In Memorium, Feeling Despondent

9.11.12 In Memorium

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I didn’t know why, just that I was sullen and despondent from the time I opened my eyes. As the morning revealed itself to me, after I had dropped Myers off for school, the melancholy settled upon me.

Then, plugging into the grid, I fully realized it was 9/11. Yesterday gave some foreshadowing, with the University planting the quad in rows upon rows of small American flags in remembrance. Yesterday, the photo was a pleasant reflection. I have not been to the center of campus, solely by chance, since the flags were displayed. Now, I don’t know if I want to go. Today, the memories of that horrible day flooded in.

When thinking about all the flags in the quad, I reflected on a gathering in Convocation Hall a couple days after the planes hit. It was basically a community wide information session and mutual support / outpouring of grief. At Broad Mountain Farm, the Mexican Sage was in full roar. I had harvested about 5 buckets full just that morning.

Mexican Bush Sage (Salvia leucantha) is a wonderful plant. It towers at about 3’-4’ in its prime, loaded with foot long spires of fuzzy, purple and white blossoms. They are a terrific everlasting, keeping their color indefinitely if dried properly. Due to the trait of lasting, I felt the buckets of blossoms would be a fitting offering to the Convocation meeting.

The meeting garnered several hundred attendees. Professors, students and community members packed the hall to, if nothing else, be together in a time of great hardship. I’ve written volumes on my experience of the fateful events. If I could pick a handful of images which have lasted the past 11 years, it would include the flags spontaneously appearing on University Ave, with the background of hardwoods in full fall ebullience; a woman driving out Jump Off while I was driving in, when the news was still wall to wall on the radio, crying her eyes out; cutting sunflowers on a picture perfect September morning; going over to a friend’s, who had satellite TV, to watch the cascading terribleness of the coming days and weeks; and setting 5 buckets of flowers outside Convocation.

I went into the gathering for a moment, but was far too emotional to stay. The 5 buckets of sage were in my truck, bunched in 3 stem bunches. As the gathering went on, I set the buckets just outside the hall, on and around a majestic bench. There was no missing the display upon exiting the hall. A note was weighted down by one bucket. I wanted people to take flowers home, enjoy their beauty but also remember where they found the flowers and why they were there to be had. This was a totally anonymous action. However, I did sit across the street, in my truck, and weep as those leaving took note of my offering.

I will always be proud to call Stephen Alvarez a good acquaintance. Being a little self-congratulatory, I would claim him as a long time, good friend, and once upon a time, a lifesaver. He has photographed a portrait of my dog. It isn’t everybody who has a proper portrait of their dog by a National Geographic Photographer.

To me, Stephen epitomizes the guy jumping off into the abyss, secured to life by only ropes and pulleys. Sometime early on an October morning, in 1986, I fell off a cliff, or as the vernacular would have it, a bluff. This particular bluff consisted of one very large, flat rock which had fallen on another, squat, rectangular rock. The formation is called “Proctor’s Hall”, as the chamber betwixt the rocks forms a shaft, a “hall”, where University students have imbibed since the late 1800s, as evidenced by the etched graffiti throughout.

When I fell, the volunteer Student Emergency Medical Technicians arrived as soon as called. Granted, I had been at the wrong end of the bluff, paralyzed, for many hours at that point. Stephen was the first down the craggy slope that fateful morning. He asked how I was doing and I managed a thumbs up, which he mirrored, all the while grateful to see them. Stephen was a fraternity brother, as was the second person I remember seeing, Lewis Jones. When he asked how I was I said, “Great. You?”

Long story short, I was beaten and bruised from head to toe. They put me in a basket for a 2 hour haul up the side of the mountain. Then came August, the dog of my life at present.

When my world was dissolving before my eyes, my marriage, my home, my dreams coming unglued, I noticed a stray in our neighborhood of Natural Bridge Road. He seemed to be a gregarious, big, leggy pup. His favorite activity was inciting Little Pig, the neighborhood’s communal dog, into chase, the big stray playing the submissive. Of the three or four sightings of this dog, he was still attached to 20’ of zip line cable, frayed at the end, at least twice.

