It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man [or woman] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, s/he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
~~Robert Kennedy, 1965
My dad would be fascinated with the Occupy Movement. During his short sixty-six year life span, he evolved from Nixon patriot to Kennedy supporter, from a World War II Veteran devotee of war films to a pontificator of war's carnage and psychological damage, from a critic of his daughter's liberal politics to a man who simply loved his oldest offspring. I am grateful he missed the absurdity of the Afghanistan and Iraqi Wars, but I know he would want to get those “bastard terrorists,” especially that “Goddamned Gadhafi.”
As a college student, I evolved from a 50's kid raised in a white-only neighborhood to an embracer of diversity and fairness. As a teenager, I never argued with my father; I made up for this in my twenties. I remember at the end of one of our knockdown, dragout verbal battles, my dad called me a hippie and a communist. My dad's misunderstanding of who I was hurt me deeply, at the time. Now I can laugh, for as a young woman I was as straight and naïve as they come, never delving into pot, way too organized and nerdy, a virgin until I was twenty-three. Ironically, I married a true hippie of the sixties: a then yoga practicing, vegetarian, war pacifist, politically concerned pot smoker.
But I digress. Coming from upper class, German immigrant stock, my father lived a comfortable childhood in Seattle and the Bay Area. Then his father lost everything through bad business decisions and the Thirties'Depression. Thus my father understood early in his life the differences between the rich and the poor. With the help of the G.I. Bill, my dad, newly married and a father himself, was able to buy our small home up in the California foothills of the San Fernando Valley. As can be imagined home and family were the top priorities of the creators of this generation. We were on our way to being a traditional middle class family, with a stay-at-home mom, when Dad lost his job. This sent us into a tailspin, ending in a spell of church-food-box-poverty until Mom found full-time employment at a savings and loan. And this became my childhood: my mother staying over thirty years at the savings and loan while simultaneously being a mother and housewife, and my dad being made over into a working class, self-employed, curmudgeon gardener.
My father took to the working class like a fish takes to water. Growing up, I would have never guessed my father came from wealth. Though racist in conversations, my dad hung out with Hispanic gardeners and befriended Black custodians. A preacher of philosophical sermons by inclination, my father held tirades concerning the inequities of the rich and the downtrodden. His eyes would be riveted to the t.v. from the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Oh, he'd bring out his epitaphs concerning hippies and near-do-wells and we'd be having lively conversations about what the goals of the Occupy Movement seem to be, but down deep in his hidden, huge heart, he'd understand, he'd admire and he'd agree: many of the hardworking 99 percent do not find America the land of milk and honey.
And here would be the key for my dad. Most of the working class are just that: people who put in a hell of a lot of working hours with a smaller-than-deserved amount of compensation, to simply feed their families. As he would say, we in the working class don't want to shirk our share of taxes and most of the time circumstances, luck, including backgrounds, culture and education, have not made it easy for us to become wealthy. We admire those who have found the honey. But goddamn it, people need to share and support each other in this great nation of ours, and tax fairness and better financial regulation would be a good start.
I am beginning to sound like my dad, especially when I know that he, too, would see simple solutions to our overwhelming debt crisis: get out of the wars we are in, bring the soldiers home, create jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure and emphasizing alternative sources of energy, increase rather than reduce our funds to education. My father would be appalled at the dumbing down of the American culture. He might be lured by the biased tirades of Fox News and the conservative talk show hosts, but he'd soon find his working class voice. He would not be fooled into thinking the Republican Party and these right-wingers were going have his welfare in mind.
As a young, impressionable, trying-to-find-herself, twenty year old, I was brought tears and frustration by the many social political arguments with my dad. I never thought that he understood where I was coming from. And maybe I was the one who didn't understand him. I saw his blowhard, bigoted inheritance and thought I would never be able to teach an old dog new tricks. But I forgot about my father's huge compassion for what he might label “the common man.” He would see immediately the increased inequities our society has been living with. He would remember the tent cities of the thirties' unemployed and he'd come to praise the Occupiers for their courage and their determination. “They're camping in the mud and the freezing cold for god's sake...they're putting themselves and their beliefs/our beliefs for a more humane America on the line...” Then my dad might be off running on about his muddy and cold trench living experiences during The War.
