Wednesday, June 10, 2009


When Rebecca took this series of Pictures of the three of us (she is pressing a bulb with one of her hands) last Saturday, Rosemary told me that Lauren had closed her eyes for all of them. Rosemary, for once, was wrong and Lauren not only managed not to blink but somehow the three of us posed with pleasant smiles. I am holding a tiny hosta called Cat’s Eye and Rebecca is proudly showing her potted Hosta ‘June’. My Hosta ‘June’ is behind. They are different because Rebecca’s is a North American tissue culture (cloned) plant and mine came from a division of an English plant. Rebecca is aware of this and she is jealous. I think I might have to cut a chunk out in the fall for her. After all I should reward her sense of good taste!

As I fly to Austin and to my teenage roots I will keep this picture in my head should I get depressed about soon finding myself in a room with all of us old, bald and paunchy.

I will look forward to meeting up with Captain Henry Harper. On the last day of school, on the day of our graduation I did not go to the prom because I could not dance and I was too shy to ask a girl. Harper felt sorry for me. At the time his father was on officer at the nearby Bergstrom Air Force Base (now the very Ausin Airport my plane will land on). He invited me to a pool party at the base. I remember running after girls in bathing suits with chunks of watermelon in my hand. The game was to throw them at them or rub them on. I believe that was the first and last pool side watermelon party I ever went to. After the party, Harper found me a date and the four of us (Harper had no problem getting his own dates) went cruising and parking in a Corvair. In my late teens I finally discovered the overture delights of a woman.