A welcome to readers

As a resident of this planet for more than four fifths of a century, I have enjoyed both successes and disappointments in a wide variety of vocations, avocations, and life experiences. This blog satisfies my desire to share some thoughts and observations--trenchant and prosaic--with those who are searching for diversions which are interesting, poignant and occasionally funny. I also plan to share recommendations about good/great movies I've watched and books and articles which I've found particularly mind-opening, entertaining, instructive. In addition, I can't pass up the opportunity to reflect publicly on how I am experiencing the so-called Golden Years. Write anytime:
markmarv2004@yahoo.com

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Father's Day Retrospective

My daughters know how I love roses, so on Saturday last, the delivery person showed up with a long gray box from Pro Flowers (my favorite purveyor of plants and flowers) filled with 24 roses of strikingly different colors.  It took Liz and me quite a while to prepare them properly for the vase. Stems were unusually tough and stubborn to cut through and were, atypically, covered with various sizes and shapes of thorns. We removed some "guard" petals as per instruction, cut the the bottom of each stem diagonally with a knife (not scissors), put flower food and water in the two vases left over from previous occasions, and arranged the little beauties in two splendid bouquets. The only missing ingredients were my daughters' smiling faces, their contagious laughter. and, alas,  the smell or scent of roses which commercial plant breeders have long since eliminated from the flowers' DNA in favor of brighter colors and extended shelf life.

[As I write this blog, I look from my apartment window into a strip mall across Colorado Boulevard where there is now located a sign with a green cross indicating the presence of a "Farmacy" selling a wide variety of marijuana buds ostensibly to be used for medicinal purposes. The ads for  establishments like these literally fill a third of the local alternative news magazine, Westword. Until I read these ads, I had no idea that so much time and energy was being devoted to the breeding and cultivation of different strains of medicinal Cannabis Sativa (nee pot, Hemp, blow,ganga, Puff etc.).

Interestingly, the names given to the various strains of Cannabis across the way are as exotic as those bestowed on roses, to wit: White Widow, Purple Haze, Blueberry Bud, Bubble Berry, Blue Dream, Perma Frost, Sublime, etc.  Compare these with the more "dignified" sobriquets of roses, to wit: Gentle Giant, Touch of Class, Glowing Peace, Dream Come True, Black Magic, Fragrant Cloud, and Pink Promise. Hmm! Which is which? I know the difference, of course: medicinal pot has not (yet) had the scent or smell bred out of its DNA.]

Why bother with all this? Well, it began with my comment and internal lament about roses which have had their scent bred out in favor of other virtues.  My thought then moved quickly to pot, er medicinal cannabis, which shares, it seems, an avid interest of people all over the world (not the same ones, God forbid) devoted to breeding new strains with various attributes, scents, colors, etc.

Which led me back to my incredible progeny (who sent me Fathers Day roses), real hybrids as it turns out, whom I helped breed more than forty years ago and have helped nurture ever since. Fortunately, over time, the scent of their loving nature is undiminished. They are not only beautiful to look at, but they replicate brilliantly, and have proven sturdy enough to handle the most severe of New England's storms, personal and climatic, and are still so ineffably stunning in every respect that they are prize-winners wherever they go...and, in an imitation of the "buds across the street," they have also given me "mellows" and "highs" beyond compare. So this is why I choose to combine, each year, Thanksgiving with Fathers Day, for I am truly grateful for my exquisite hybrid F2's.

It's the Summer Solstice, a great time to thank the Universe once more for our good fortune at just being alive and able to savor this incredibly beautiful earth day by day, season by season, specie by specie, individual by individual, and to receive the love of our children.

3 comments:

  1. Here is a comment. Let's see if this works.Yes, I had to create a google account.

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  2. What an incredibly wonderful post.

    Ga. Peach

    ReplyDelete