Something different. April 2026

I wrote this 34 years ago. 

Remembrances from Niagara Falls days 💖

 PA … a memoir … 

    By day he masqueraded as a mild-mannered chemical engineer, sitting at his desk concocting indecipherable formulas and noxious stews as unrecognizable to ordinary people as the mysteries of the universe. He maintained this guise for over 40 years.

    But at 5:30 pm each workday, an amazing transformation took place, complete with costume change, and our Dad became Super-Gardener! He'd peel off coat and tie as he came in the door, eager as a hound after a squirrel to trade in his stuffy day garb for the farmer togs that hung on a clothes tree in a corner of his bedroom – when not hanging on him. He looked like a tramp when he emerged in his baggy brown pants (no short rise here!). Oftentimes he'd forget to empty the dirt from the pant cuffs and this added weight made those old pants sag even more, not to mention the dirt that scattered over the bedroom floor, much to Ma's annoyance. "Empty those cuffs outside!" she'd yell. His ancient brown shoes weren't allowed in the house: "I don't want those muddy things in here," she'd told him. On cool days, he'd don a light cotton short-sleeved shirt, thin enough to read the newspaper through. (I could say threadbare.) Hot sticky days, he'd forego the shirt and out the back door he'd go, brown of neck and arms, his round belly hanging over his belt looking for all the world like one of his melons.

    Whistling cheerfully, he'd pick up his hoe and begin ... looking for his kids!  There were five of us and we all learned early on to scatter like startled birds when Pa needed workers. We weren't always quick enough, and we'd end up hoeing weeds in the eggplants instead of playing. Sometimes we'd go willingly, chattering like magpies, happy to be in Pa's domain with him.

    Pa's garden was big and it didn't just materialize overnight. Evenings, while incarcerated by the Northeast winter's long icy fingers, he'd crack hickory nuts in the cellar and pore over seed catalogues.  When the ground warmed and was dry enough, Pa'd hire a neighbor to plow the soil for his super-spread. Ma, dreading the annual summer canning and freezing chores, would implore him "not to have such a huge garden this year." Nevertheless, the day after Memorial Day, if it wasn't raining, Pa would don his shabby duds and commence planting.

    Daily he'd check his seeds and chortle with the joy of a new father over the first green tendrils. With an eagle eye, he’d watch these shoots, hoping to forestall disasters and hungry insects. Muttering, "Dagnab it," he'd go after the bad bugs. Good guys, such as daddy long legs and toads, were encouraged. More than once I nearly fell over when a disturbed toad leapt out from under its leafy hiding place. If a Praying Mantis was found anywhere in the yard, we'd carry it (prayerfully, of course) in clasped hands and deposit it on a needy vegetable plant, the kind with tiny holes in the leaves.

    Pa'd often whistle or better yet, sing. He had several favorites and we could usually count on hearing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," or perhaps "The Yellow Rose of Texas," of which he was inordinately fond. I can still picture Pa standing in his tumbledown pants with hoe in hand, his blue eyes a-twinkle in his brown face as he surveyed his fertile land, singing merrily, "Mine eyes have seen the glory ...."

    The long summer days soon became heady with the good smells of ripening produce. That's when Pa would stride to the garden with a saltshaker in his pocket. He'd pluck a big red tomato, redolent of the warm earth, cut it with his pocketknife, sprinkle it with salt, and in a flash that tomato would be gone. "Aaahh!"

     

    Soon bushel baskets of Pa's vegetables strained the kitchen table and Ma's good humor. Harvest time meant work: picking, shucking, shelling, blanching, etc. We all worked. But during the dog days of August, the canning and freezing chores fell on Ma. Sweating over the hot stove, Ma'd holler, "Next year don't plant so much!" Presently the freezer'd be filled to the top. The fruit cellar shelves groaned under the weight of canned fruit and veggies, and pumpkins and squash were spread out on the earthen shelf above like soldiers standing guard over their cache.

    Sometime after Labor Day, frost would cast a lacy white blanket over Pa's crops, decorating the sun-baked leaves with exquisite ivory filigree. The growing season now at an end, Pa retired his raggedy pants to the clothes tree and returned to the cellar to crack nuts and dream of a bigger Eden next year.

    As arctic air settled over our home, Ma'd cook up big pots of the world's best vegetable soup, always accompanied by a fresh loaf of Italian bread from DiCamillo's Bakery. She's convinced that those homegrown vegetables made her soup the finest. All the hard work then seemed worthwhile – we ate well every winter from Pa's summer garden. As Pa aged, his gardens did get smaller, but he always planted something. Ma sighed with relief at the decreased canning/freezing workload. She grew tired of making vegetable soup anyway. But Pa loved the eternal seasons and the land, and I think he was happier in his garden paradise in those awful brown pants than anywhere else – ever.

    Pa's been gone now for fifteen years. I guess Ma threw those pants out when he passed away, but each spring at the earth's yearly rebirth, most of Pa's children don their own costumes, whether blue jeans or baggy shorts – and gather hoe and seeds. Lovingly we turn the soil, in silent communion with Pa and in reverent confirmation that here's where we belong. Our strength goes into and flows out from the soil, just as it did for Pa. It is the bond of God's love, open to all, like Pa, who tend His earthly garden.

# # #

    Here I am at one of our backyard garden plots on Saturday, April 4th, still at it, ready to plant seedlings.  Snow peas already in the ground, while onions overwinter, and garlic shoots up.  A few daffydills thrown in for good measure!

Happy Easter to all.