This Old Man

Those following some posts on other blogs might wonder at the sense of legacy that I feel towars a certain old man. Here is a story that might give a clue ..

but enjoy anyway ...

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GARDEN

It was a pleasure to turn earth in Will’s garden. He had coaxed out the rocks thirty years earlier and had turned the soil double to 18 inches. Each year he spaded the top spread, even if intending to plant a small patch. I paced it off – twenty-eight by fourteen feet. “Enough to support four families in greens and fresh,” he noted, “As well we did during the thirties. Now, I just grow enough for the Missus and me seeing as how folks are accustom to store-bought flavor.” I knew this wasn’t true, as he was always giving bags of tomatoes , zucchini and pole-beans to ‘widow-ladies’ around the block. “Think I’ll dig out those worthless berries, though,” he mused – chin on hoe handle. This was the same threat he made every year, I learned. He believed it made their thorns grow smaller and the berries thicker. Didn’t know anything about this kind of ‘talking to your garden’. Seemed to work, though.

“Did you ever use a tiller?” I ventured, already unable to keep up with his hoeing pace. He knew I meant a gas-powered thing and not one of the old mule-drawn, beautiful five-blade instruments – which was a given he had.

“Nope! Nuthin’ against them except that they stink when you fire them up, and if you can’t smell the turning earth, how are you going to know what compost and fertilizer to add?” Old Will asked a lot of questions I couldn’t even begin to answer. As he didn’t return to his whistling, I knew some other thought was perking around under his massive shock of brilliant white hair. His thinking wasn’t slowed by being eighty years my senior, just his quiet way – like a good carpenter measuring twice and cutting once. He never adjusted his speech to account for my youth, though; and there was a dictionary on the back porch, just in case. He didn’t use special or technical words just for me either – just spoke as he did to everyone. He tilled his mind the same way as his garden, and he wasn’t about to repeat himself; so pay attention. I did, and others didn’t.

“Folks say that tillers save time, which they rightly do, if you don’t count fixing, cleaning and running for gas. So, when I see a man use tiller on a small patch of ground, I take stock of what he does with the time saved. If he uses that time for education or helping other folk, then I would grant that something is gained. If it only makes more time for golf or watching the idiot box, then I think he’d be better off with a shovel.”

“You are not just talking about working a garden, are you?” I queried sweatingly – knowing he wouldn’t answer if I quit spading. He chuckled – always delightful because it came out in two tones; one low and from the ribs, the other a pleasant wheeze – like wind in cedar branches. He reached up and plucked a pear from an offering branch. Then a jack-knife behaved and carved a single swirl of peal – round and around like a lathe. Then he stuck the blade in a stump – signal that it was OK for me to stop and join him. My effort was ugly, but the juice just as sweet as his. He leaned back against a fork in the tree and the slight breeze gave a rocking motion to his stand. I thought maybe he was going to doze off. I sat on the stump, but didn’t move. Patience didn’t come by me easily, but with Will it usually paid off. So I counter butterflies, instead of scratching.

“The right way of thinking got lost during the wars, I think. There was a time when a man might look at your garden, are how you had raise your kids, or the position you took at the town meeting, and say, ‘You hold some values I’d like to appreciate. Tell me what you think about philosophy and politics and keeping a wife for sixty years.’ He might even get around to asking how I choose to pray, but that would come after he took full measure of how I treated my mother, and my dog.” This caught my interest. As kids, we were taught never to talk about money, politics, sex or religion; but I was old enough to know that those were the only subjects worth talking about. Later I was to learn that the wisdom is to never ‘argue’ about these things. I guess Will was saying that if you get the measure of a man first, you never have to argue – but can discuss anything, or at least tell stories.

“Now-a-days, a man blurts out that he is a Republican, or a Reverend, or a Lawyer, a Catholic or an Englishman – and this is supposed to convey some description of values, education and spirituality as a basis of communication. All it can do is lead to argument! A man ought to keep council and show his worth before offering an opinion. Didn’t Christ say something about ‘living your sermon, not speaking it?’ By any balance, a man who claims to be something establishes a standard against he wishes to be measured – and usually fails at it. People are big on saying, ‘I’m a Christian, or I’m Democrat – whatever’. Then they go out and try to force other people to be and think what they fail to do everyday. The higher you set your ladder, the greater the distance to the ground, and if that ground is gravel instead or solid rock – or slippery instead of tested firm, well …”

He had fetched some baskets from the rafters of his shed, and I took this as a clue to drag the ladder to the pear tree and select a proper set for the picking. “Now, if before you climb into politics and religion,” he continued, “you make sure to have a trusted friend there to hold and anchor …”

“But we are taught to trust our teachers and priests and civic leaders,” I protested a bit.

“Then get one of them to hold this rickety ladder for you!”

I don’t know why he spent so much time with me!