I miss my dad. I miss the arguments between an elder man who might have mellowed, but still been a fighter, and an aging daughter who is finding her philosophical footing beyond the black and the white, the right and the left, the rich and the poor. There were harsh words and walls built between us. There was the push and pull of a young woman refusing to be told what to do. But I knew all along there was love, and I knew all along I had been and would always be my father's devoted daughter! I have absorbed his truer values and made them my own: Have respect for all humans and creatures of the earth; Be kind and civil; Own a simple home filled with books and music and a garden; Be happy.
Early in our lives, my father, who was not a traditionally religious man and never attended church, gave each of his children a Bible with our individual names lettered in gold on the front. Inside he inscribed a personal message: Dear Girl – Remain securely happy, growing in love – interest – peacefully alert, respect forever greater mental satisfactions up ahead in life – regardless what others choose to do – you can find them (right at home) – Dad
Is this not basically what the Occupiers are trying to say?
© 2011
Showing posts with label father/daughter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label father/daughter. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Mountain Lion Eyes
Growing up with a spontaneous, moody father made my childhood both rich and uncertain. In early elementary school, I came home one day to find my dad had procured a kitten. This was no ordinary kitten. My father told us her name was Haywee and he had been given Haywee as a present from an “Indian Chief.” At this time my father worked for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Out on an isolated stretch of land far up the Angeles Crest Highway, he had come upon this authentic “Indian Chief.” They talked as two open-hearted men might, my father sharing in loving detail about his three small children. Taking an immediate liking to my handsome, gregarious, six-foot father, the Chief wanted to give him a present for his children. Thus, Haywee became a part of our household.
Every kid wants a dog, and we were no exception. Only the way we got this dog was never straight forward. My dad appeared one evening with this purebred “Norwegian Elk” puppy and said his name was Viking. This would be an incredible dog, my dad explained, for his genes went back to an ancient, northern, fiord land in Scandinavia called Norway. With his thick white fur, upturned tail and splashes of black, Viking was beautiful. My younger sister became the attached, primary caregiver and grieved uncontrollably when Viking, poisoned by a spiteful, unhappy neighbor, died two years later.
Dad, a self-employed landscaper, often took us with him on his gardening route. By our elementary school years he had a collection of rather rich clients, many of whom had, in the heat of a California summer, cool, refreshing swimming pools. With permission, we became swimmers in some of the finest pools in La Canada. Dad also made it a point to bring us to his most beautiful gardens. Lectures ensued about the names of plants, and what plants belonged in what climate. My father's face visibly softened, losing its contorted anger-at-the-world rage as he spoke about his landscape designs. A natural storyteller, he loved sharing background stories about the people we would meet. He proudly introduced us to his fellow gardeners during our many coffee shop breaks. We had no idea what Dad's work routine was like without us, but when we were with him, we stopped frequently for “treats.”
The love of nature and gardens was in Dad's blood. Our great grandfather was the director of the Hamburg Botanical Gardens in Germany. One of our traditional weekend excursions was to La Canada's Descanso Gardens. These acres of groomed yet wild public terrain had once been privately owned. Dad would throw together a bag of cheese, bread and fruit plus an added sack of duck food and off we would tramp. The gardens were free and entering by the main gate, we would make our way first to the small duck pond. From there we hiked through large, towering trees, open meadows and spacious rose gardens to enter the sumptuous former residence on the grounds. As we kids crossed small manmade bridges, sneaked in an out of bushes, Dad would spout his natural wisdom, never failing to point out this bird or that squirrel. Dad loved taking us off Descanso's beaten paths. But one visit brought us in contact with poison oak. Though we showered immediately upon coming home, we all broke out with the dreaded itchy rash. Mom railed and Dad felt slightly contrite, but further adventures continued.
Another favorite family outing was the more formal Huntington Gardens in Pasadena. Our first stop was the infamous art collection, where we stared at Da Vinci's original “Mona Lisa.” We made up stories about why her captivating smile intrigued Leonardo. As we strolled the garden byways, we then made our way through the Japanese themed landscape to the jungle-like river. Here Dad pointed out how the first Tarzan, Johnny Wisemuller, made the beloved and exciting Tarzan movies. We stood on the banks in awe, imaging ourselves swinging by the tree twined ropes.
