Pater: “Glads”...

Pater: “Glads”...  I found another small trove of digital photos of my dad.  The one at right is from our trip to Mt. Lassen, on June 9, 2007, near Lost Creek.  Note the walking stick – that's something he started to use only in the early 2000s – before that, using any kind of a walking aid would never have occurred to him, as he had the sure-footedness of a mountain goat...

“Glads”...

I've written quite a few times about my dad's love of wildflowers – searching them out was a constant theme of our drives and hikes.  Knowing that my dad loved wildflowers and that he ran a retail nursery, one might expect to find lots of plants with beautiful flowers there – if not for sale, then for his own pleasure.  Oddly enough, that was truly not the case, with but one huge exception: the glads.

Even if you don't know Gladiolus blooms (“Glads” for short), you've probably seen them – you'll find them often in floral arrangements.  The image at left (not mine) gives you some appreciation for their variations, which are enormous.  My dad loved them, and for at least several years we grew a lot of them, out in the field near our house where we also had a vegetable patch.  Gladiolus grow from bulbs the size of small onions, but flatter – more like hockey pucks than balls (photo below right, also not mine).

I don't have a good memory of when we were growing these, which probably means it started when I was less than 10 or 11 years old, in the early '60s.  So far as I can remember, there was no commercial component to this – we cut the flowers for our own use, but I don't believe we ever sold them.  I also don't remember the nursery selling the bulbs.  I think we grew them just for the pleasure of having the flowers.

Thinking about those glads, several memories come to mind.

One is sitting in our basement in the autumn, sorting and cleaning the Gladiolus bulbs.  We had lots of those bulbs, bushel baskets full of them.  These were the old-fashioned wooden bushel baskets, which to my surprise I discovered one can still buy for just $3.  I remember sitting on low seats over our basement's concrete floor, at least a couple kids with my dad.  He showed us how to clean and trim the bulbs for storage in the basement over winter (this was so they wouldn't freeze, as they would have if we'd left them in the ground).  My dad enjoyed this process, though I don't remember there being anything fun or interesting about it – just tedious.  There was a strong, earthy aroma from those bulbs; I can't think of a way to describe it, but I know I'd immediately recognize it were I to come across it again.

Before we could sort and clean the bulbs, we had to dig them up.  They were easy to find, as some foliage was still attached – some quick work with a shovel or trowel and up they came.  We'd trim off any remaining foliage and toss them in a bushel basket.  I remember my dad carefully digging up any place where there ought to be a bulb (we planted them at intervals in a line), to make sure we got them all.  Most of all, I remember him exhorting us to be careful with our digging, so we didn't damage the bulbs.  Normally when we dug, it was to make a hole to plant a tree or shrub in – we had lots of practice at this.  In that process, we had no need to be careful – the only thing we were removing was dirt.  My dad had a challenge changing our careless digging habits.

Then of course in the spring, after the last possibility of a frost, it was time to plant those glad bulbs that had wintered in our basement.  My dad really enjoyed planting them; it combined many elements that were individually pleasurable for him.  First (and quite possibly foremost :), he could dig.  My dad loved to dig.  The rest of the family mercilessly teased him about his peculiar hobby.  How many people do you know who would go out into a field and dig holes for fun?  But my dad most definitely liked to dig, and he could do so for hours on end.  Planting those glads was also planting, another thing my dad clearly got pleasure from.  And finally, it was something he could do with his kids.  The small scale of glad planting was within our little capacities, so limited compared with his.  I remember him out in that field with us, in the bright spring sunshine, rich earth around us, and him smiling and laughing with us as we together planted those bulbs.

What inspired me to write this story of the glads, though, is a single clear memory of my dad.  It was in the summer, and the glads were in full bloom.  My dad and I had been out on a yard maintenance job, and we had worked hard.  Both of us were quite tired, and my dad was eagerly anticipating our dinner.  As he pulled our Volkswagen pickup (like the one at right, complete with the “Conestoga wagon” canvas top) into the nursery's entrance, he decided to forego our usual after-work exercise of putting tools away and cleaning up the truck, uncharacteristically saying we'd do it in the morning.  That was a good indication that he was quite exhausted.

To get to our house, one would drive past the nursery and its sheds, up our driveway that was perhaps a quarter mile long.  There was a tiny little grade to climb, and then you'd have a straight, flat drive to the front of our house, with our vegetable garden and Gladiolus patch in the field to the left.  On that day, the sun was shining brightly, but it had evidently sprinkled earlier in the day; everything was wet and sparkly.  My dad saw those glorious Gladiolus, rows of them – and just stopped the truck in the driveway.  The two of us got out and walked out into the rows of Gladiolas, and my dad and I wallowed in the experience.  Bright colors were all around us, made even brighter by the recent rain that left them clean and covered with droplets.  That same rain brought out the “farmer's perfume” of rich soil, and you could smell the plants (though I don't remember Gladiolus having a sweet fragrance of any kind).  What stands out most in my memory is my dad's tired and drawn face, transforming, lighting up as he enjoyed those those glads, and even more so as he cut a nice bunch of them to bring in for my mom.  As we (finally) pulled up to the house, she was standing on the back porch – she'd spotted us out in the field, and figured out what my dad was doing.  She had a huge smile and a hug for us, and took the flowers off to put in a vase.

Simple pleasures for simple folk?  Maybe.  But a damned fine memory I feel very privileged to have...