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TODAY I GATHERED UP A STACK OF MAGAZINES. A SMALL ITEM FELL TO THE FLOOR. It was a media card. Well, well...I had suspected, Reader Dear, that I would find these photos of the gardening workshop eventually. It's just that I had searched high and low! Turns out I hadn't searched in the middle (not in the middle of the magazines, anyway). So here you have the real picture:




and:



and this:


And, sorry-I-missed-the-wisecracks, this:



That's probably enough to give you a good idea of how I spent
my day on Saturday.

However, I have nothing to show you of today's excursion--
a trip with my yard man, the Little Actor, and his mama
to see the Little Actor's great-grandmama.

You see, worse than losing the media card is losing the camera.
Although I didn't really lose it--I just neglected to take it along
on the forty-five minute journey to the nursing home, where my cute
little mother-in-law is so happy to see us.

She demonstrates for us how even losing the camera would be nothing compared to losing
one's memory...though she does still remember her son. Before she soon forgets, she is delighted to know that the adorable little tot trotting up and down the halls and calling the elderly women ma-ma and the elderly men pa-pa and waving so charmingly to everyone is her great-grandson.

So, we had a very nice visit. This director thinks it would have made a fine movie. But it's not one you're likely to see, Dear Viewer, unless and until...we bring all the actors together again and replay the scene with a photographer who's equipped for the job!

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A LAMB! IT'S A LAMB! Of course, that means March is going to go growling and tossing its mane when the time comes for it to say goodbye. But that's okay (by me)...for now, it's wooly-coated.

There was something about the piece of music that was playing on the car radio, and the fact that the sun was shining as though spring were crouching ready to spring--I unexpectedly pulled into the park, hopped out and took a walk. It was my first time back since the trees were dropping their britches...oops, I mean their leaves.



It felt fantastic to be striding along on the straight and narrow again,
although there were soggy places to remind me life is not an easy trail, even when I'm doing what I know I should do.

Just to reinforce that idea, a tree had thrown itself across the path. I had to crawl under.



















But then, on the other side,
there was smooth sailing.



and birds were singing and little Amish children were making their way home from school.

















It seemed to be the UN-BLEAKING of winter.



It worked for me!


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OKAY, I MUST CALL IT QUITS for the box of cassette tapes, though I may have to sneak back again at a later date, Dear Listener, and play the one with the Swiss music for you...you might be interested in another one, too--an oral letter. There's also the Irish music...and...ah, dear me, moving along....

Two days ago was Saturday, and on my calendar I had this written: "Landis Valley Workshop--10:00. Take lunch."

So I tossed an apple, a vanilla yogurt, a baggieful of taco chips and a baggieful of grapes into one of those insulated bags that I happened to have, and I set out for Landis Valley Farm Museum.
There was bright sunshine, and it seemed a very good day to learn about plant propagation and how to prune fruit trees.

(At this point, Dear Reader, I scampered off to find the camera media card with all the photos I took--lots and lots, of course, because it was an interesting five hours that I spent at the museum--running into a dear old cousin and his wife, "emphasis on the dear; old just meaning we've both been around a long time). And then attending the workshops with a friend who's got way more fruit trees than I do!
Feeling a bit like a first grader--planting seeds in potting soil [hey, but what fun!] in the sunny greenhouse.

Afternoon of watching two experts give instructions in just which branches to cut, and how to cut them, and why it's important to do so [as my heart sinks; I'm sure my poor little fruit trees are bravely enduring their crowded limbs, but, suffering! And the worst of it is----)

I CAN'T FIND THE MEDIA CARD! (I'm howling, because now I'm suffering!) You see, I made lots of short little video clips of those experts' wisecracks and their detailed tutelage. In part it was to give you a taste (You see, I'm always thinking of you, Reader Dear!) But a good bit was for my own advantage--like when I finally get to the job of attempting to prune my trees and am thinking, hmm, and then, hmmm? and have nothing but question marks dancing in my head.

Well, life is just full of trees that don't get pruned, and photos that get lost, and stars falling from the sky (you know, metaphorically speaking, if not in reality)...yes, it is. But it's also got bright sunshine and goofy wisecracks now and then!

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WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER, MY FATHER HIRED me one summer as a secretary at his construction company office. He also took himself two business partners. One of them was a Frenchman. This Frenchman would take a call from a supplier, get hot under the collar,* slam down the phone while releasing a stream of words with which Madame LaBelle had not acquainted me in my high school French class. He'd then pace the floor, smoking a cigarette to calm his nerves.

The other partner was a man I'll call Marvin M. Marvin had a wife and lots of daughters (younger than myself) and was part of a large Jewish synagogue. My parents were invited to his daughters' Bat Mitzvahs, and occasionally Marvin would ask them to events at the Jewish Community Center.

When I looked at this one cassette tape that came from the box, I saw "Allan Sherman's Nutty Songs" was penned on the side in a hand I did not recognize. Allan Sherman was not anyone I knew of or remembered, and neither did The Yard Man. So I popped the tape into the player as he and I traveled steadily northward through the night.




I didn't recognize the first song that played, but Marvin M. popped immediately into my mind. And I set up this little scenario in my head: Allan Sherman must have been someone who came to perform at the Jewish Community Center back in the sixties. Marvin, knowing my dad would get a big kick out of his nutty songs, made this tape for my dad. This was the story I gave to The Yard Man, and he thought it sounded believable, though he never met Marvin.

Well, so we waited to hear more. After a song about how Pop hates the Beatles, and several more that had a certain kind of humor to them, but were nothing familiar, or anything we cared to listen to again, we pulled into a rest area. That chauffeur of mine was making such terrifically good time--he was reluctant to stop, but I vowed we'd only be there a few minutes and we should stretch a little.



Back in the car, the tape starting playing again...

Hey...wait a minute! Now this song I knew! (how many times had I heard it pouring forth from a transistor radio all those years ago! [Uh, yes, Dear Listener, go ahead and believe me--it was a hit tune back in the sixties! (Didn't I tell you some of these tapes are old!)])

Hello Muddah...Hello Fadduh...here I am at..Camp Granada..Camp is very..entertaining..and they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining!

So it turns out Allan Sherman was somebody famous.
I'm still sticking by my story of Marvin M. and the tape for my dad, however.


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*Late shipments of building supplies would hold up entire projects!
It never failed to throw the monsieur into a tailspin!

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DEAR READER, I'M IN A QUANDARY...THINGS ARE HEAPING UP. There's no time like the present to talk about the present, I know (and I learned to prune fruit trees today, and other fine stuff!); but I've still got those old cassette tapes...









There was this one song we couldn't get enough of--kept backing up the tape and playing it again and again, until that chauffeuring yard man of mine was lustily singing along. And soon after that--whaddaya know--we did cross over the river! But don't get excited, Reader Dear; on the other side there were no angels flying with glorious ease.

.

Turns out it was just the Potomac we'd crossed, and we were on the Maryland side--still plenty of misery and temptation to be had in Maryland, for sure.

I'm tempted to keep on giving you music from the tapes.
If it makes you miserable, try resting in the shade of a tree.

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