Oleander

Folks, Iola Humboldt’s family invaded us for the Christmas holiday.  Her grandson came on December 23 with his wife and two boys, one 12 and one 10.  Her niece arrived Christmas Eve, bringing a cat named Matilda and a dog named Ranger.  We didn’t have much room at the inn, so to speak, but we squeezed everyone into our little bungalow, except for Ranger, who stayed in the manger—our tool shed with the floor covered in straw.

An avalanche of presents cascaded from under our little tree.  We brought all three leaves for the dining table out of the basement, and so much food spilled from the kitchen I thought we might all founder.  After dinner we read The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, even though he didn’t steal Christmas.  Iola’s grandson read from the Good Book about the shepherds and their flocks by night, the star in the east, the baby in swaddling clothes.  Before bed, we read The Night Before Christmas.   Soon, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, not even Matilda the cat.

Well, folks, each year Here, Kansas, has a pre-Christmas potluck before we all travel to relatives for the holiday.  This year, Claude Anderson’s wife, Martha, was in charge.  “Maybe you’ll do the Jell-O,” she suggested to my sweetheart Iola Humboldt.  “Your Jell-O is always a hit,” she added.

Folks, even though I’m up there in years, I’m not too old to try for some change.  In advance of the holiday season, Thanksgiving and Christmas, I thought I’d best stay in better touch with the younger folks in my family. 

Folks, Claude Anderson and I were sitting in the Here, Kansas, Co-op, talking about the prospect of the next winter wheat crop.  We can already see the skim of green on the fields, and, like the local farmers, we have our hopes. 

You never know who might wander into a place like Here, Kansas. 

Folks, when I was a boy, I spent hours every summer in the garden, picking a feed sack full of green beans one week, a bucket of cherries another, a basket of beets, or a bushel of tomatoes.  I dug potatoes—russet and sweet—and pulled onions.  I picked peppers, and pickled peppers, just like Peter Piper.  My mother was the piper, and I paid her by bringing the harvest to her kitchen, where she pickled beets, canned tomatoes and green beans, sorted potatoes, braided onions, boiled cherries with sugar and pectin into preserves, and began to ferment cabbage into sauerkraut.  All summer long we worked.
            “You grow too much,” I complained one hot September afternoon after spending two hours picking and pickling peppers.
            “I grow what we eat, and what we will eat,” she said.  “It’s good to have reserves.”

Folks, when I was a boy, I spent hours every summer in the garden, picking a feed sack full of green beans one week, a bucket of cherries another, a basket of beets, or a bushel of tomatoes.  I dug potatoes—russet and sweet—and pulled onions.  I picked peppers, and pickled peppers, just like Peter Piper. 

My mother was the piper, and I paid her by bringing the harvest to her kitchen, where she pickled beets, canned tomatoes and green beans, sorted potatoes, braided onions, boiled cherries with sugar and pectin into preserves, and began to ferment cabbage into sauerkraut.  All summer long we worked.

Folks, back in 1910, Carl Becker, wrote what became for years the definitive essay on the nature of Kansas.  He begins by describing his first trip to Kansas, after taking a position as history professor at the University of Kansas. 

He writes:  “ ... I rode out of Kansas City and entered for the first time what I had always pictured as the land of grasshoppers, of arid drought, and barren social experimentation.” 

Folks, since 1937 Kansas has had a Noxious Weed law.  Among those on the Most (not) Wanted list are some fearful dangers:  Kudzu, Bindweed, Canada and other Thistles, Russian Knapweed, Bur Ragweed, Pignut, Johnsongrass and Sericea Lespedeza.

Folks, some years ago, when I heard Kansans in the legislature were looking for a new State Symbol to recognize fossil life in Kansas, I was excited.  In fact, old fossil that I am, I thought I might be in the running. Then I found out Kansas lawmakers were thinking Cretaceous.  More specifically, the Tylosauras and the Pteranodon.

Well, folks, one morning I woke up to a completely still morning in Here, Kansas.  No birds, no insects, no wind brushing the curtains through the screened windows, no cars driving by on Kansas Street.  Iola Humboldt stirred beside me.

"Listen," I said to her, "what do you hear?"

"Heat," she said.  "When it's this hot, things are still.  When it stays still, you know it's still hot.'"

"We're not staying still," I said.  "I've got plans.  You don't hear any cars in town because everyone in Here is off driving the roads, enjoying the excitement of wheat harvest."

In Here, Kansas, we citizens gather together every 4th of July.  We don't call it an Old Settler's Reunion, because everyone in Here is already old, and we live here year round.  In fact, it's a reunion of the young and restless:  for all our kids and grandkids gone off into the world to find something better than Here, Kansas.

Folks, how many of you plan to vote in November?  How about having to show that ID?

Claude Anderson is trying to get me ready.  He reminded me of the time, last year, when I woke up, threw on a pair of overalls, and spent the entire morning padding around the house and puttering in the garden.  Iola Humboldt fixed tomato soup for lunch, and I spent the afternoon reading on the porch, talking to my grandson on the telephone, visiting with neighbors as they walked by.

Well, folks, the family came to Here, Kansas, from all over for Memorial Day.  They drove all morning from Kansas City and Topeka, from Amarillo and Denver and Pueblo. 

They stretched their legs for five minutes, then climbed back into vehicles to spend the afternoon visiting all the little country cemeteries where this and that family member lies in eternal rest.

Folks, when my great-grandson came to Here for a visit I took him for a long walk at the Oleander home place along No Mile Creek.  He needed some outdoors, to keep from moping.  You see, his dog Scooter just died, some kind of tumor.  He knew my old cat died.  He knew I wouldn’t be getting another.

Folks, used to be I’d plant potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day even if I had to get muddy doing it.  This year, I was lazy.  Or was it tired?  Or was it just plain old?  Mabel Beemer stopped by my house with a little verse:  "Spring is sprung, the grass is ris',/ Wonder where Oleander's garden is?"

"Lordy, Mabel," I said, "I've been busy.  Iola and I had company.  Then we did a bit of traveling.  And I’ve got a complicated tax year.  And our cat named Balanced Budget died."

Folks, my sweetheart Iola Humboldt and I have eighteen grandchildren and twenty-three great-grandchildren. We keep their names, with their pictures, on our refrigerator.  Last month, Iola said, “We need a bigger refrigerator!”  We had just returned from another family wedding: one more picture and name to learn.

Well, folks, I stood there last Ash Wednesday, in 2015, with the newspaper in my hand, dancing in my driveway.  Mrs. Peterson, next door, asked me if I was okay.  Thinks because I'm an old man, there might be something creep up on me all of a sudden. 

"No," I told her, "everything's had its way with me already.  It's just this good news shaking me up because I’ve come to expect the worst.  I pounded the newspaper.  Showed her the headline: LIBERAL OUTRUNS OLNEY, ENGLAND, IN PANCAKE RACE.