I had a nice place to live in the basement of some friend’s in Clifftops. Another friend had found me a great house to buy, for a slight premium, before it went on the open market. The Clifftops digs had a proper dog kennel. The new house had a massive, fenced yard. It was then Stephen called to see if I wanted a dog, the canine I now refer to as August West, of the aforementioned portrait.

On one of his websites, http://www.picturestoryblog.com/ , Stephen posted a picture of his godson running amongst the flags in the quad. His narrative was hopeful that his godson’s generation will not be scarred by events like 9/11, as previous generations have been. However, the somber tone of the following quotation echoes and resonates in my deepest thoughts, my sensory memory from that tragic moment and the days that followed.

“I will always be afraid of a beautiful day the second week in September. That particular quality of light will always make me sad, it will always remind me of 9/11/01.”

Stephen Alvarez, 9/11/12

Gun rights, My Thoughts

I have been increasingly conscious and conflicted about gun rights in light of several, recent events, stretching back for over the past year and a half. I have been cogitating over this post for several weeks. Now, confronted with the horrific events in Aurora, Co. I can no longer wait to say my piece.

First and foremost, I want to make some very succinct points:

· What happened in Aurora was the manifestation of evil or psychosis.

· I am not a member of the NRA, and, further, I believe Wayne LaPierre is nothing more than yet another sound byte angling for industry lobbying leverage.

· The United Nations is currently, as in right now, considering actions which could be interpreted as undermining the United States Constitution, as set forth in our 2nd amendment rights. The body is working on a treaty which, among other things, some of which have merit, disarm citizens of sovereign nations.

· The Second Amendment states “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Now, I will go unhinged into the miasma that is the gun rights debate.

I think as a premise to my entire argument is that the Second Amendment, as a portion of the Bill of Rights, is the iteration of what has been bestowed upon man by the creator – inalienable rights, as seen by the founders of our country. These are not privileges which can be offered or negated by the state. One has the right to protect himself from threats, be it home invaders or government gone off the rails.

Since the beginning of man, individuals or groups sought to defend their lifestyle by whatever means necessary. I would like to think that, per capita, that death by violence has decreased in the past 10,000 years, but I won’t hold my breath.

Shooting tragedies are not in short supply. Going back to Columbine, America has witnessed Virginia Tech, Gabrielle Gifford, Ft. Hood, multiple other mass shootings, and most recently, The Dark Knight Rising shooting.

So here is the knife’s edge upon which we teeter – should civilians merit gun ownership? The argument is framed in the lexicon of “gun control” – tightening the parameters of the laws currently on the books as in limiting magazine sizes, banning “assault rifles”. The subtext is a ban on semi-automatic weapons. I concede that I can’t think of a single reason to own a 100 round drum magazine.

Looking beyond our own borders, improvised explosive devices / car bombs / suicide bombers continue to wreak havoc on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan which would not be the case if the US hadn’t stepped in the cow patty which is the region.

Speaking of the region, what are some of the victories of the last 2 years? The first that comes to mind is Libya, where the private ownership of weapons allowed an oppressed people to rise up against a dictator of 30+ years. Where would those guys have been were the UN notions been in force prior to their uprising?

The same is happening in Syria. These bold, fearless people protested for over a year, peacefully, taking casualties from the government all the while, before breaching the commitment to armed revolt. Now, it is clear the Assad regime will only fall to overwhelming military force.

Granted, in both of these cases, outside arms were funneled into the revolutionaries by empathetic nations. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn, 30 years from now, that the US and others did so covertly.

Why do I mention these 3rd world “failed” states? Because, simply, we are not above pandemonium in our own streets. The riots in the aftermath of Rodney King’s assailants skipping charges should be proof enough. These things can happen here. We are not some “special” or “sacred” nation, far from it. We are a nation, like any other nation, who has internal security issues. Why should we believe we are “above” such violence? Even our Western peer state, England, recently witnessed massive, violent riots.

For a very long time, we were secure in the notion that the state would cover all needs re: civil order. Unlike other countries (Israel, Mexico, ad infinitum), we feel we are somehow secure, safe, beyond violent retribution. This is not reality. This is also the clash between our Constitutional Rights and the present situation.

