Another Day in the Country
No such thing as unknown
© Another Day in the Country
There once was a man in Napa Valley who planted scads of gladioli bulbs along the highway edge of his pastureland on the Silverado Trail.
The flowers were beautiful. They were unusual for a roadside display — tall and crowded together, all kinds of colors — and I used to try to imagine how many bulbs he had to buy to create the display.
That string of flowers was not on the edge of a garden. It was nowhere near his house. There was nothing like shrubs or walkways to back it up. It was just there, every summer, blooming as long as gladioli last in a garden — which is about as long as they last in a vase.
So far as I could tell, they were planted purposely for the enjoyment of people driving by.
I used to imagine stopping to talk to the bulb planter, asking him why he did it. Was it a memorial to someone? Why gladioli and not zinnias, which bloom longer? How did he water them?
I never did. And then I moved away to Kansas.
My sister and I were driving to Abilene to exercise at a gym there. It was quiet in the car as we drove across our edge of the prairie.
We could see wheat fields beginning to turn. I took a picture out of the car window and sent it to my cousin Keith, who lives in Colorado. He grew up in Ramona and loves seeing wheat fields turn gold.
“I’m glad they painted their house,” my sister says out of the blue. “It uplifts me when we drive by.”
“What house?” I ask her.
She points it out.
“It was all different colors for a while,” she says, “Doesn’t it look nice?”
It does look good, but it wasn’t a house that I pay attention to.
“I look at that house where we stop to turn onto K-15,” I say to her.
“Oh, yes,” Jess says, “I know the one. They were having a party there the other day. Someone must be graduating.”
For the next few miles, we talk about that house, recalling when the residents remodeled the porch, tried truck gardening, built a new barn, and planted a peony bed out front.
We worried while they remodeled because we couldn’t figure out where they were putting the front door — not that it was any of our business.
Unbeknownst to them, they became part of our weekly ritual. We were cheering them on as they tried things, made changes, painted, and celebrated.
“Maybe we should stop and introduce ourselves at some point,” I joked to my sister.
“Do you ever notice that barn on K-15 that has an old truck sitting in front of it?” I ask. “It looks like a painting. A year or so ago, I stopped to take a picture of it, thinking I might have my kids in art class try to paint it.”
Jess wasn’t sure what I was referring to.
“We just passed it,” I said. “Next time, I’ll point it out.”
We discovered that each of us has favorite spots along the road that call out to us. I have my favorite farm on K-4, where the Kansas hills frame it perfectly. She has other spots.
I have a long list of spots I check on. There’s the Trump flag that I chafe at. There’s the wheat field just before you hit the crest of the road where all you can see is blue sky and wheat for just a few glorious moments — no buildings, no telephone poles or fences, and then the wider view impinges.
Once again, I’m reminded that whenever we do anything — good/bad, simple/complicated, alone/accompanied — we are impacting everything and everyone.
Whenever I mow my lawn, pick up sticks, plant flowers, repaint a mailbox, wave at a UPS man, or talk to a neighbor’s child, I’m influencing the neighborhood, sending a message out into the world — never knowing who receives it.
And now I see a spot on the road where Aunt Gertie’s car stopped working 30 years ago on the way home from Salina and a farm where we got help.
I see a place that sells eggs and recall stopping one time before I got chickens of my own. The eggs looked lovely, but the chickens that laid them were a sorry-looking lot, molting or worse. It spurred me on to get chicks of my own — which has brought me a lot of pleasure.
Closer to home, the farmhouse my grandparents once called home has just had a facelift. There’s a new roof and new siding, a lovely shade of cocoa.
We watched the progress with so much pleasure that we stopped by during Easter with a bouquet of flowers for the owner, but no one was home.
“Probably gone for the weekend,” we said, as we drove back into town.
Seeing that house all spiffed up brings smiles to our face every time we drive by. It used to have Gramm’s purple petunias filling the flower beds.
There’s a barn that the owners fixed up not all that long ago out on US-56/77.
It’s so beautiful — white with a black roof. And they’ve painted the board fences that line the pasture black.
It’s the kind of layout that I dreamed of having when I was a kid. They might have had horses in the field before they redid the barn, but now they look like thoroughbreds.
“Thank you,” I say to them as I drive by.
Perhaps as I celebrate their improvements on just another day in the country, those good wishes fly from my observant heart to theirs.