First Year In Our New Home

FIRST YEAR IN OUR NEW HOME

The year after Sandra and I moved into our new home, I got my new garden going full blast. It was as large as I remember my grandmother's when I was very small. She fed twelve kids, the chickens and hogs out of it. I was in absolute garden heaven. I planted things I had never heard of, to see what other folks in foreign countries and other parts of our country ate. In a new garden you really have a problem with weeds they have been there doing their thing for eons and aren't going to give up their turf for an amateur like myself. It's 80 X 240 and tiered in six compartments of 80x 30 with a 20x20 to one side.

My new Troy-Built roto tiller ate the new sandy loam alive. It was in the first part of April and the squash, beans (five or six kinds), cucumbers and the other early things were just inundating me. I had given so much to my friends and neighbors that they were loaded up to their ears.

It was a Saturday morning, the only time I had to deal with the weeds, watering and picking. I could see it was a losing battle. The garden was close to the street, maybe a hundred and fifty feet or so.
The old man called to me from the ditch and said what a nice garden I had. I had seen him over on the freeway before for several years and sometimes on Leopard Street. He had a sack and a gig he had made from a broom or mop handle and would walk along gathering cans. I guess to sell and have something to do. I walked over and we introduced each other and I invited him to come look my garden over. He said I must have a very large family to which I told him there were just my wife and I. I shared it with friends and neighbors, but they had all they could use, and offered him some. Told him he could have all he wanted. He said there were just him and his wife, but they had some friends in the government projects a little ways down and across the street where I live. He told me that he was eighty something and was retired from the old Pontiac Refining Company.

Wow, I thought, that was a long time ago. He said his wife had had a stroke and didn't get around too good but she managed to cook some good "old fashioned" food a couple times a week. The rest of the time they ate at the old folks center nearby. It was cheap and filling he said and took a load off them. He started telling me about some bugs I hadn't noticed. Then he helped me pick some things. He told me that it was bad to plant this next to that and he was a virtual encyclopedia of gardening. Heck, it was noon before I knew it and we had been down there picking and working all morning while the time flew by. He said he had to go and help his wife with lunch so we gathered up his sack full of vegetables and I drove him to his apartment and helped him to the door with the sack.

The next Saturday dawned and I was down there struggling with it again. He came strolling up and told me how it was so easy to control the weeds if you got them as soon as they sprouted. I told him I didn't have the time except on Saturdays so said he would gladly stop by for a while a couple of times a week or so and check on them. Of course, I told him to help himself to any vegetables he needed and take some to his friends because it was getting away from me.

Every evening when I went down to pick, there were neat piles of vegetables in plastic bags in the shade, freshly washed and damp to keep them fresh. We didn't know what to do with it all. I drove over to his little apartment and asked him where the center was that they went to and he gave me directions so I hauled at least a hundred pounds of veggies over there. I met the two old black men. The cooks. They were so appreciative and said all the old folks would enjoy them. They said they fixed them like they like them, the old fashioned way.

Well, the summer drug on and there were so many tomatoes, potatoes, corn -- heck you name it. I had it running out my ears and hauling it to the center. I noticed that I didn't have hardly any weeds and the bugs were under control. The tomatoes were six or more feet high and loaded. He had been taking care of it. Towards the end of summer he came by on Saturday and said all the old folks were sure glad he ran into me and wanted me to come to the center that evening and have supper with them. I had to decline and he was so disappointed, but said they had made a special desert for me -- Key lime pie. I remembered that I told him one of my favorites was that when he asked me about the young lime trees that I had. I went and there were so many happy faces there. They all shook my hand and told stories of when they had gardens, about the depression, the war, and their children that fought in it. Some had lost their children in it, but the sadness had faded and they spoke so proudly of them telling me where they had died and what they were doing when it happened. They showed me medals that the government had sent them. I thought to myself "that is so cheap - medals for sons, and they are here eating in this center, no telling what, if I didn't bring these vegetables here".

Fall came and I put out winter seeds. Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, etc. Flying season was coming on and my mind was more on gearing up for it than the garden. He stopped by one morning, mid week when I was down there and commented on how well the plants were doing. I told him that if he wanted to keep a check on it he was welcome to anything he wanted because I would be tied up for the next three months with flying and work. I had no time for the garden that time of year.

I went to the garden once or twice during the week and picked a few things, but I noticed that the vegetables were getting very large and hadn't been picked and cut. The weeds were starting to show some too so I drove to the old guy's apartment. There was no one living there so I went to the center and inquired. The two old black cooks told me that Mr. Clark had died and his wife was in a nursing home, the Westside Nursing Home. That was around the corner from my office, so the next morning I went and saw Mrs. Clark. She said that Alvin had died suddenly and her two sons were so busy with their lives they couldn't have her in her condition so she came there. We visited awhile and that afternoon I went and told the two cooks at the center if they would look after the garden they could have all the vegetables if they would share some with the folks at the nursing home where Mrs. Clark was. They said they would be glad to because they lived in town and could take them by when they went home.

After flying season I stopped by the nursing home. They told me Mrs. Clark had died a couple weeks earlier, but she had something for me. She handed me a plastic grocery bag. In it was several envelopes. They were cards from the old folks thanking me for all the fresh things I had sent to them and one from Mrs. Clark, the one I ran across in my desk today. It said, "Mr. Crider (I can't believe being addressed by an eighty-something-year-old as Mr.), Alvin and I so much appreciated all you have done for us this past year. It reminded us of when we were young and so full of energy to make things and grow things to make our friends and families happy like you do. We hope we can have a garden in heaven together like yours. Love, Cit'a Clark.” The next spring I took a load of vegetables to the center. When the two old cooks came out to help me unload, I told them Alvin and Cit'a had sent these. They had that “deer in headlights” look on their face.

Mark Crider – Raffish Raconteur
© 1999

Story ID:	3412
Written by:	Mark Crider (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Corpus Christi Coating & Machine Inc.
Location:	Corpus Christi Texas U.S.A.
Year:	1980