Digging Dandelions

It's that time of year again. Warmer weather, sunshine, and rain bring a lush, green lawn and...dandelions. And the battle begins. I get my old paring knife and spend ten or fifteen minutes trying to eradicate them. I almost always tire of bending over before I have gotten them all.

What is this voice inside me, year after year, that tells me to dig up dandelions, to cut down to the root and extract them?

It's my mother.

My mother went after dandelions like a revival preacher casting out sin. Why? I don't know. Probably because she felt they were bad for the lawn. But deeper than that was this: if you don't dig up the dandelions, other people will think you are a bad person. Neighbors will look askance at the person who doesn't maintain a dandelion-free lawn. They may not say anything, but...

"Cluck, cluck, cluck. Look at all those dandelions. There goes the neighborhood."

Now, this was before weed killers and lawn services. It was Mother and the paring knife against the yellow enemy. And woe be unto the child who picked a fuzzy one and blew to make a wish...

It is amazing to me, smack dab in the middle of middle age, how many behaviors we cling to from our childhoods, even if they make no sense. I have to shake myself a bit sometimes and look at things anew. It is all too easy to go on automatic pilot, to fight the things we have always fought without considering if circumstances have changed. Or if our reasons ever made any sense in the first place.

This Saturday many angry people will vote in Village elections in an effort to beat back the enemy. In Hickory Ridge, Town Center, and Harpers Choice the battle is on to dig up the Inner Arbor plan for Symphony Woods by the roots. And these are people who turn out to vote with the same dedication that my mother brought to her war on dandelions. Because they have something to be against.

Columbia has to be about more than angry people. Doesn't it? Should the future of our community be shaped solely by people who have something to be against? Eleanor Roosevelt said, "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

What do you believe in? Are you willing to vote to make it so?

Posted with Blogsy

Comments

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word. Days passed. They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts. Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public. So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that. But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...

Separate and Unequal

Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not. It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

Village Green/Town²

Search This Blog