There was snow on the ground early this morning when I took the dogs out. Just a light dusting but enough to say goodbye to the garden. “Wait ‘till next year” is the woeful shout we gardeners say this time of year, an ever hopeful phrase; but today my hope is dampened by knowing that one of my great gardening friends will not see next year.
He is an inspiration to me, and was my inspiration for Mr.D. Though he is not gone yet, he is in the last stage of Lou Gehrig’s Disease or ALS as it is now known.
I met Don at a winter gardening symposium several years ago. I don’t remember much about it, but I have a very clear recollection of my first impression of him. He was a big guy. He wore a hat. He had a scruffy beard. He knew a lot. And he was an asshole. I hoped to never see him again.
I did. I was speaking at a Master Gardeners meeting, and it was at the home of Ralph and Vicki Bright, two extraordinary gardeners who I knew from Kingwood.
They led me out to a deck that overlooked a ravine behind their house. Most of the chairs were already taken but they pointed to an open chair where I sat down. I nodded to the people I knew, my eyes travelling across the faces, and there he was with a big ‘ol grin on his face staring right at me. He nodded. I nodded back.
I hadn’t pegged him for a club type person, but I knew being a Master Gardener meant access to information. I also knew it meant he was passionate about gardening, and that is what brought us together. In other ways we were completely different. He grew vegetables. I grew ornamentals. He listened to Fox. I listened to NPR. He was a realist. I was an idealist. He was a provocateur, and I was his mark.
He loved sticking pins in my bleeding heart liberal self.
He was quite funny about it though. He was aligned with no political party. His was the politics of common sense, and he was very quick to point out the contradictions in any of my arguments. One time when we were debating climate change, he asked me why I hadn’t ridden my bike to his place, and suggested that I stop breathing if I was so worried about too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
As our paths continued to cross, I came to realize that despite being an asshole, a label Don Wolveton wears proudly, he was a lovable and generous one. He once told me that when the apocalypse came, and the cities descended into anarchy, he’d put a trailer out by the road that I could live in. “Thanks Don”, I said. “No problem,” he replied. “When I see the smoke rising from the trailer, I’ll know the mobs have arrived.”
He was a self-made gardener, and when I met him, he was a full-time market gardener raising organic vegetables to sell at farmer’s markets. He made seed pots out of old newspapers and used milk jugs to protect his plants from frost. Doing all this for Don was not about saving the earth. It just made sense.
We also shared a passion for teaching and a few years back we collaborated on a demonstration garden at Kingwood Center. Called the Very Little Garden, it was a 20 x 20 plot that was to demonstrate that a family could grow a whole lot of food in a very little space for very little money with very little time.
At the end of the first full year it produced what we figured would have cost close to $400 in the grocery store for $7.45. It was amazing to watch, and it was all due to Big Don’s skills as a gardener.
The diagnosis came about two years ago, just after he had found his soulmate, Shawnee. They took a cross-country trip knowing that time was short.
Indeed it was.
By the time they had arrived back home, Don had begun having trouble. Last Christmas I got a voice mail from Don. I hadn’t seen him in over a year. “Things have changed…considerably,” he said with that deep chuckle of his. By the time I saw him, Don was living in his recliner. That’s where he ate, that’s where he slept, that’s where he smoked, and that’s where he visited with me over the past year. During each visit, he would say, “Oh well, it could be worse.”
I know that this may be the last column that Don will see of mine. So as the darkness begins to lighten outside the window, and I hear the birds chirping on this frigid morning, I know it could be worse. I know our paths could have never crossed. That to me, Don, is the only thing that could be worse. Love you Mr. D. You will be missed.
For a video of Big Don and the Very Little Garden, go to: http://youtu.be/FW0pUn_Mems
