What a Neat House, These Must be People of Quality!

Just Outside My Kitchen Window

I used to have a garden. I used to be one hell of a gardener. I could grow patches of corn that reached seven to eight feet in height. I had sprawling vines of cantaloupe that would perfume the yard when they ripened. I had and still have Crockett's Victory Garden book which I found out was the Bible on vegetable growing.

Used to. Had. Did.

Now most yard work bores me to tears. Well, it bored me to tears when I was in my mid 20s.

I now cut the lawn when I deduce the neighbors are near upon calling the Zoning Board to complain. My own personal pride concerning how the yard looks has waned over the years. I'm not quite sure why that has happened.

Now, the damn leaves are everywhere. I looked out my kitchen window and the yard looks like great background for a Hunter/Gun catalog. Lay in some Italian shotguns, a few duck decoys and some wool sweaters and my yard can be a photo shoot. Will I rake it? No.

After my Dad's death, it fell upon me to do the yard work as my brother had not the stamina to do that. Ok, fine. I didn't hate the tedious work then. I also perhaps felt a bit of that suburban guilt. I cut, raked and bagged to show just how clean our family's mental hygiene was for the neighborhood.

“See? Our yard is just like all the others and it's proven by our short, leafless lawns. We're not faithless degenerates at all.”

My faith and religious duty to proving to the others slowly waned though.

One Saturday morning, way too early in my estimation, my Mom was bitching for me to get out there and rake up the leaves. I said, “I would.” But that didn't mean I'd fly out the door that second to start the job. Not at 8AM was I going to start. Saturday's are meant to be eased into because nursing hangovers from the nightclub before takes a few hours, perhaps the whole morning.

About a half an hour later, who do I see raking the yard and doing so furiously? Mom.

I go out there to tell her to stop as I would do it...eventually. She continued to rake. I swear she jumped on that job at 8:30 AM to rub it in my face. She had “waited too long and had to do the job herself.”

I know that trick.

I go on

“Look, I said I would do it, now why don't you go back into the house?”

No answer. Ignoring me is a good way to make the sarcasm come out of me.

“What? You LIKE raking leaves? Is that it? Ma, (my voice is getting louder now but under a shout) if you like raking leaves...I'll take you to Slater Park, you rake ALL THE DAMN leaves you want!!”

Stubborn Irish bitch...she kept raking. Fine, you rake to your heart's content, I'm going back inside to drink Gatorade to quell this hangover I have.

It's funny how some memories, even if just moments, stay with you. I was walking to my car, on my way to work when I noticed how the yard was shoe deep in dry leaves. I said to myself, “Ahh...the wind will eventually make them disappear.” A second later the next thought was “What a bastard you are, letting the leaves blow into everyone elses yard for them to rake up.” Yeah, I suppose I can be one.

I think the major reason I hated the leaf job was due to the fact you cannot create a big pile of them, drop a match and have one hell of a smoky bonfire like they used to do before the Clean Air Act was signed. I do sort of miss that, that smell from my childhood. I guess ten's of thousands of small, smoky leaf pile fires across New England just might screw the air we breathe up a bit. Still, it seemed a rite to Fall to be able to do this. You could buy metal garbage cans that were perforated for burning leaves then. Contain that fire and dump the ashes in one swoop.

They outlawed that. Then it turned into putting the leaves in plastic bags. Then into plastic bags marked as yard waste. Now it's in biodegradable paper ones meant for composting. I don't feel too “green” when I have to do this. Soon it'll be, “Maple leaves here, oak ones there..and NO dogwood! Dogwood must be transported and composted by YOU in Westerly, RI.”

So, we'll see how guilted I get into raking.

*****

If you care to listen to small town Irish radio station, in the town my grandmother was born, click this picture and hit "Listen Live."

 

Notice How they Drive on the Wrong Side of the Street?

 



The problem I find with most traditional Irish music is that it comes in either lamentable ballads meant to make you depressed like Skibbereen,

...the landlord and the bailiff came to drive us all away.

They set the roof on fire with their cursed English flame,

And that's another reason why I left old Skibbereen.

Or, the other style of music is the rousing, IRA marching music.

Kill the Prots!

Kill the Prots!

Shoot them in the face

Stomp on their feet

Split open their knees!

We are proud to be Fenian bastards!

Anyway, the radio broadcasts in English, sort of, if you can get past the thick accent they speak in. If you're lucky, you can catch it as they play local punk Irish bands. If you're unlucky, you'll hear an hour long program on soccer.