Ditch Diving

Richard has been ditch diving to clean out several years’ accumulation of leaves in the drainage culvert by the Ruritan building. He also volunteered to clean the Ruritan’s roach coach, which was apparently really roachy. Not many people get so much joy from helping others and doing dirty jobs, and not many are so willing to work so hard all alone.

He was all ready set out mid-day on Monday to begin these tasks when I reminded him that the garden still needed tilling, but getting the tiller started proved to be as problematic as starting the tractor had been. The tilling would have to wait until the repair shop completed the equipment repairs, so he was off to the Ruritan building.

He returned to the roach coach several times, stopping in at the house to consult with me with on cleaning methods and collecting equipment. Even after the cancellation of the event for which he was cleaning, the cleaning continued. He never accepts his “at-a-boy” until the job is complete. Unfortunately, the grill that he hoped to display as like-new is pitted, so he probably won’t even want to admit that he’s the one who created the cleanliness.

Richard and I have been learning enough about how back-breaking traditional crop-raising can be and how difficult it is to continue as we age. This has led us to many a discussion regarding alternative planting and growing methods. We had both been contemplating raised-beds, especially in light of the trouble getting Mamie’s fifty’s era tractor and ninety’s era tiller ready to roll.
When I went over to weed, I spied a book, The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book in Mamie’s kitchen. Pointing to the first chapter heading, “Throw Away Your Spade and Hoe,” I declared that the book seemed like a must-read to me. When I asked to borrow it, Mamie declared, “You read it and tell me what it says.” So I am reading it and telling her and Richard exactly what I’m gathering from it.

The author promises that heavy mulching will eliminate the need for composting, plowing, tilling and most weeding. This is similar to the “lasagna gardening” that Mountaintop Mary has mentioned.

Even though I often accuse Richard of never hearing a word I say (to which he replies, “Huh?”) he must have been listening. He informed me that the reason he volunteered to unclog the drainage ditch was that he figured the mostly composted leaves could enrich our garden soil.

Every day, for the last week, Richard has pulled his trailer to the Ruritan building with his now well-running Bronco II. Every day for the last week, he’s come home with the load of leaves to wait out the rain. Every day for the last week, he has gone over to the garden and neatly distributed the leaves on a previously plowed and harrowed patch.

Now Mamie has informed me that I really must move the butternut squash plants and might want to consider planting another stand of corn. What I thought was going to be a beginning of next year’s garden method is going to get its first run this summer.

Richard and I are both absolutely ecstatic about his leaf relocation program.

Arbitration Agreements

If the way that our nation’s emergencies and industries, such as floods caused by shoddy Corps of Engineers work, and oil spills caused by unregulated industry, are handled by “government” is an indicator of how well we are represented in our republic, maybe it’s time to create a model of true democracy and skip the “representative” part. And maybe it’s time that our senate is comprised of people with proven wisdom rather than another bunch of popular people.

We were all taught to do research papers as part of our educations. This included checking and citing many sources, and yet we get most of our “facts” in this world of almost infinite information from only the sources that most agree with our pre-conceived beliefs. We are empowered to intelligently debate any subject, but still choose gurus who interpret the data and tell us what to believe.

We also were taught to listen when spoken to and to use our words, not our fists, to communicate, and yet we are often incited to fight as our first option in dealing with fear. We were taught problem solving and communication skills as a substitute for helpless whining and tattling to our teachers and other authority figures, and yet we still sit helplessly waiting for the “government” and the law to fix our problems. This has kept us in the power of lawyers, liars, and big-mouthed bullies, fear mongers, and class clowns.

We are fortunate to live in an age of instant, individual education and communication. With the internet, we are able to research almost any subject from almost any perspective that we wish, and to communicate our ideas without the corruption or interruption of our words. We are empowered as never before to have a voice in anything we believe. We are wasting our talents by endlessly forwarding half-baked and severely biased “information.”

I have read much about how horrible it is that the citizens of south Louisiana have been prohibited from rolling up their sleeves and doing whatever it would have taken to protect their coastland. Civil disobedience was made for just this sort of situation, but individual action would give the oil industry a huge loophole to run through in displacing liability. If we weren’t so cowed by the legal profession and influenced by the drama-driven media, we would take more action upon ourselves.

The reason we do not is that we continue to convince ourselves that our laws force the big guys to take care of the little guys. Our legal system exists to define and protect the status quo, not to protect right. We delude ourselves into thinking that if we align ourselves with a big enough and powerful enough group that we, as individuals, will be protected. We then anoint leaders as our protectors and dare not question them or the crowd for fear of being turned on, shunned, and possibly punished by the group.

History shows a pattern of the big guys buying off the most vocal and most connected of the little guys, and leaving the rest to rot. But history is written by the powerful and protected, not by the individual, so we know little about the truth of how we got to where we are.

It seems that most people have no idea what the tenets or history of their religion or political parties consist in. They simply choose the parts of the rituals that they find comforting, and go along. Why is it so important to so many people to pretend that they have a like-minded support group that they will close their eyes to any dissent or disparity in group thought? Is it really so hard to have civilized disagreement and discussion until we come to understanding of each other’s positions?