Unfortunately, and that is not said to be snide or understate the violence, there was a guy in Colorado the other night who took matters into his own hands. Little has been released through the press about the person or personality of the shooter. What is known is he had 2 x .40 caliber Glock pistols, an AR-15 .223 caliber, and a 12 gauge shotgun. He had a 100 round magazine on the .223. He used tear gas and had his apartment wired to explode or burn. He had thousands of rounds in his possession. Looking back for an analogous situation, I am drawn to Anders Behring Breivik, the murderer of 77 people in Norway, someone who knew of no other way to address his grievances.

Please don’t think I’m taking this lightly. Although Breivik may be of a different stripe, enough details have emerged about Holmes to get the picture of someone who simply checked out, leaving the reality of day to day life for that of his own machinations.

When one is in the full throws of a manic / psychotic episode, “reality” holds no water. The thoughts are completely divergent from the necessary – food, water, sleep and hygiene – all gone out the window. The focus is the interior, self-created narrative, the “real world” does not exist. Holmes, undoubtedly, believed in his actions to the degree that it consumed his life for at least 4 months prior.

Think about that - Holmes set out to do nothing short of fuck shit up. I could imagine his singular focus on this task, manic obsession on the ingredients in his fatal stew. Throw in the whole Batman fantasy (I admit I have not seen any of the recent Batman / Dark Knight movies) and I envision someone who actually believes, whole heartedly, he is an evil genius, an enemy of the Dark Knight himself.

Back to the subject of gun rights…Holmes weapons and ammunition were purchased legally. God only knows where the Libyan’s or the Syrian’s guns are coming from. The uprisings, call them Arab Spring or what you will, have shown the necessity of the right to keep and bear arms. The Libyans shifted rather swiftly from protest to armed conflict. However, the Syrians took the assaults for over a year. Finally, and not to my surprise, an armed insurrection has risen to oppose the Assad regime. There will be a time where we face tyranny in this country, and our last resort will be armed resistance. It is for this instance that the 2nd amendment was written and must stand unaltered.

We must realize, as a nation, as a culture, that evil lurks even in the best of men. And, that said, evil can materialize at any moment, for any reason. We in America have lived far too long in a cocoon, immune to the violent upheavals of so many other countries, to not experience such violence in our own country at some point.

Chris Hedges, in his truthdig article “This is What Revolution Looks Like”, gives an excellent, brief, discourse on the parallels of historic uprisings and where we as a society stand today. His opinion is bleak. In his article, he quotes the historian Crane Brinton in his book “Anatomy of a Revolution”, surmising we have entered the second step of revolution, the elite trying to suppress dissent.

Since the passage of NDAA, the label “terrorist” has been applied to the Occupy movement. Police-state situations have visited cities across the country. Across Europe, austerity and the infringement of the EU in sovereign states’ affairs, protests are far more heavily attended, often over 100,000 in the streets. Greece is seen on the edge of being ungovernable by the international press.

It would seem the US is trying to get ahead of the curve. In the extreme case of disarmament of civilians, such protests would pose less of a threat to general order.

The UN ATT treaty (look it up), from my perspective, challenges the US Constitution. Mind you, I don’t carry a pocket constitution or quote amendments, but I am very opposed to intra-national organizations threatening my nation’s sovereignty, in any way, shape or form.

This is where the far right wants to draw the line. Individual rights, individual sovereignty are the buzz words. “The Liberals want to take all our guns away.” “The UN decries the flood of small arms into conflicts domestic and international”. But what has this to do with the US?

First of all, upon but a few minutes of looking at the UN website, I realized this was something which could propagate tentacles stretching into every crevice of the 2nd Amendment. This shit called for disarmament of civilian populations who would otherwise have the legal right to own a firearm. Again, I don’t flaunt an NRA membership card, but I was pissed. Here is the United Nations, 193 voting members, deciding whether or not I could, as an American, possess a firearm.