On a par with Dad's love of nature, was his appreciation of the arts. When Dad pooled our savings money from Grandmother Hadley to create an addition to our small living room, we all helped him build solid wood, wall high bookshelves. On the top of these shelves, Dad carefully placed the precious German books Grandma Koch had brought over from her native Germany. Throughout my childhood, I yearningly stared at these heirlooms. Some day, I promised, I will learn German and visit the places of my ancestors' birth, and in my twenties, I spent several years studying and traveling abroad. On the shelf beneath was Dad's collection of antique, leather bound Shakespeare plays, special editions of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and his Modern Library Classics. Years later he would purchase the Britannica Great Book collection. With a bachelor of arts in English and German literature, I became the first in my family to receive a college diploma.
I remember our family being poor growing up, but somehow my dad always found a way to introduce us to great ballet and great music. On a star-studded evening, Dad quickly herded us into the car after dinner. We drove through darkened streets with no word about where we were going. Up the Los Angeles hills, past Griffith Park we drove and into the parking lot of the Greek Theater. The lot was full and the crowds bustled to enter the outdoor tiered rows. Dad stepped up to the box office and came away with four tickets. Three of these tickets were near the front while one ticket was a few rows back. We sat near the stage and Dad promised he would be guarding us from behind. As the volume of the full orchestra reached a crescendo, as the curtain rose, we were magically captivated by the beginnings of the New York City Ballet's “Nutcracker.” As the Christmas tree rose from the floor to the ceiling, we wide eyed, innocent children became part of an immortal memory.
There would be the incredible Russian Bolshoi Ballet at the Shrine Auditorium, classical/pop Hollywood Bowl concerts, and excursions to the Los Angeles Museums and the La Brea Tar Pits. Each brought an awe inspiring remembrance that would soothe the tougher, occasional violent times of our childhood. But the adventure that gave our family the happiest moments was the only vacation my father could organize and afford to take. It was this camping trip which brought us in contact with the mountain lion eyes and initiated us into the “Koch Warrior Tribe.”
Dad bought a huge burlap tent, outdoor cooking utensils and stove, plus five flannel-lined sleeping bags. These items were loaded into the back of Dad's Chevy pick-up truck, we were squeezed into the cab and off we went one summer to Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. Nearing Sequoia we drove our car right through the hollowed trunk of a gigantic redwood. We found a camp site on the edge of Sequoia's mountains, forested by further towering, ancient redwoods. It was our first camping adventure, but Dad seemed to know what to do. Mom became the primary cook and keeper of our camping quarters. Dad was the “scout leader.” Within hours of our arrival we were back in the truck, driving the rim of Sequoia's wilderness. For every animal/bird we spotted Dad paid us a dollar in spending money. We saw a family of quail waddling along the highway, chipmunks scurrying towards the tree tops, innumerable birds and eventually bears!
In the dark pre-morning, bears arrived at our site looking for food. While Dad and Mom slept in the tent, we children cuddled in the back of the pick-up. Lumbering down from the forest, two bears began creating an awful racket with the metal garbage cans. “Bears,” Mom nervously exclaimed, shaking Dad's shoulder. Groggily replying, “Uh Huh,” Dad rolled over and fell back asleep. We children sucked in all possible breath and sound and with no food left on our picnic table, the bears departed. When we went to cook breakfast the next morning, we found two plastic drinking cups with teeth marks on their rims. We kept those souvenir cups for years.
On our final Sequoia evening, Dad took us on a flashlight walk. As we hiked along a dusty road, we begin to hear strange noises. Our imaginations made these noises into growls and the growls into fierce human eating prey. “Quiet! Turn off your flashlights,” Dad suddenly warned. He led us to the edge of a small cliff, pointing down into what appeared to be a dark, redwood and fern lined cavern. To this day we swear we saw two bright yellow glowing eyes staring up at us. Dad said those were mountain lion eyes and we had hit the jack pot! Not one gasp of air escaped our little bodies as we stared and stared.
If we thought Sequoia had been an incredible adventure, Yosemite proved to be beyond belief. This was the mid-fifties, when camping was allowed right in the heart of the National Park and “fire falls” was the evening entertainment. Our camp ground formed a circle around this huge, lush meadow. Once the tent was up, we wandered over to the lodge to see what activities would entice us. Dad booked us on a half-day donkey ride and I remember wishing I could stay on my donkey forever. We hiked, we roasted marshmallows; we played with our neighboring campers. This was a kids' summer paradise.
