When I look back on my growing up years, I never realized how dangerous a life I led. What brought this to mind was a sincere tip we received from Medicare. It stated that before you do any gardening that action should be taken to make certain that you have had your tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis vaccinations up to date. Well, I know that we have the first two, but I may have to plead ignorance on the last one. At this point, I am not too concerned as I do not plan to do any gardening. This is a good thing for household peace.
In one of the communities where we lived, we attempted to start a garden. We figured that since New Jersey had been known for many years as the Garden State that it would be a snap. Obviously, those in New York City had received their fresh veggies from New Jersey for many years and look at how they thrived.
Consequently, since we had a good sized back yard (The Blonde in the house would not permit me to have the garden in the front yard where it was cooler in the shade), we planted what we assumed would be a bumper crop of all sorts of stuff that grows in the ground.
Unfortunately, the “stuff” apparently did not like our plot in the Garden State as nothing grew except some cucumbers that reached the size of a small pickle. I have no idea why as I watered those little vegetables and even got rid of weeds – when I had time from work. I can only assume that we didn’t have Medicare sending us nice messages about vaccinations so we may not have been properly prepared. Part of the reason on the lack of messages could be that we did not have a computer in those days. Who would have thought that having a computer would make a better garden? Oh, one other thing did grow – rhubarb which as everybody from the north knows grows everywhere, but then we didn’t plant it as rhubarb always seemed to just plant itself.
At the beginning of this I mentioned my growing up which happened in a number of different places. One of them was in the little town of Harrisville, Pa. Our house was about 1.5 miles out of town and we had a big lot. Parenthetically, I might mention that this location supplied lots of the graphic information I related to the kids and grandkids about hiking to school in the dead of winter (no school buses) through terrible snow storms. All the snow probably also helped make the ground fertile for gardens. While I did not inherit an ability to grow a garden, my parents were good at it. They planted a nice garden that grew like you would not believe – which was good as it was during WW II and lots of groceries were rationed. I do not believe that my parents had up-to-date vaccinations, but my sister and I most likely did.
However, the need for vaccinations in Harrisville was conceivably not as necessary as when my parents had chickens in Sandy Lake, Pa. Chickens are not the cleanest things around, but they did supply some good eggs and a chicken dinner every so often. The latter was nice as it was also during WW II and meat was scarce and very rationed. The chickens were Rhode Island Reds and they produced brown eggs. When I tell The Blonde this she always makes a face because she refuses to eat brown eggs.
Now, don’t expect me to explain a feminine psyche on this because I can’t. Perhaps if I explain to her that we meet all the Medicare requirements, she will – but I wouldn’t count on it.
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com.