What does this mean? It means that 192 nations can vote whether or not the United States should allow its citizens to own a gun. The primary reason the right to keep and bear arms was in the Bill of Rights was to define the rights of the individual, as granted by the Creator, which included the resistance to tyranny.

Of course, there are those who go even further, claiming that these tragic mass shooting events are “False Flag” psychological operations. In other words, “psy-ops”, events staged for the purpose of manipulating public opinion for the sake of policy making. Granted, these folks could talk you into JFK / moon landing / 9-11 stories that actually make sense on some level. In this case, the argument is the UN wants to 1) require registration of all guns in the US. 2) use registration to locate and confiscate weapons. Basically, relieve the people of their weapons thereby diminishing the security threats to the state. Sound familiar?

Well, here we are, in the good ole’ US of A, with almost as many people as guns. Obviously, many Americans own none, while others own several. How do people validate owning that many firearms?

Well, owning several, I can say it started with my heritage. My father had several of his father’s shotguns, Brownings, from the early part of the 20th century. The first time I fired a gun, it was one of my grandfather’s, a 12 gauge with no recoil relief. I was about 7. It laid me on my ass. The fact that they were Brownings, and all three of us were named Browning, instilled a special affection for these guns.

By the time I was 8, I was dove hunting. My father had given me a single shot .410 with which I took down about 1 of every 10 birds. By the time I had finished 8th grade, I had earned all of the marksmanship awards the NRA offered at the time. There were discussions of the Olympics at the gun club (the range of which was ironically located beneath a bar). When I was 13, I received a 20 gauge shotgun, a beautiful Remington 1100 I still shoot, in recognition of my graduation from Junior High School. I purchased my first gun at age 14, with money from a summer job digging ditches. It was a Remington Speedmaster .22 with a scope. The shop mounted and sighted the scope. I think I paid $135.

Enthusiasm for shooting was the singular commonality I shared with my father. When we would go shoot clays, or hunt, he was entirely focused on me and helped me learn the safety and marksmanship skills I now impart to my son.

My father had headed up a crew to go goose hunting every year. He would manage the applications for the lottery for blinds, get all the hotel reservations made, and be rewarded with his costs covered. I was thrilled to be included in 3 of these hunts. They were the utmost in male bonding: wake up at 3 am for breakfast and head out to the preserve. After receiving blind assignments, we loaded in old army trucks for the pre-dawn, inevitably extremely cold, ride to the field.

We were 3 to a blind the first couple years. Then, it was Dad, a high school classmate who followed dad to Georgia Tech and ended up on the NCAA Basketball championship team, and myself. Watching Mr. Riley, all 6’ 10’ of him crawl into a blind was priceless. These guys had it figured out – a catalytic heater placed under the bench in the blind, our laps and legs covered with a tarp, we dined on sausage biscuits and V-8 warmed on the heater, and endured often below 10* temps.

By the third year, Dad was too sick to follow us into the field. Then, one other man and I took the blind. It was horrible weather for hunting geese – bright blue skies, unlimited visibility, birds flying too high to shoot. Ideal conditions would be grey skies and precipitation, preferably frozen. Somehow, we were the only blind that got our limit that year. Mind you, we were only allowed 8 shells apiece on the preserve. I took two Canadians and brought home 6 shells.

My father retired as a much decorated Lieutenant Colonel United States Air Force officer. From my birth in 1966 until his retirement in 1981 , we lived in constant awareness of the Cold War. The enemy was always at hand. “Red Dawn” had yet to come out, but such a scenario was played out many times by my friends and me. This manifested itself in various ways – toy armies and tanks, digging foxholes to surveille farms neighboring the base, and shooting everything from bb guns to a .357 (with parental accompaniment in the later).

When I married, my bride was vehemently against having guns in the home. This was a thorn in the relationship from the beginning. I wanted guns, primarily because I enjoyed just going out to shoot targets with friends. Latent memories of shooting with my father fueled my desire for bringing the guns I owned, stored at my family home in Kentucky, to my current home.

Secondarily, I still feel strongly that children should receive at least rudimentary gun safety lessons. As with a large body of water and the ability to swim, it really doesn't matter if you can swim, as long as you know the dangers of water and how to avoid them, an inevitability in anyone’s lifetime. This head in the sand approach of my wife, and my desire to expose our child to guns, was exemplified in a potentially horrific way.