During our first day, Dad repeatedly mentioned there would be a special evening ceremony. After supper, as twilight colored the meadow, Dad gathered us around the camp fire. He told us we had been extremely brave when the bears visited us in Sequoia; he added we had become expert animal watchers and outdoor enthusiasts. It was time for our initiation as Tribe Warriors.
We entered a darkened tent one at a time and met Dad's loving, flashlight glowing face. Sitting cross legged, speaking a strange native tongue, he placed a twine roped wooden, glazed medallion around each of our necks. This Sequoia medallion had a carved black bear face on the front. With this necklace we became initiated into the KOCH Tribe. We each received an appropriate name: I was Dancing Girl; my father was Chief Meat and Potatoes; my sister was Singing Princess; my brother was Chief Droopy Drawers; and my mother was Laughing Maiden. We treasured these medallions as if they were made of gold, and slept proudly that night.
Like the climax to a fairytale, on our final camp evening, sunset brought deer down from the hills. One young stag with new budding antlers walked into our camp site. Dad signaled us to step softly. The deer showed no fear as we cautiously surrounded him for a memorable photo. I remember being mesmerized by his elegant beauty and loving deer ever since. As darkness descended all the human families gathered to sit on blankets on the open meadow. The sky was pitch black with no flashlight or lantern lit. Our eyes strained towards the top of the monstrous, jagged mountain peering down upon us. There as if on a high wire were tiny men arranging the “show.” In an instant we saw chunks of fire streaming down the mountain, becoming a falling fountain of fire.
We never went camping again. In our teen years we once did a spontaneous weekend excursion to Sequoia/Yosemite, staying in cabins, but it wasn't the same. We grew up and Dad grew older. His stories became rants and sermons. As his adult children left, he didn't know how to hold onto us. Despite my father's dysfunction; despite my fears of him; despite our later conflicts during my college years, I want to remember the magical education he provided. I want to remember his youthful heart and yearning for a close, loving family. I want to remember his serene face whenever he was in a garden or a forest or a meadow. I want to remember the wisdom he shared with a then unresponsive teenager. And most of all I want to remember forever those yellow, glowing, mountain lion eyes.
© 2011
Every kid wants a dog, and we were no exception. Only the way we got this dog was never straight forward. My dad appeared one evening with this purebred “Norwegian Elk” puppy and said his name was Viking. This would be an incredible dog, my dad explained, for his genes went back to an ancient, northern, fiord land in Scandinavia called Norway. With his thick white fur, upturned tail and splashes of black, Viking was beautiful. My younger sister became the attached, primary caregiver and grieved uncontrollably when Viking, poisoned by a spiteful, unhappy neighbor, died two years later.
Dad, a self-employed landscaper, often took us with him on his gardening route. By our elementary school years he had a collection of rather rich clients, many of whom had, in the heat of a California summer, cool, refreshing swimming pools. With permission, we became swimmers in some of the finest pools in La Canada. Dad also made it a point to bring us to his most beautiful gardens. Lectures ensued about the names of plants, and what plants belonged in what climate. My father's face visibly softened, losing its contorted anger-at-the-world rage as he spoke about his landscape designs. A natural storyteller, he loved sharing background stories about the people we would meet. He proudly introduced us to his fellow gardeners during our many coffee shop breaks. We had no idea what Dad's work routine was like without us, but when we were with him, we stopped frequently for “treats.”
The love of nature and gardens was in Dad's blood. Our great grandfather was the director of the Hamburg Botanical Gardens in Germany. One of our traditional weekend excursions was to La Canada's Descanso Gardens. These acres of groomed yet wild public terrain had once been privately owned. Dad would throw together a bag of cheese, bread and fruit plus an added sack of duck food and off we would tramp. The gardens were free and entering by the main gate, we would make our way first to the small duck pond. From there we hiked through large, towering trees, open meadows and spacious rose gardens to enter the sumptuous former residence on the grounds. As we kids crossed small manmade bridges, sneaked in an out of bushes, Dad would spout his natural wisdom, never failing to point out this bird or that squirrel. Dad loved taking us off Descanso's beaten paths. But one visit brought us in contact with poison oak. Though we showered immediately upon coming home, we all broke out with the dreaded itchy rash. Mom railed and Dad felt slightly contrite, but further adventures continued.
