I HAVE NO GREEN THUMB

By Danna Shirley

           

            My parents both grew up on farms in Arkansas. I’ve heard their stories of hoeing cotton and plowing the fields; of hauling water to the field hands and earning pennies a day for back-breaking work.

            My dad told his dad, “When I turn 18, I’m out of here. I’ll never work a farm again!” and he never did. My dad went to Beechcraft in Wichita, Kansas and worked in an airplane factory until Pearl Harbor.

            When my mom graduated from high school, she went to Arkansas Tech for two years and got her teaching credentials. She taught in a few little country schools until after the war. Then she and dad migrated to that golden state of California and never looked back. I was born two years later.

            Now as I grew up, mom had my two sisters and me out in the front yard pulling pesky weeds but she never taught me how to grow a thing; she never taught me flowers or vegetables, or fruit trees; fertilizer, pruning, or picking.        

            I would love to have a beautiful garden like hers, the aroma of flowers in the house, and greenery decorating my home. Everything I try to baby just dies. I forget to water it or I water it too much. I HAVE NO GREEN THUMB!

I have even killed an artificial flower arrangement when trying to dust it!

So why can a wild flower push it’s little head up through a crack in a paved parking lot and I can’t keep anything alive? 

It’s just not fair.