Illustration by David Norwood
The year I retired, I surprised myself and people who’d watched me put in front yard gardens for the last thirty-five years by opting out of the tradition altogether. If you’ve retired after long years of answering the starter’s bell every morning, you may know the feeling of shutting down. The first three months after I left a newspaper job of forty years, I spent the days the way I once idled away time between semesters in college. It felt fine.
“Aren’t you going to put in a garden?” people asked.
“Don’t feel like it,” I’d say and go back to reading in a chair beside my garden’s unturned dirt.
The looks on their faces said, “Doesn’t know what to do with himself.” But I did. I chose to do what appeared to be nothing.
That first spring of retirement, I put in three gardens, just not at my house. I worked in a community garden. I planted a container garden at a friend’s house, which happened to be at the mid-point of my daily bicycle ride. I helped a neighbor put in her garden. When that neighbor retired a few months later, she promptly quit gardening for a time. I knew the feeling and didn’t ask why she wasn’t putting plants in the ground.
Before the season’s end, I eventually dived into the shed to emerge with the post hole digger. I used it to plant bellpeppers and tomatoes much later than ever before. I punched holes through sheets of plastic that had been covered by years of leaves, popped in the plants, watered, and forgot them. I got as many bellpeppers and tomatoes as if I’d carefully planned the spring garden.
Working in a community garden is the best of both worlds. Don’t sign up. Just show up on work days. I didn’t have a plot, but two hours’ work weeding and digging potatoes got me two baskets of vegetables. There are large metal baskets over the rear wheel of my Worksman bicycle, which I bought at G.N. Gonzales on River Road, north of the Capitol.
Leaving the community garden at First Methodist on North Boulevard, my bicycle loaded with vegetables and my clothes covered with dirt, I headed toward the river. There was a foot race going on, and I took a seat on the low wall in front of the library to watch. A woman working at a church food stand approached to ask if I’d eaten. The word “lately” was implied.
My vegetables were in plastic bags. The bags might as easily have contained my entire wardrobe. My hands were dirty. Likely, my face was streaked with dried earth. I’m sure the church woman took me for homeless. Hungry from my work in the garden and knowing a scene from the Bible when I happen to be in it, I said I could eat a bite.
The woman brought me jambalaya and a drink for which I thanked her. After I’d eaten, I pedaled away lest I be busted for impersonating a homeless person.
I am enjoying something of a second childhood in retirement. I work at what I choose. I get around on a bicycle as much as I can.
Gardening—mostly a willingness to work in other people’s gardens—makes me a welcome visitor. When working in the gardens of other people, it’s important to do what you’re told and keep your opinions to yourself. There’s no money in day labor, but not expressing one’s every thought is a practice more people should try.
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