Another favorite family outing was the more formal Huntington Gardens in Pasadena. Our first stop was the infamous art collection, where we stared at Da Vinci's original “Mona Lisa.” We made up stories about why her captivating smile intrigued Leonardo. As we strolled the garden byways, we then made our way through the Japanese themed landscape to the jungle-like river. Here Dad pointed out how the first Tarzan, Johnny Wisemuller, made the beloved and exciting Tarzan movies. We stood on the banks in awe, imaging ourselves swinging by the tree twined ropes.
On a par with Dad's love of nature, was his appreciation of the arts. When Dad pooled our savings money from Grandmother Hadley to create an addition to our small living room, we all helped him build solid wood, wall high bookshelves. On the top of these shelves, Dad carefully placed the precious German books Grandma Koch had brought over from her native Germany. Throughout my childhood, I yearningly stared at these heirlooms. Some day, I promised, I will learn German and visit the places of my ancestors' birth, and in my twenties, I spent several years studying and traveling abroad. On the shelf beneath was Dad's collection of antique, leather bound Shakespeare plays, special editions of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and his Modern Library Classics. Years later he would purchase the Britannica Great Book collection. With a bachelor of arts in English and German literature, I became the first in my family to receive a college diploma.
I remember our family being poor growing up, but somehow my dad always found a way to introduce us to great ballet and great music. On a star-studded evening, Dad quickly herded us into the car after dinner. We drove through darkened streets with no word about where we were going. Up the Los Angeles hills, past Griffith Park we drove and into the parking lot of the Greek Theater. The lot was full and the crowds bustled to enter the outdoor tiered rows. Dad stepped up to the box office and came away with four tickets. Three of these tickets were near the front while one ticket was a few rows back. We sat near the stage and Dad promised he would be guarding us from behind. As the volume of the full orchestra reached a crescendo, as the curtain rose, we were magically captivated by the beginnings of the New York City Ballet's “Nutcracker.” As the Christmas tree rose from the floor to the ceiling, we wide eyed, innocent children became part of an immortal memory.
There would be the incredible Russian Bolshoi Ballet at the Shrine Auditorium, classical/pop Hollywood Bowl concerts, and excursions to the Los Angeles Museums and the La Brea Tar Pits. Each brought an awe inspiring remembrance that would soothe the tougher, occasional violent times of our childhood. But the adventure that gave our family the happiest moments was the only vacation my father could organize and afford to take. It was this camping trip which brought us in contact with the mountain lion eyes and initiated us into the “Koch Warrior Tribe.”
Dad bought a huge burlap tent, outdoor cooking utensils and stove, plus five flannel-lined sleeping bags. These items were loaded into the back of Dad's Chevy pick-up truck, we were squeezed into the cab and off we went one summer to Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks. Nearing Sequoia we drove our car right through the hollowed trunk of a gigantic redwood. We found a camp site on the edge of Sequoia's mountains, forested by further towering, ancient redwoods. It was our first camping adventure, but Dad seemed to know what to do. Mom became the primary cook and keeper of our camping quarters. Dad was the “scout leader.” Within hours of our arrival we were back in the truck, driving the rim of Sequoia's wilderness. For every animal/bird we spotted Dad paid us a dollar in spending money. We saw a family of quail waddling along the highway, chipmunks scurrying towards the tree tops, innumerable birds and eventually bears!
In the dark pre-morning, bears arrived at our site looking for food. While Dad and Mom slept in the tent, we children cuddled in the back of the pick-up. Lumbering down from the forest, two bears began creating an awful racket with the metal garbage cans. “Bears,” Mom nervously exclaimed, shaking Dad's shoulder. Groggily replying, “Uh Huh,” Dad rolled over and fell back asleep. We children sucked in all possible breath and sound and with no food left on our picnic table, the bears departed. When we went to cook breakfast the next morning, we found two plastic drinking cups with teeth marks on their rims. We kept those souvenir cups for years.
On our final Sequoia evening, Dad took us on a flashlight walk. As we hiked along a dusty road, we begin to hear strange noises. Our imaginations made these noises into growls and the growls into fierce human eating prey. “Quiet! Turn off your flashlights,” Dad suddenly warned. He led us to the edge of a small cliff, pointing down into what appeared to be a dark, redwood and fern lined cavern. To this day we swear we saw two bright yellow glowing eyes staring up at us. Dad said those were mountain lion eyes and we had hit the jack pot! Not one gasp of air escaped our little bodies as we stared and stared.
