My thumb ain’t green...

This may be hard for some to believe, but I felt a bit of local pride in hearing that Betty Beazley was named a Master Gardener of the Year. Congratulations. In fact, congratulations are in order for any and all who achieve the title of Master Gardener.

True, gardening can often sound a lot like yard work, and as most folks know, I am definitely on record as to my feelings regarding yard work.

But gardening and mowing are two different things if you want to get technical about it, and although I may grumble about the idea of gardening, I have to admit to feeling a certain amount of envy when it comes to these Master Gardeners. Or anyone who gardens successfully, whether she or he is called a master or not.

My envy is aimed at all those who have the famous “green thumb” of lore and legend. I learned at an early age I did not have one. If anything, I had the equally famous “brown thumb.”

I did briefly have an agricultural urge (or gardening urge, or whatever) one year, and I tried planting some things. Nothing.

Throughout the years, a lot of folks have tried telling me that this “green thumbbrown thumb” business was nothing but a myth. All one had to do was follow directions on the seed package, or do what the grown up neighbor gardener advised me to do, and there would be results. But I continued “brown thumbing” it.

It wasn’t made any easier when the Baby Sister came along. She had the green thumb of the family. No kidding. She could take a little seed, plant it in a little hole she dug with one of her Baby Sister fingers, and Viola! A plant would emerge. And flourish.

I used to jokingly say that she could take a dead stick, jam it into the around, and it would sprout. I never suggested she try that, because it probably would have happened just that way, and I would have walked away, muttering to myself (the Baby Sister loves to make me mutter to myself).

I continued, inadvertently murdering plants, killing seeds and generally wrecking havoc in the world of civilized cultivation. I specifically remember a cutting from one of Alice’s mom’s azaleas – one with especially beautiful blooms. I tried, I planted where her mom told me to. I watched, I hoped.

Dead. To this day, I know it had nothing to do with the soil. It was the Curse of Brown-Thumbed David. It wasn’t helped when Alice took a little twig and supervised me as I stuck it in a hole. Now, 20 years later, it’s The Cedar That Ate the Side Yard. I have no doubt that it was Alice’s supervision that saved the tree, and nothing that I did. I’m surprised, though, that my mere touch didn’t doom the poor thing.

Of course, if I have been death to desirable plants, I seem unable to have any effect on the undesirable ones. They are going to come, no matter what. There is a tangle of shrubs toward the back of our yard, which was there when we bought the place back in the last century. Among those shrubs there is a vine, whose sole reason for existence, as near as I can figure, is to produce extremely nasty thorns. I cannot get rid of it.

Thank goodness the clover came naturally. If I had tried to plant it, we would have a cloverless yard. I’ve always liked clover, even when I was a kid. And now that I’m grown, I know that bees like clover. And while I’ve been seeing very few bees over the last couple of years, the clover is there if they need it.

I finally gave it up, and stopped trying to bring any plants into the world of the living. I let others do that. Meanwhile, I continue my never ending battle against grass and thorny vines, wishing some of my “Brown Thumbness” would carry over to them.

• • • •

I read that there is the possibility of a bi-partisan bill to make assault rifles a little harder to get. I have stated my position on this before. I will state it again: I’ll believe it when I see it. There is too much politics involved. And when politics is involved – well, like I said, I’ll believe it when I see it.

• • • •

“A lot of Covid is starting out like a sinus infection.”

Those were the words of my physician, when I came in for a sinus infection, which turned out to be just that. No Covid. But I still had to wait in the parking lot while they made sure.

He, and apparently a lot of other doctors, are worried about an uptick in Covid cases. Did we relax too soon? Did we get a little careless? I hope not. I hope this uptick just ticks itself away.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: David Nichol is a freelance writer who retired from the Times-Herald. He can be contacted at nicholdb@cablelynx.com.)