Escape”. We were in the process of making the left turn at the corner of the house when it happened.
One evening Mom was enjoying a puff on one of her “True Blue” cigarettes with its unique True Blue Tip. Fate intervened on the side of the parents that eve as she was putting the pack back into her pocket, she dropped her smokes . Damn fumble fingers! The pack of smokes took a beeline under the dog house, and the “Tunnel” had been found! Looking back,I don’t think our parents were as angry as they tried to appear. Hell I think it was all they could do to avoid laughing out loud. But things were a bit uneasy, and for awhile all the “Hey I Got A Great Idea”(s) were put on hold.
I wonder what kind of stupid “Don’t tell Mom!” things our kids did, maybe it’s better I don’t know. To date I haven’t unearthed any forgotten tunnels, I have had to repair a phone cable or two, I guess “gardening” is in the blood.
Talk to you later.
LOVED this post! What and exceptional writer you are!
There were 6 children in my family also and I can just see us getting together to dig a tunnel out from the dog house! Actually, come to think of it, we just left things up to our crazy only brother: breaking his leg jumping down a flight of stairs after we had convinced him he was truly superman, burning down the gardern playing with lighters, putting a plastic bag over his head just to see what would happen … he is an Air Force pilot now and a bona fide hero (was the pilot who rescued Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell) … who knew?
Lori, it is amazing the mischief that six kids and a little too much alone time can produce. Who knew that a D cell battery would make that much of a mess when it blows up.
A.J.
Yes, but toothpaste and baking soda do wonders at cleaning up the remains of D cell battery remains on the ceiling!! Who knew mom would be laying on the couch one night and see the makeover we had done to her ceiling tiles.