If we thought Sequoia had been an incredible adventure, Yosemite proved to be beyond belief. This was the mid-fifties, when camping was allowed right in the heart of the National Park and “fire falls” was the evening entertainment. Our camp ground formed a circle around this huge, lush meadow. Once the tent was up, we wandered over to the lodge to see what activities would entice us. Dad booked us on a half-day donkey ride and I remember wishing I could stay on my donkey forever. We hiked, we roasted marshmallows; we played with our neighboring campers. This was a kids' summer paradise.
During our first day, Dad repeatedly mentioned there would be a special evening ceremony. After supper, as twilight colored the meadow, Dad gathered us around the camp fire. He told us we had been extremely brave when the bears visited us in Sequoia; he added we had become expert animal watchers and outdoor enthusiasts. It was time for our initiation as Tribe Warriors.
We entered a darkened tent one at a time and met Dad's loving, flashlight glowing face. Sitting cross legged, speaking a strange native tongue, he placed a twine roped wooden, glazed medallion around each of our necks. This Sequoia medallion had a carved black bear face on the front. With this necklace we became initiated into the KOCH Tribe. We each received an appropriate name: I was Dancing Girl; my father was Chief Meat and Potatoes; my sister was Singing Princess; my brother was Chief Droopy Drawers; and my mother was Laughing Maiden. We treasured these medallions as if they were made of gold, and slept proudly that night.
Like the climax to a fairytale, on our final camp evening, sunset brought deer down from the hills. One young stag with new budding antlers walked into our camp site. Dad signaled us to step softly. The deer showed no fear as we cautiously surrounded him for a memorable photo. I remember being mesmerized by his elegant beauty and loving deer ever since. As darkness descended all the human families gathered to sit on blankets on the open meadow. The sky was pitch black with no flashlight or lantern lit. Our eyes strained towards the top of the monstrous, jagged mountain peering down upon us. There as if on a high wire were tiny men arranging the “show.” In an instant we saw chunks of fire streaming down the mountain, becoming a falling fountain of fire.
We never went camping again. In our teen years we once did a spontaneous weekend excursion to Sequoia/Yosemite, staying in cabins, but it wasn't the same. We grew up and Dad grew older. His stories became rants and sermons. As his adult children left, he didn't know how to hold onto us. Despite my father's dysfunction; despite my fears of him; despite our later conflicts during my college years, I want to remember the magical education he provided. I want to remember his youthful heart and yearning for a close, loving family. I want to remember his serene face whenever he was in a garden or a forest or a meadow. I want to remember the wisdom he shared with a then unresponsive teenager. And most of all I want to remember forever those yellow, glowing, mountain lion eyes.
© 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
The Garden
Walking through a rose garden always reminds me of my father. Though my father was a professional landscaper, he told us he never had time to work on his garden. But with my grandfather's help, my father built a solid cement brick wall around the backyard of my childhood home. Along the outside of the wall facing Apperson Street, Dad planted eight rose bushes, each bush carefully selected for uniqueness and contrasting, accenting color.
Every Autumn Dad pruned and mulched these roses, and every month he'd dig in the fertilizer. By the time I was in elementary school, the largeness of the blooms was legendary in the neighborhood. Neighbors walking by exclaimed at their beauty. When my sister and I were five and three years old, the whiff of the petals' perfume overpowered us as we stood hand in hand by the garden gate to have our picture taken.
Though Dad complained about his work as a landscape gardener and came home covered in soil and exhaustion, puttering in his own garden gave him a grounded contentment. On the inside of the rose wall, bordering a backyard lawn, pathway and square red tile patio, Dad created a shade garden. First, he built a raised bed edged with a small one foot stone retaining wall, and covered this bed with a wooden lattice structure supported by the backing of the larger cement brick structure. Then he planted varieties of ferns, coleus, fuchsias and other shade loving perennials.
Across the lawn, opposite this shade garden, Dad sketched an oval-shaped array of wild flowers. Standing in front of this rainbow of color, I had my picture taken the day I graduated from high school. I was all dressed up in a golden suit with a broad brim hat. My hair was long and a friend had tried to do my make-up. I looked and felt like a tall, yellow daisy amongst miniature white ones. I was supposed to be so grown up, but from my over-protective upbringing I had no idea then what grown up meant.
