It was 1972 and Bobby-Ellen used to like to drive with her top down.
Her hair was brown unless the light hit it in a certain way and then it was red. On the farming side of town there were horses out in the pastures the same color, chestnuts. She wore it long and wild and she washed it every second day with Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific. Hair was important, it defined who you were, how you rolled and what you stood for so, Bobby-Ellen figured, people should be able to smell it a mile away.
If you live the gardener’s existence you’ll come to know a force of evil that pesticides can’t kill, an enemy that simply cannot be defeated. To get to the water, to experience the blossoms or the fruit, to get to truly know Mother Nature or commune with the leafy botanical miracles described in the Farmers’ Almanac you’ll have to run the tangled gauntlet that haunts the souls and green thumbs of every poor sap with dirt under his nails or a red burn on the back of his neck.
There are certain Patriot days. Days we should take time to remember the people who stood up and bled out for freedom. On these days I get sad and nostalgic and I want to wrap my arms around my country … and the world’s best pooch.