OUR ROSE TRELLIS

Mainly got in my way when I was young. It was really more than a trellis although that's the way it started. Then it grew from our house to our garage, not connected to our house. Another trellis grew on the other side of the garage.

Lots of wiffle balls, basketballs, even rubber gym balls used for playing dodge ball knocked off beautiful red rose petals. And there were more roses planted just 90 degrees or so from home plate near a fence where neighbor kids and I jumped from yard to yard in play. Yes, rose petals were accidentally kicked off the hybrid pinks and yellows, again to the dismay and disappointment of my Mother.

Fresh roses in the day were used to freshen household smells before any of us knew what potpourri was. They were also used to decorate graves on Decoration Day as my grandmother called Memorial Day. You could never have enough roses for both purposes.

While I respected the flowers and enjoyed the smell, I always tied them into the end of school. So I loved the roses. They were worth getting in the way.

But as I am getting older, I find I enjoy lots of flowers more. I can identify flowers now that I had only heard of in books previously in my life. The heliotrope, for example. I'm not sure what that means. Maybe all the years my wife has grown, cultivated orchids has finally gotten to me. Now that she really can't do much growing of them in AZ. Now, Trader Joe provides.

One constant remains. I still like dandelions. Now that I don't have to mow or cut them out. And where we live now, believe it or not, roses are abundant year round. I still like them, but not as much as the ones blooming on that trellis that signaled two great words, "School's out!"