Volunteer Stories
/“Every time I look at carrots growing in our front yard, I think about Captain Kangaroo.”
Cyndi laughed when I said it because she remembered the same images of Captain Kangaroo keeping carrots in his giant coat pocket, until Mr. Bunny Rabbit tricked him out of them. Rabbit, who always got the carrots, fruit and stems and leaves, the whole plant, surprisingly wore glasses.
I think of those scenes from 1950s and 1960s children’s television every time we dig up a carrot even though I haven’t seen the program in over fifty years. It’s weird sometimes, the images our brains decide to hold on to.
A few years ago, Cyndi decided to make better use of our front yard by building raised-bed gardens and planting vegetables. That summer we had corn, squash, carrots, and I don’t remember what else growing in the front of our house. In the mornings, when I went out front to get the newspaper, I heard the song in my head from another 1960s TV program, Green Acres, about a couple from New York City who moved to the farm to change their lifestyle: “Farm living is the life for me.”
Sometimes when I went to get the newspaper, I startled the cottontail bunnies who were munching on our vegetables. Cyndi took care of that problem, though, by sticking plastic picnic forks in all the beds, tines facing upward. She said they would scare away the rabbits. I thought it was ridiculous and figured the rabbits would simple knock the forks over and keep eating. But once she stuck the forks, I never saw another rabbit. It’s a mystery still.
Cyndi planted different things each year, experimenting to see what would grow best in full sunshine and clay soil of our front yard. But for the past two years our calendar crowded out planting season and we missed the window of opportunity to plant another vegetable garden. We had volunteer carrots, though. Apparently, the plants from previous years threw their seeds all around our yard, even across the sidewalk into flower beds. We’ve been harvesting ever since, and they taste great.
In fact, just last week Cyndi made the tastiest beef stew, and it was full of front-yard carrots.
Thursday night, October 31st, we watched the movie, Coco, in honor of Día de los Muertos, a Mexican celebration I never understood, even scoffed at, until I saw this movie. Now I long for a time and place for our family to gather and tell stories and teach those stories to our littles. I want to make it a longstanding tradition.
Why? Because the stores we tell are a significant part of the legacy left behind by the people we loved, just like the stores our kids and grand-kids will one day tell about us. Stores are an indicator of the real effect we have on each other.
After the movie, Cyndi and I talked about the multiple generations affected by our lives, and how those effects last longer than stories or memories.
The carrots Cyndi planted five years ago couldn’t have known – that is, if carrots can know anything – that their descendants would be important ingredients in a delicious meal we enjoyed while watching Coco. Like carrots, we can’t know where our seeds will land.
“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.” Psalm 119:32