Wife, child of 4 or 5 years old and I were at a neighbor’s, visiting a new litter of Boykin Spaniels and helping install a new VCR. My boy came into the bedroom, where I was wiring stuff together. The neighbor, being without regular child traffic, was far from policing her house for hazards. On the nightstand was a loaded revolver. When he saw it, he immediately picked it up, swinging it around two feet from the three adults, asking if it were real. Needless to say, all three adults were near apoplectic and diffused the situation quickly and, thankfully, without incident.

At that point, MB, my son was far too young to be responsible with a firearm, but certainly old enough to learn the dangers therein and how to deal with a found weapon (if you see one, don't touch it and find an adult). Here, the nanny state, which existed in my home and threatens our individual sovereignty, was totally out of the loop with reality.

As could have been predicted, at age 7 MB was presented with the opportunity to go shooting with a friend. My now ex-wife called after the fact and said she had given her permission. Honestly, my feelings were hurt that his first shooting outing was not with me, if for no other reason than I wanted to make damn sure he understood basic safety.

Since our divorce, I have retrieved my few weapons from Kentucky and purchased a couple. I also purchased a .22 for MB’s last birthday, his 9th. All of these, as well as ammunition, are kept in a secure situation under lock and key.

This is all to say I have strong ties, deep attachments and sentiments to private gun ownership. I do not buy into the rhetoric that any movement toward gun control is a bad, conspiratorial act. A 100 round .223 magazine? Come on, that is over the top. A 30 round magazine? Who knows. Banning all semi-automatics? No way. UN imposing itself on the 2nd Amendment. Hell no.

I wander, and now will attempt to synthesize the above thoughts:

1) Guns kill people, no doubt about it.

2) An individual’s right to protect himself, his property, loved ones, and even oppose tyranny is inalienable. This requires weapons.

3) The global situation is in decay, with this decay eating itself up the foodchain from the 3rd world to the 1st world.

4) Armed revolt is, at some level, inevitable. Tea Party folks are calling for it and they are not alone. The far left is calling for armed attacks against institutions, (ie the petroleum industry).

5) As the world becomes more tumultuous, we in the US will ultimately be dragged into it.

6) The government seeks to “get ahead” of the coming crisis vis a vis militarized crackdowns by authorities and suppression of individual’s ability to defend themselves with weapons.

So, there, I have said it to the best of my ability, as coherently as possible. I thank you for reading this far and encourage you to comment.

SCOTUS and Obamacare

I haven't a fucking clue what is going on.

Brief peek at the current situation

On the international front:

The EU seems to have declared total war on its member states. Debt bailouts in exchange for sovereignty is the strategy. I could go on and on about this, something I barely understand. The one thing I do know is more countries are seeking bailouts, and one of them will default. Again, domino theory comes into play. Spain, a major economy and large population, could bring the whole shit house down.

Syria now engulfed in a full-fledged civil war, with Turkey arming its borders and Saudi Arabia declaring it will provide salaries for opposition fighters. Lebanon, who shares a border like Turkey, has also seen the violence spill into the country and they aren’t too thrilled about it either.

The big three – Russia, China, and the US - are not jumping into the fray tenaciously, each holding firm but cautious stances. Russia, an arms supplier and ally to Assad, doesn’t want to lose that business, especially as they have a major naval base there. China seems to remain relatively silent, save dampening any aggressive progress by the UN. The US vacillates from calling for Assad to step down to silence.

Then there is Iran, the current lynch pin in the whole mess. They answer to Russia and China, as confidential front man, while bringing Venezuela into the alliance. The concern being expressed by prognosticators now is: 1) Syria will continue to deteriorate. 2) Outside forces will align with rebels / regime. 3) Regional war will result along the lines of allegiance. 4) Iran becomes the main target of opportunity.

The only thing standing between Iran and Syria is Iraq, with Afghanistan on the other side. Pincer move seems inevitable. The shot that started WW I, killing Archduke Ferdinand, may have been fired in this case when Syria shot down a Turkish fighter without considering the recognized rules regarding stray aircraft over sovereign territory.

