Happy Dad's Day

To all you Dads out there

Who got silly ties

Or home made cards and burnt breakfast in bed.
Who wish they'd've gotten a pair of these cool

Cufflink-Levels

Or an OMG Super Charged BBQ GRILL!

~~~~~

My dad was pretty cool for a guy with three daughters. LoL He still coached my sister's softball teams and taught us how to fish, but he was a pro at attending dance recitals and vocal and orchestra concerts too.

He took me to my first Opera (Madame Butterfly) and my first stage Musical (The Sound of Music). He planted my first garden with me. In fact, he made gardening magical for me.

So imagine... One weekend morning when I was 6 or 7 years old, dad and I tilled a small patch of soil (Michigan clay) and planted radish and carrot seeds. We chattered the whole time while we weeded, seeded, and watered our neat little rows. It was amazing to me that *we* were going to grow something to eat (that I didn't even like!) with our own hands. How exciting! I sneaked peeks at the little plot of dirt all day long. It was all I could do to sleep that night.

It must've been a Saturday that we planted because my parents were both asleep in their bed when I tiptoed past them in my pajamas early the next morning and out to the garden patch. Over the concrete patio, down the stairs and around and

WHOA!

Our radishes were up! Two neat rows lined with pairs of tiny green leaves, right behind the seed package I staked to the ground with a popsicle stick. There they were, overnight. I RAN in the house...

"DAD!" I wailed, and I'm sure I went on and on about how they were UP and could we eat them yet and...

My dad would have none of it. The seeds weren't going to sprout overnight and no, I couldn't eat them yet. He didn't believe me.

I'm sure I whined for a good long time because he finally relented and came outside with me. And there, in our two lovingly tended rows, he was greeted with... itty bitty radish leaves poking up from the soil.

I think he marveled at it even more than I did, but it was there, right in front of our eyes. To this day I can't eat a radish without thinking of that morning, us standing in the damp grass in our pajamas. And I still don't like radishes all that much!!

I didn't see the connection when I was little, but his dad, my grandfather ("Zeyde") was a good gardener too. He called me his "strawberry girl". (The kid who ate them off the vine before he could!) He also grew the most amazing Silver Dollar plants I've ever seen. As much as I've tried, I can't grow them at all.

So this morning, with thoughts of my Zeyde and my dad, who have both passed on, I head out to my garden to dead head my flowers and pause, to think about your love of the earth and how you each gave me this as an enduring gift. Thank you.

Happy Father's Day