I just found out that this may not have gotten out to all of you again, so I am resending.
Sorry if you get it twice.
Daris
Life’s Outtakes
By
Daris Howard
(Daris Howard is a husband, father, syndicated columnist, writer, teacher, and amateur horticulturist. He can be contacted at daris@darishoward.com)
The Unusual Horticulture Project
By
Daris Howard
Bart had a very special bird that stood in his room. It was carved from one piece of wood in a long arch that narrowed toward the top. It was made to look like a long necked heron. The bird was strange looking, but wasn’t as strange as Bart was talking to it. He would discuss with it his dating prospects, or more accurately, his lack of them. This wooden bird even had a name. He called it Prudence.
One day, Bart arrived at our apartment and found Prudence was missing. He panicked like a parent with a kidnapped child. He flew around the apartment, asking if anyone had seen his precious bird. He was about to file a police report when he happened on Sam, who was busy making soup in the kitchen.
There he found Prudence. Whoever was responsible for washing dishes that particular day had not done his job. Finding no clean utensils, Sam had come upon Prudence and decided that she was shaped perfectly to be used as a stirring spoon.
The usually mild-mannered Bart was livid, and made it clear that he didn’t appreciate his precious Prudence being used in such a manner.
“But,” Sam protested in his own defense, “I’m sure that somewhere in Proverbs or something it says we should use prudence in all things, and that’s exactly what I am doing.”
Bart had barely begun to calm down about the abuse Prudence had taken when, at mid semester, he brought her a companion. It was a plant with big leaves that had large, visible veins. He had raised it from a seed the semester before in his horticulture class. He set it right by Prudence and named it Emily.
Wrestling finished for the year, and I suddenly found myself with about five extra hours per day that I wasn’t quite sure how to fill. That was when I saw Emily. For some reason, I got this idea that the plant would look more interesting if its red veins stood out even more. I took a soft, red felt marker, and carefully traced a few of the veins.
When Bart arrived home and saw his beloved plant, he panicked. He rushed her to his horticulture teacher. The teacher was baffled. They studied every plant book they could find, even ordering some on interlibrary loan. They looked up every disease and parasite listed, but they found nothing that matched her “symptoms”. Bart brought his plant back to our apartment with a promise to the teacher that he would keep him apprised of the plant’s changing condition and keep a journal on it.
Every night after that I colored in a few more veins on the plant, and each day, Bart took it to his teacher to show him the changes. Together, the two of them kept detailed records.
Bart recorded every tiny thing he did with the plant, down to smallest teaspoon of water, while the teacher wrote down, in a scientific way, how the plant seemed to be changing and evolving. Bart told us his teacher was especially interested to see what would happen once every vein had turned red.
My roommates, who never could keep a secret, said they were, too, and kept dropping hints that I had something to do with it. But Bart couldn’t believe there was anything I could do that would cause his plant to have red veins. “Besides,” he said, “Daris wouldn’t do something like that. If you said it was any of the rest of you, I might believe it, but not him.”
The day after I had finished coloring all the veins red, Sam grinned. “Now what are you going to do?”
I thought a moment, then drew a big red smiley face on the biggest leaf.
And thus ended one of the most unusual horticulture studies in recorded history.
