Day 178

Frank, the old Italian man who is my friend's neighbour.

He has green thumbs.  Plants try to grow better, taller and greener or rounder or more colourful, when he is tending them.

My dad was like that.  He grew all kinds of plants, his vegetable garden always full to overflowing, with green beans and golden carrots, little new potatoes we ate with butter and salt and pepper, broccoli florets like green crowns, and round crisp lettuce that he saved from the slugs and snails with many methods, some natural plantings, other methods involving squishing them himself. 

For colour there were the tall, scent-filled sweetpeas, one of which made it into the Cape Times as a record for the sweetpea with the most blossoms on one stalk!  Fragrant jasmine climbed high for him, and roses that my sister gave him flourished and bloomed each year.  Lemons, figs, mulberries and guavas we had in abundance.  And at his last house he grew a kind of Frankenstein apple tree which could have been out of a fairy tale.  It grew in strange shapes, because it was made up entirely of grafts, and consequently the tree produced about 7 different types of apples!

My dad was a collector.  His garage (and shed) were filled to capacity with things he might need one day.  Many of his generation went through great hardships which formed thrifty pragmatic people. 

His heart also had a great aptitude for kindness.  He would fix fridges for old ladies and barely charge them, he would always say yes when asked for help, and even before the asking, my father was there with his large helping hands, his strong arms, the considerable bulk of the big man, able to set things right.  He was, of course, also cantankerous, obstreperous, stubborn and many of his grandchildren nicknamed him "Grumpa", but they all admired and loved him none the less, forgiving him his faults because of his goodness.

Tonight I was sorting out all the materials I need for the Painting and Drawing course I am attending from tomorrow, and found an old moonbag in a drawer, which contained these treasures. 

I too am a collector like my dad, some for beauty, others for possible uses.  The Eucalyptus pod still whistles beautifully when I hold it with my two thumbs in a certain way and blow like my dad taught me,   The acorn may well germinate one day under the lesser green thumb I inherited.  The shells are beautiful to look at, the sewing machine foot a useful object (if I still had that sewing machine).  The hook can still be used, I think it came from 16 Cross Street, and the pod is from one of my beloved Grahamstown jacarandas, and seeds from this pod have grown into four delicate tall trees standing in pots in my house.