by Stan Grimes

Created on: May 28, 2008   Last Updated: July 06, 2008

Yes, I am a garden baby boomer. I grew up green so to speak. Of course I was of no use in the family's plot when I was six or seven. I tended to step on the green beans and corn starts smashing them into the usual verbal outrage by my dad. But, when I was ten you betcha I was drafted every spring morning to pull weeds while the ground was moist. My father, the verbal outrage guy, taught me quickly the difference between a weed and a tomato plant, my butt still remembers.

At the ages of twelve and thirteen I was honored by my parents. I was given the holy of holies instrument, the tiller. Oh boy, the butt-chewing guy had a party with that one. We were quite short those years on pumpkin blossoms. I didn't know they were edible? I was puberty-bound kid for crying-out-loud.

You're asking yourself what is so amazing about all this nonsense. Here's the deal. My father actually entrusted planting rights to me when I was fifteen. It was the last year I was allowed in the garden. My rows were 'S' shaped and you might want to throw in an 'L' and a 'T'. The following year on my sixteenth birthday I was given chicken house duties. The sacred garden of Gri-sem-an-ee (us kids called it that when the parents weren't around) was thankfully handed over gently to my youngest brother, Dan. He still curses me to this day.

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