Joke coming. Leave now if you wish.
"How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb?"
"Only one to change it and five more to talk about how mighty fine that old bulb was!"
Lots of truth here. So when a 40-year-old garden hose finally gave up the ghost, I had my next blog post.
My father passed 21 years ago, and that seems like yesterday. He bought a house in 1975, on Fitzhugh Avenue in the near West End of the City of Richmond, and I only lived there for four years before college, but I came back for a year and a half after. Those were very happy years for us all. About that time, in 1984 or so, he redid the yard and went to a local hardware store. He bought the best garden hose they offered. "Real rubber!" he said, still house-proud a decade later. He as no yard-guy, but he believed in keeping up appearances on a block where the neighbors often went all-out for their little 1/3 acre city yards. That hose was astounding; it coiled up naturally without kinks and was easily to move around.
Yes, a mighty fine hose it was.
I miss the old man immensely, for all his difficult personality tics. After a life of hard toil behind the wheel of a truck he'd made it, owning a produce warehouse with his cousin Leroy. He was a beloved boss, too. Maybe he treated his employees so well because he remembered terrible privation.
He grew up in desperate poverty in the Great Depression, served in the Navy during World War II, raised a family with my mom in a little row-house. A detached two-story home in a neighborhood full of assistant bank-managers and insurance salesmen, with an Olds or Buick out front? The American Dream. I miss that too. It's gotten so super-sized since dad's day. I am rather glad he's not around to see things now.
That old red hose? It moved with us after mom passed away, and I used it for years until we moved to the country in 2012. Then it served well in our garden, with some fraying finally catching up to it near the end. I used a special leak-stop tape but that only bought me a year. This summer, the old hose had to go.
Why do we fret over material things so much? In my case, that old hose told a story that only mom and I knew, and maybe my oldest sister. Sis and I are the only ones left. Now I am telling you.
Funny thing, though. This tale has an ending not only happy but sustainable. We found that most of the old hose is just fine, still flexible and intact as ever. I cut off 10 bad feet or so, then another 20 good feet from the far end. That length will help me water trees, attached to the water tank I carry around in my UTV for saplings when the weather here goes into a prolonged dry spell.
If the hose lasts four more decades, it will outlive me. And there the story will end, happily in fact.
