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| Lilium 'Lollipop' 6 July 2026 |
Lots of Liliums
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.