Heydi-Ho Neighbor

My first (and only) father-in-law taught me, well rather, insisted I keep my garden weeded. He bought me a hoe that was easy to use, just push it back and forth across the ground like a vacuum cleaner and presto-magno, no weeds.

While his garden was immaculate, I was out squatting in my weedy garden, thinning the carrots, and having contractions every five minutes or so. I'd stand up again and my pregnant belly would relax. I told the doctor about it and he wasn't worried, but I wasn't that far along, so it frightened me. And I'd lost the first baby--so you can imagine. As it turned out, everything went fine with the new one, except that she was posterior and I had to be turn her, which exhausted me, all the pushing that is, way worse than weeding.

Back to the garden, that first garden had rich dark soil, soil that had been worked by hearty European hands for a lifetime. Get this, the house cost eight thousand dollars, two bedrooms, one bath, large yard. The elderly gentleman just wanted enough money to go back to the old country. This was in 1975—prior to the oil embargo and rising interest rates.

This rich dark soil grew everything well, weeds, weed, and peas. Yes, my first husband dabbled in the proliferation of the hemp plant. Yes, I didn't like it and tried to stop him, but then the plant—there was just one—got stolen out of my garden. One day, while the pregant lady worked on the nursary, a car stopped on the street. A guy ran through the neighbors yard, hopped the fence, pulled the plant, and then raced back to the car and sped away. I was relieved. What pregnant lady wants to go to jail—of course, it would have been him not me. Or would it?

Interesting, there isn't much else I remember about that vegetable garden. Oh yes, my brother came for a visit and picked my first ripe tomato while I was inside cleaning the bathroom (that bothered me). Oh and digging a potato so large, it only took one to feed my husband, brother, his friend, and me. I was the only one home at the time with that huge thing, and when it came out of the ground, I probably ran in circles, praising the potato gods. But because I was an efficient wife, I started dinner. Before I cut the thing up though, I drew a line around it on a piece of paper, like a child draws a line around her hand. "Look at this," I said when they finally arrived. (Probably been out smoking the weed) "Have you ever seen a larger potato?"

They laughed. (See what I'm saying.) "Where is it?"

"Why , in the pot. Supper is on."

Ciao!