Today I’m having trouble coming up with one of my normally witty titles. So, I’ll call it like it is. June 24, 2012. And who knows, part of me thinks that’s a good way to go forward with my future posts. All I have is some general comments on things that have happened this week, or thoughts that are currently bouncing around the cavernous interior of my skull.
My boss and I have been walking a lot recently. Yes, I’m back on my periodic walking kick. This time I’m going to stick with it for good. I am. No, seriously. Every day during lunch we go for a walk, then after work I go for another one, waiting for Scott. I’ve been getting 5 miles or more in per day! Yay! However, this week it’s going to get hot. We’ll see. I WANT to keep it up!
That thar map of the United States is a map of all the states I’ve visited for more than a few minutes, or even more than a few hours in an airport waiting area. I could probably add another 2 or three (Louisiana, Michigan) if I counted airport lounges. Actually, we DID drive in Louisiana… but it just doesn’t feel right. It was 1972. I don’t remember it too well… we landed in Nahrlns on our return from Mexico, then rented a car and drove to Omaha. We saw a tornado, somewhere in Arkansas I think. Or was it 1973? Bud Reese and 9 boys from his Scout troop. Great trip!
This year, the longest day of the year came along, and I had the same memory I have had for, well, decades. Our house where I grew up was a split level ranch. The driveway was on the north side, and there was a little walkway from the driveway to the front door which was more or less centered on the living space. Between the walkway and the house was a row of some kind of shrubbery that grew up to just below the picture window. In front of the walkway at one point in time was a row of roses, and sometimes tulips. At some point after this particular memory, Dad tore out the walkway, and replaced it with one that was more “curvy”. Then, Mom & Dad planted some kind of flowers between it and the shrubs which were still under the window.
So, anyhow, this particular memory had to do with a beautiful June 21st, sometime around 1963 to 1966. It’s a nothing little memory actually. In it, Mom & Dad are on their knees tending the little rose garden, trimming, weeding, what-notting. I’m out helping them. Did I say helping? I meant playing. I’m told to go get ready for bed. Why? I ask. It’s your bed-time. It’s still daylight! And so Dad tells me that it’s the longest day of the year. Grumbling, I go to bed. I suspect for Mom & Dad that “the longest day of the year” probably had more meanings than it does for me today.
Those were good years, the 1960s. Those were the years when I could still fly. And the speed-boats we drove around our yards for the purpose of preparing them for resodding were all the rage! And in those years, Dad would drive us over to 72nd & Dodge once a year (back when it was only 2 lanes) so we could all watch the annual UFO flybys. Or, all the times I would sleep walk. Yes, I sleep walked… out of my room, down the hall and out the front door! Ask my big brother, he SAVED me! And once I learned I sleep walked, my those cookies tasted awefully good! “Honest Mom, I was sleep walking!”
Ah the memories of things that obviously never happened! (Except the sleep walking… some of it, anyhow.)
Yesterday, Scott and I pulled out the vines that grow on the north side of our house. We do this annually, at least once. And we cut back the sumac trees which grow like weeds here. And this here is what triggered this year’s June 21 memory: we did not cut back our roses like we have in years past.
See, when we moved in to our house, there was a rose bush by the driveway. We were told the owners had planned on taking it out, but, well, they hadn’t. Every year we trimmed it, sometimes rather vigorously! And each year it would spring back and produce 100s of beautiful flowers. And every year it’s branches would spread out into the driveway and catch our trouser legs as we walked by, or scratch our legs. And it annoyed us. And every year, that weed vine and the weed sumac would also grow up in the middle of the rose.
That first summer, we dug two rows on either side of our front walk, and planted 3 roses on each side, in partial memory of our roses at my house, and in partial honor of my grandfather Yates who was a very patient and skilled grower of roses. We fought nature and all sorts of neighborhood problems and we lost one of those 6 new roses. And a year or two later another rose would die. One year, Gary mowed the front yard for us, and mowed over one struggling little rose, the prettiest. Each year it would produce for us one dusty purple rose. But not after it got mowed down. It died, we removed it. Two remained by this year. They too struggled mightily against the sumac weed and the vine weed.
Yesterday, we got out our shovel and our rake and our hatchet, and we tore out our last remaining roses. They are no more. They really weren’t worth the effort of trimming! One grew long and tall and spread out, but never produced flowers. The other, well, it did, but still, it needed to come out.
And the big red one by the driveway? The root system was monstrous! One part was 6 inches in diameter! But the roots were all rotty. Maybe it would have survived indefinitely, but frankly it was an eyesore, except when it produced flowers. And it didn’t this year. So it’s gone.
And so here it is June 24, 2012. And that’s all there is.
On The Road II 