Getting at the Facts
by
Anne Yanchyshyn
You hear people say, "What you see is what you get." Well, it doesn't always work out that way. At least, it didn't for me one recent February morning when I was visiting a Snowbird friend at her winter home in Mesa, Arizona.
This is what I thought I saw as I opened the drapes in her living room. Her neighbor was digging a hole about three feet from the sidewalk in front of his house — "the house with the ornamental windmill." Two one-foot plants or shrubs were already in place on each side of the area being dug.
It piqued my interest. What would he be preparing to plant in this desert setting with its stately saguaro cacti? Yes, the clusters of date and coconut palms and orange and grapefruit bushes scattered around gave the place the look of an oasis, but I'd been told all these trees needed to be watered regularly — they couldn't survive on the local rainfall alone. So what was our neighbor doing? Asking for more work. Since my recent bouts with doctors and hospitals, I've become very keen on limiting the chores needing my attention, unlike what this man seemed to be doing.
I took in every detail. He was working with two shovels. With the ordinary shovel, he scraped off the top layer of garden pebbles covering most of the yards in the area and set this aside. He used the second spade (or shovel) for the actual digging. It had a longer, narrower blade about fifteen inches long and eight inches wide and a long straight handle. He pushed it straight down into the red sandy soil underneath which he then dumped into the large white plastic containers sitting nearby.
These he loaded into his station wagon and disappeared. I was disappointed. But not for long. He'd already unloaded a bag of something, presumably soil, a moment earlier, and now he was digging again.
My guessing game went on while Marion, my hostess, slept. It was early, around 7:00 a.m.
After a while I could see the man shoving an approximately eight-foot length of white pipe (two to three inches in diameter) into the hole, then getting out his shiny metal tape from his pocket to measure how far down the tube had gone. He checked again by dangling the tape itself into the hole several times. I wondered how deep he'd have to go for the roots to take hold. He seemed to want to be very precise in his measurements. We folks back home usually gauge the depth by just eyeing it when we read instructions for planting. Not so here.
He got on his knees and continued poking around with the narrow shovel. Wouldn't his clothes get dirty? They were too nice for gardening, I kept thinking. Even though the Mesa soil was as "dry as a bone," it was rusty red in color and could leave stains. He was wearing a neat pair of pants and a long-sleeved blue shirt, along with fingerless gloves and clean-as-new white sneakers. You wouldn't catch us wearing white shoes while digging in our Red River gumbo in Winnipeg! He did resort to a rectangular kneeling pad, though, similar to the one I use at home — our knees need the extra pampering at the best of times.
I also noticed he took short rests during the digging. At one point, as he knelt beside the hole, he put his hands on his shovel and his head on top of that and just remained still for longer than was comfortable for me. I was glad to hear Marion stirring in her bedroom — we two could go to his rescue if necessary. But no, the man didn't collapse — he just continued his chore in slow, easy spurts as he'd been doing.
Soon our Spectators' Gallery had both of us guessing what the man's project was about.
He was recently retired, said my hostess, and along with his wife was the best of neighbors. They could be depended on in time of need. She hoped for the sake of his health he wasn't overdoing things.
We watched him dump one small bucket of pebbles into the hole. Back home I'd add peat moss or gravel, I thought. And away I went to have a shower, for we had a busy day's schedule ahead.
When I resurfaced, the coast was clear. The man (was his name Wayne?) had gone into his house, Marion reported, but first he'd brought out a container of something on a dolly and dumped it into the hole when I wasn't looking. Fertilizer, we figured - or soil...or...
Our stomachs were growling by this time so we had breakfast.
I took my camera with me when I went for my morning walk. Must record the scene in pictures. But Wayne showed up just as I was ready to click, as did Marion. Ah — we'd get to the bottom of the mystery!
I told him how I'd watched his every move while he was digging and that I was interested to know what he was planting.
"It's good to see someone so interested," he replied with a big smile. "I used to love growing things on our farm in Iowa, so I put in these four rose bushes a couple of days ago. But it'll take some doing to get them to produce. Look at this stuff. It's not really soil — it's more like rock that's been pulverized.
"But this hole? It's not for a plant. It's for a flagpole. See? I've already set the hollow pipe into the cement I poured down there before breakfast. Tomorrow I'll cut it down to just a few inches above ground level for support, and the flagpole will go inside it — that telescoping one over there. I can't wait to fly our brand new Stars and Stripes flag. It's very special — it was presented to me at the Capitol in Washington. But that's another story.
What you see is what you get? Not always. It was only my imagination that had run away on me.
* * * * *
That night Wayne and his wife, Violet, treated us to a novelty dinner at the Organ Shop Pizza Place, and the following morning that flag was flying proudly as promised, its creases still showing, its red, white and blue colors looking crisp and dazzling against the azure blue of the Arizona skies. A friendly U.S.A. flag, my final impression — as friendly as the individual members living there. Americans, indistinguishable in warmth and generosity from my gracious Canadian hostess, Marion. Here's lookin' at all three of them as I raise my glass.