What's that growing out there anyway?
Sweat ran down my back as I walked through leafy green stalks, dragging a scarred blade across the dirt.
Mosquitoes and flies landed on my skin, feasted and flew away as I moved through the foliage. The bugs didn't care they were drinking all my blood, and neither did I. At least this misery would soon be over. At least ...
"Jason," Mom called from the house. "Lunch."
I dropped the hoe where I stood, pushed through the sweet corn and walked to the house, angry at the heat, angry at the bugs, angry at the corn, and angry at my parents for giving me garden duty.
It isn't fair, I thought, too young to realize "fair" only worked in political systems where no one was happy anyway. I don't even like vegetables.
I walked into the house, kicked off my shoes, washed my hands and sat down to a plate of french fries and a hamburger loaded with pickles, onions, tomatoes and lettuce. I ate my lunch, oblivious to all the vegetables I scarfed down with it.
- - -
Every year, my dad planted a garden.
A big garden.
The kind of garden that calling it a "garden" was like calling Godzilla a gecko. It wasn't a garden, it was a field. You get that when your dad's a farmer and he plows a spot for the "taters" with a field tractor.
I hated the garden.
Every year it got bigger, like it was trying to conquer the world with its high fiber and vitamin A.
When I was little, our garden was small. A few green beans, some corn, a tomato or two, enough peas to make my sister throw up, and onions. Then, so slowly I didn't realize it until I had to hoe the mess, my folks added carrots, radishes, green peppers, potatoes, pumpkins, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, lettuce, cauliflower, and other healthy stuff that gave kids the heebie-jeebies.
My parents turned our back yard into a world kind of like Branson if it were run by plants.
It kept me up at night.
- - -
"What are we going to have out there?" I asked Dad before he planted the garden, afraid of what he'd say.
"Peas, carrots, green beans, onions, rhubarb, asparagus ..."
Rhubarb? Asparagus?
"What's a rhubarb?" I asked.
"It doesn't matter," Dad said. "It's your job to make sure it grows."
Being the only boy in a farm family means three things: 1) You're going to work - a lot, 2) You're going to work a lot and be happy about it, and 3) You're going to work a lot, be happy about it and smell like hog manure on your first date. And if you don't take good care of the garden, there won't be a first date.
Dad planted everything he'd threatened, plus turnips.
And I took care of it all.
I even took satisfaction in eating some of the vegetables as I worked. Yeah, I'd show them. I'd eat their onions. I'd eat their carrots. I'd eat their turnips ...
Then I realized I liked vegetables and suddenly working in the garden wasn't so bad.
