by Kevin Mcinturff

Created on: August 18, 2008   Last Updated: October 27, 2008

As children, my brother and I would often visit my grandparents who lived on a lake in East Texas. In the evenings, as my grandfather would go out to water his garden, I would often accompany him. One time I asked him why he kept a garden. "It's something I've done all my life," he replied.

My grandfather grew up on the windswept plains of Oklahoma during the 1900's. His father was in the Sooner land rush and staked a claim near Blackwell. For the first few years, my grandfather lived in an earthen dugout until their house was built. The family would farm wheat, but there was always a garden. As a young child, he would help his mother tend the garden until he was old enough to work the fields. For him, working the earth was all he knew.

After he grew up, he went to business school for a couple of years, got married and started a family in Joplin, Missouri. The Depression was just beginning and times were lean. My grandfather operated a small grocery store and had a hard time keeping it open. Knowing people did not have much money, he would allow them to buy on credit. It did not make good business sense, but it was his way of being a good neighbor. When WWII broke out, he sold the store and began a Pepsi Cola distributorship. Due to sugar rationing, he would usually sell out by the third day, but that was no problem; he would just take his family fishing. Granddad loved fishing as much as he loved gardening.

My grandfather went on to do many more things in his life, but gardening was always there for him. He always seemed happiest when he was out there tilling the soil or watering the plants. Of course, he loved sitting down to a plate of hot, fried catfish and fresh steamed potatoes. "Always better when it's homegrown," he would say.

It has been over twenty years since my granddad passed on, but I will never forget those days spent in his garden. The old beat up straw hat he would wear as we would pick green beans together or the smell of the earth while digging up carrots. For him, keeping a garden was more than a hobby, it was something which defined his life.

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