Thursday, July 20, 2023
The mention of Mrs. Allen's gardening in particular brought back several memories for me.
I was one of Richard's little buddies when we were kids and so I spent a lot of time at their house on Bayberry Lane. The images of Richard's Mom working in her garden "imprinted" themselves permanently in my young memory and, even now, I can see them like they were from yesterday.
For sure, she was the best gardener I ever knew in my life and memories of her working in her garden are my "go-to memories" any time I have ever tried to grow vegetables. Even now, if I see a garden compost pile, it reminds me of the compost pile Mrs. Allen had and seeing her digging into it with a tool and turning it over.
One time I was invited to stay at the Allen's house for dinner and Mrs. Allen served a side-dish of freshly-cooked, hot green beans from her garden and they told me to be sure and put some butter on them. I can tell you, up until that moment, I didn't really care for green beans. But holy mackerel! Those were so delicious I'm pretty sure I went back for "seconds" and the experience changed my whole attitude about what the word "vegetable" meant to me. Thank you for that Mrs. Allen!
Mrs. Allen, like my own mother, was one of those very special kind of sweet, hard-working, loving, caring, and serving women which are almost impossible to find our world today. Planet Earth is just a little more sad and dismal now that she's gone.
Christopher Clark, formerly of 35 Sequoia Drive
