Kathryn, if you’re reading this – I’m sorry.
Kathryn and I were roommates in college, and she has a very nice little plant that she called Sylvester. (It was some kind of evergreen-fern thing. Brad will know.) Somehow, when school was done I got custody of Sylvester and he traveled many places with us – Minnesota, Maryland, and then back to Seward. Not being a plant person, I have hated Sylvester for many years now. He just kept growing taller, skinnier and sad-looking. He’d drop branches like there was no tomorrow, so it looked like a sickly palm tree. Lloyd and I have argued about euthanizing him, and this summer Brad said, “Put it outside in the winter. It will die a painless, natural death.”
So we did.
Mission accomplished! Plant’s dead! On Lloyd’s second day of yard work we were disposing of the corpse and found this!
Whaaaa? Still in tiny pots? No wonder! The hilarious thing is that I think Lloyd and Brad repotted this from it’s earlier container, but they just put all the dirt in from the small pot.
This was also found in the dirt. Kathryn, I think it’s your sleeve.
Pore Sylvester’s daid, pore Sylvester (whatever last name you choose) is daid.
Hey, I’m sure in plant years Sylvester led a very long fulfilling life. It was just his time …
And did you live in Maryland? When? Where? Why? How long?
Why’d you leave?
We lived in Greenbelt and taught in Landover Hills from ’93 – ’95. We had two different apartments – moving because we aquired Cricket at the first apartment, but they didn’t allow pets. We were sneaky with her – when the maintanence people were going to come by, we’d take her to school in a big filing box with air holes drilled in the bottom. “Nothing but important papers in here!”
We moved back because Lloyd was offered a full-time job with the detasseling company he worked for in the summer. We miss the shopping, but not the crime. (There were a bunch of murders, if I remember correctly.) Hardly anybody gets murdered in Seward.
Murder in Maryland … you funny!
Thanks for the info. I never knew. I always consider Greenbelt part of Washington DC, even though I know it’s not. I hate the murders & hard crimes too. As much as I tease you, I really like small town life. The county I live in doesn’t have a lot of murder. I often go out & don’t lock my door. So far all I’ve ever come home to is my kids friends inside making themselves at home. We even have sheriffs and a Main Street. But I too like to have things nearby … not stores so much, but movies & entertainment stuff, food stores, & banks. I could be happy in Mayberry as long as Mt. Pilot isn’t too far away.
PS Do you know where the Pore _______ is daid is from?
I would guess that it’s a Seward plant. We didn’t have much to do in college, so I would think that she bought it around here.
I agree about us being more D.C. than out in the state. I think our first apartment was just outside the beltway.
Please comfort Brad for us for the leaving of his family. I’m sure he’ll be verklempt!
It is a Norfolk Island Pine. It was a nice specimen. It was spindly because it didn’t get as much light as it might have liked.
Letting it die outside was the nicest death you could give it. Death by starvation (no light) or death by thirst would have been cruel. As would have been death by murder.
Goodbye, Sylvester. (Great name for a tree, by the way. It means “Forest Dweller”)
You’re so wise it’s frightening.