Re: come into the garden, Maud

It's not chauvinistic, Scottie, in my opinion -- Americans aren't into
gardening nearly the way you Brits are. My wife does all the gardening
in my home now.

What's really funny is that when my wife was out back with her trowel
she dressed up in short brown suede boots, short beige overalls, and a
white t-shirt. She also wore a small brimmed, soft, beige hat with a
medium blue checkered inside that showed up on the brim when she folded
it up. After she fnished working she came in and asked me if she looked
like a proper Englishwoman doing her gardening :).

She would have been very disappointed if I had answered no.

These are vegetable gardens, though, not flower beds. My father used to
grow lemons, oranges, apples, peaches, nectarines, tomatos, and plums in
a very small backyard in our home in California where I grew up. There
were two small flower beds out front (beds of daisies with rose bushes
growing up out of them) but there was no question the fruits were the
star of the show in his mind. Our tomatos were bigger than the average
adult male's hand - almost the size of the larger kind of grapefruits.
Most houses in my neighborhood had shrubbery and a lawn, but no flower
beds. A few did. I think it depends upon the neighborhood, but I'm
inclined to think your general impression is correct.

Jim

Scottie Bowman wrote:

> I'm intrigued by these gardening references from both
> Jim & Daniel. In a completely unthinking, chauvinistic way
> I'd never associated the Yanks with green thoughts in a green
> shade. It was always an English gentlewoman in her sun hat
> & canvas gloves bent over her flower bed while, high above,
> the Spitfires etched their icy lines in the blue, Kentish sky.
> Or, indeed, my own Scots mother resolutely forking up potato
> drills during that same wartime summer.
>
> I can't think of a single scene from Hollywood - to which
> so many of us look for some picture of American life -
> where Clint or Jennifer or Arnie or Demi straighten up
> charmingly to stretch their backs after a wholesome hour
> in the shrubbery.
>
> Plenty of sprinklers playing on manicured lawns, yes,
> but little or nothing of the real thing. Was I misled?
> Are you actually all out there with trowel & watering
> can, secaturs in the holster ever ready for the quick
> dead-heading?
>
> Scottie B.
>
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Received on Mon May 26 10:06:52 2003