Christianity condemns legal action against our brothers (and, presumably, our sisters), yet we in this country that considers itself so Christian are the most litigious people in the world. The rule of our law favors fighting over cooperation. “To the victor belong the spoils”. As long as our system rewards those who have the most power to wage war and endless arguments, this promises to continue. What good are our churches if they are not promoting arbitration over legal action and protecting the individual over the institution?

It seems that what we need are on-call mediators to replace the legal action in this world. Maybe we should have to sign arbitration agreements to be admitted into the human race.

Longing for Louisiana

My Louisiana, the more bruised and bloodied you become
The more I long to be there to help lift you from your knees.
How I long to, once again, smell the scent of your salt breezes
How I hunger for the sound of seagulls laughing as they dive.

Your life is in my soul; you have made me what I am
I can never feel whole waking so far from you.
I need all that you offer, your people and your places,
To feel that I have a center in this too-large universe.

Hearing and Harmony

Just because you sometimes feel
Discomfort in what you see,
It does not mean that there
Is something wrong with me,
Nor does it mean that there
Is something wrong with you.
Maybe we simply need someone
To interpret our points of view.
If we’re both willing to listen,
If it takes more than one try,
We may never completely agree
But perhaps seeing eye-to-eye
Is a way to accept discord
And turn it to harmony
Your song as strong and beautiful
As the song coming from me.

A Look at Love

The problem with love is that
It hurts so much as it heals.
It’s a form of physical therapy for the soul
Stretching us farther than we think is possible,
Ever pushing us toward greater resolve.
Just when we think we can hold no more
A door opens to new energy
We arise refreshed and ready
To beat back our own demons again.
The fear, the anger, the sadness of loss
Can only vanquish us if we stop loving.

Post-Parenting

I arrived home in the holler
Where there’s little drama or strife.
We can sit and watch the crops grow
In our semi-retirement life.

While it is true that weeds happen,
And rain is beyond our control.
I am now in charge of nothing,
Finished filling my Granny role.

After all the hustle bustle,
All the laughter and all the tears,
I think perhaps post-parenting
Are truly the most golden years.

The Perfect Party

It should have been easy – an outdoor swimming party at a community swimming pool and pavilion. The menu was to be Rebecca’s favorite foods – nothing fancy or complex – grilled hotdogs, hamburgers, lots of fruit and baby carrots with various dips, potato chips of three varieties, and kettle corn. We were washing it down with real homemade lemonade.

The piece de resistance was to be Rachel’s decadent chocolate cake with cream cheese icing, beautifully decorated with piped-on spring flowers. I refused to carry the cakes, as I’m such a klutz. I would have beaten myself if I destroyed Rachel’s many hours of effort.

Rachel and the grandgirls had done all the shopping and prep work. I was recruited to make sure that all of the ingredients and the birthday girl got the pavilion set up in time, since Rachel had to be at post-planning in the school where she teaches third grade, and it was a regular work day for Larry.

We loaded the van from ceiling to running boards. Rebecca and her buddy Caitlin had party stuff under their feet and in their laps, but we got everything in – even the cake, which Rebecca was brave enough ( and strong enough, as it weighed about twenty pounds) to carry. Oh, how proud we were to arrive at the park with almost two hours leeway for a leisurely set-up.

The first thing Rebecca noticed was that the pool wasn’t open. Being a Pollyanna, I commented that they probably just hadn’t opened yet because her party was still two hours away. We parked and began set-up as I pondered on the predicament. I remembered that I had seen a reservations phone number on the pool fence, so we placed a call. We got an automated answer reassuring us that we would be helped as soon as the message was relayed, but without specifying how long that could take.

I spied a guy cutting grass who went into the pool enclosure to perform some task. I sent the girls to ask him about the pool problem while I continued to take stuff out of the van. Next thing I knew, Rebecca came flying through on the verge of tears. “There’s no sense setting up. The pool isn’t open today,” she said as she ran off with her phone.

As soon as Rachel got free from work, she called me for our status. I assumed that the first call Rebecca made would have been to her mother, but Rachel obviously didn’t know that anything was amiss. It fell to me to tell her that all her hard work to plan the perfect party was imploding. A swimming party without a pool didn’t seem too appealing. Fifty people had said they were coming, so Rachel and I agreed that the show had to go on. With a catch in my throat and tears in my eyes, I continued putting what was left of the party together.

I was down to the last bag of ice coming out of the van when Rachel called back. “Pack up. We’re moving the party to another pool,” she declared.

The girls wandered over with mobile phones in hand. It was their job to text the new location to all fifty party people. With their thumbs flying, they texted the news in no time. Rachel and Sarah arrived to help with the reloading. (This time, Rachel had custody of the cake.)

What a wonderful time we proceeded to have, with swimming, dancing, volleyball, badminton, Jai Lai, and even a bit of soccer as the sun set over what turned out to be a perfect party.