Damn Yanking

Dear You,

As occupations go, scarcely any I recommend less enthusiastically than weeding. While I recognize some of the pleasures of gardening (the world benefits from, and is the more beautiful for, flowers; and I know several people who actually enjoy growing some of their own food) agriculture is impossible without the regular extirpation of weeds.

I seldom approach this task, however necessary, reluctantly if not humbly on my knees, a vicious-looking little hand rake nearby. This tool, however, is rarely needed, since as if to know they are unwanted the weeds root shallowly, and they yield easily to the tugging. The pile grows beside me, these unnamed dead. I do not bother learning their names -- genus: weeds. Enough said.

It is a thankless task. The fruits of all my labor end ignominiously in a trashbin, tomorrow to be hauled away to the landfill -- a sort of vegetative Potter's Field. I wash my hands of the entire matter.

Flowers and Weeds

Dear You,

Along my driveway is a post-and-rail fence, beneath which I have planted clematis and roses -- the last a climber and a hybrid tea. Properly tended, it all looks quite picturesque, especially in mid-June, when the climber explodes in a riot of red and the clematis on either side rewards me with shows of deep blue and opalescent white.

Now, however, as August deepens, the thing is a mess. I've been out of town often and neglected my weeding and watering, and a thicket of opportunistic weeds has flourished. I see crabgrass, cornflower, dandelion, a thistle and a couple of others I can't name. And isn't this a morality tale in the growing?

During my career I taught students Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," reading it over each year myself in preparation of my lessons. (Note to the reader: it really does become easier the eighth or ninth time, and by 20 it's a cinch.) In later readings I came to enjoy the way NH used Nature (as he capitalized it) to tell his story -- particularly the "burdock, pigweed, and apple-peru" of the opening chapter to balance the "wild rosebush" of that first June day. The careful reader comes to the conclusion that the weeds represent sins, failings, and flawed characters, and the flowers are the opposite. Later mentions of weeds and flowers work the same way and intensify the plot.

What happens when weeds are not uprooted? When flowers are not tended? Well, isn't that a lesson for us all? Sooner than later, I really must get my gloves and trowel and work along that fence. And what else? Well, as I work, I'll most likely be reflecting on other lessons of my life.