In the farthest corner of the yard, to the right of the wild flowers, Dad installed a redwood-framed greenhouse. It was essentially a put-together kit, but Dad struggled over each and every pane of glass he set inside the frame. After all the toil, my father grew seedlings into plants only a couple of times. But he talked about turning the greenhouse into a small nursery business throughout his life. Like many of Dad's dreams, this one didn't make it out of the pillow case.
Near the hot house Dad installed huge dirt bins against the far wall. It was on this part of the wall where my brother, David, fell while goofing around with his friends. A loose brick followed his fall and hit him on the head. He ended up with a clamp on his scalp because he wouldn't hold still for the stitches. It was in these bins that a wonderful surprise took place. One Easter Sunday, my father brought home a huge white rabbit. A week later we stared open mouthed as this plump bunny began pulling out her hair and creating a furry nest in one of the bins. Soon there popped out thirteen pink and brown skinned babies. We had never seen anything so small, squirmy or ugly in our lives. Slowly they grew fur coats and begin to resemble real rabbits. Eventually, we had three gigantic cages of rabbits all dropping garden enhancing rabbit dung. We became the rabbit entrepreneurs of the neighborhood. Everyone became rabbit owners. Though, I remember losing one or two of these rabbits in the garden and never finding them again.
In our backyard were a number of orange trees. Before our house was built, this California land had been a lush orange grove. For years, besides owning orange trees, our tract of houses bordered what remained of this grove. Then one day instead of the buzz of bees or the wind circling through the trees, we heard constant hammering and buzz saws. New homes were under construction. After the workers left for the day, we would forage through the wood frames and cement foundations for “money,” the metal washers left behind. When families moved into these houses, the daughter in the house directly behind ours became my sister Donna's best friend.
The temperature of our summer days would often soar to over a hundred degrees. But we'd be splashing around in our wading pool and having water hose fights while sucking on oranges freshly picked from our trees. Or we'd sell home baked cookies and ice cold lemonade to friends and passing neighbors as we slurped and ate the profits. Little did we know then, but we could have been on a tropical island paradise and never had it so good!
In the front garden were two sweeping patches of lawn crisscrossed by sidewalks, overlooked by a bush lined porch. Here rolling in and being grass tickled seemed the natural game to play. On the sidewalks all the neighborhood kids learned to ride a two-wheeler on the same small bike with training wheels.
Bordering our next door neighbor's house, Dad built a small open, ranch style, cedar fence. In front of this fence he planted miniature pink tea roses. These tea roses had a particularly sweet smell and a magical fairy-like power which drew me and my imagination to them when I was a younger child.
Everywhere one looked there seemed to be a definite purpose and order to my father's garden. When the grass grew too tall, however, when the weeds crept in between the roses, we knew Dad wasn't happy. Throughout my childhood, Dad's moods were never easy to predict. One minute he would walk through the garden gate whistling, the next he would slam the gate in anger. This father who made beauty out of mud, where had he gone?
When my dad retired, he began spending longer hours in his garden. His face carried more weathered wrinkles, his hair was starting to gray and his talk was quieter and less harsh. His demeanor sagged, giving the feeling of aching sadness. With his children grown, his loneliness was visible. Dad often popped in unannounced on my college doorstep. I'd try my best to talk with him, but inevitably we would get into a fight about the political and social unrest of the 60s. I was a communist and a hippie in his eyes.
My dad's last unannounced visit was to the Pacific Northwest where I had settled. Though I was in my thirties, we still had the most difficult time communicating with each other. He mentioned this would be the last time he would make it up to Oregon. I didn't listen carefully enough to his words. Two months later he was raking the leaves off the roof and cleaning out the gutters of the house when he fell. He died in the hospital that night.
I wanted to spread my father's ashes amongst his roses. He would have loved being fertilizer. He would have loved being blown by the wind, pounded by the rain. But Mom and the rest of my family would never have gone for this. Instead his ashes, safely secured in a urn, were cemented inside a small boxed shaped hole in a wall surrounded by a small garden in a mortuary called Forest Lawn. I suppose some people would say it was an appropriate resting place for a gardener. But there was only one thing missing, rose bushes.
© 2011
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