Lilium 'Lollipop' 6 July 2026

It is plainly evident that most of the people I have met in my 83 years are dead. This produces in me a constant memory of a past that cannot return.

A few days ago I saw several flowers of one of Rosemary’s lilies. There was no metal ID sign so I wondered what it was. I went into my plant scans and immediately found out it was Lily ‘Lollipop’.

Seeing the lily and knowing that Rosemary had planted it there in the back lane garden was almost like being in the presence of a ghost. I immediately connected the lily to another lollipop in my distant past. Around 1950 I was going to the American Grammar School in Buenos Aires. It was three blocks from the American School where my mother taught. It was right outside the Belgrano R train station. We took the train from our Coghlan train station (we lived in the neighbourhood by that name) to Belgrano.

Sometimes my mother would take me to a nearby ice-cream shop called Lollipop that catered to the students of the nearby American schools. It was there that I learned the delights of the ice cream soda.

In Spanish a chupete is both a lollipop and that device that babies are given to suck.