This is a very possible, if not likely, chain of events. The Arab Spring countries (Egypt, Libya) are not too fond of the US. Afghanistan and Iraq have been trashed. Pakistan hates us. The violence, mostly ethnic or religious, has ignited across the middle of Africa.

To call this a dangerous neighborhood would be the understatement of the century. All it is going to take is a cross border fire fight to blow up the entire region. I think NATO used its only trump card in Libya. To try that maneuver again seems laden with unintended consequences, none of which are very palatable.

The US has a tremendous force presence in the region right now. Israel, as it has for decades, appears to be hanging on by its fingernails. Undoubtedly, should a full blown conflict erupt on a regional level, they would be a first target for the “bad guys” early on. The world is waiting on a match to strike and light the fuse.

Historic wildfires in Colorado. Tens of thousands evacuated near Colorado Springs and Boulder, including the USAF Academy.

"Today is one of those days when you understand what the early parts of the global warming era are going to look like," McKibben says. "For the first time in history, we managed to get the fourth tropical storm of the year before July. ... These are the most destructive fires in Colorado history, and they come after the warmest weather ever recorded there. ... This is what it looks like as the planet begins — and I underline 'begins' — to warm. Nothing that happened [at the United Nations Rio+20 summit] will even begin to slow down that trajectory." Dr. Bill McKibben

The gulf coast has been inundated twice in the last few weeks, first by a band of rain that wouldn’t leave and this weekend by TS Debby. Some communities got flooded to the extreme, sinkholes opened in areas affected.

Homage to the Boxwood

An Homage to the Boxwood

The boxwood (Buxus sempivirens) is one of my all-time favorite plants. Right now, their beautiful, fresh green new growth is emerging. Seeing this transformation from dark evergreen always sends me down memory lane. Yes, I daydream about boxwoods I have known. From the smallest “box ball” to some of the monsters around campus, I have come to know and love the personalities of many boxwoods both locally and abroad.

Local specimens are easy to find. The large shrub thrives on the mountain. Two plantings on University Avenue come immediately to mind, each exemplifying the range of uses of which box are capable. The box lining the front walk to Willie Cocke’s are majestic, at least 15’ tall. I often see children from the elementary school marveling at hollow interior of the box tunnel, the gnarled branches seen exposed underneath. At Kathryn Varnell’s home, a few doors closer to campus, the driveway is lined with substantial, well clipped box, adding a more formal feeling to the approach.

The community garden gazebo also boasts some 15’ tall beauties. They nestle against the stone and timber gazebo, an arts and crafts type affair, creating a spot of intimacy amidst the neighboring gardens. I spent some time last summer cleaning them out with the help of Nate Wilson, Domain Manager, and other University folks. By “cleaning out”, I mean removing 4”-6” diameter intruders like hackberry, poplar, and poison ivy. This generated vast amounts of brush. Only with the coordination of Nate and the University in the hauling of brush was the project feasible.

Personally, I have rescued three boxwoods for my home, and I have only just begun. Sally Krebs provided me with some root stock from 100 year old plants which had been removed. These had lined the side of her house, stretching high enough to get into the eaves. For better or worse, she decided to remove them, resorting to chaining them to a pickup truck and yanking them out, a method I have used in other circumstances, with other plants.

The carcasses were heaped near the house. When I went by one day to pick up Myers, best friends with her son, I noticed the tangled roots and branches of the pile, and the great void left behind by the house. How long they had been there, I do not know, but I investigated regardless. Lo and behold, a few still had life left in them. I whacked them to about a foot and heeled them in at Natural Bridge for about a year before planting them here on Prince Lane about 3 years ago. They have fully recovered.

Another one, found at the brush dump, is putting on new growth. I found it and its partner lying in the sun last July. The partner, as predicted, did not make it. The survivor was more than ½ dead. Now, the remaining ½ of the plant is putting on substantial new growth. Yes, I babied it. After coming home during a dry time, I had a load of compost mulching it and watered frequently.

My first Christmas on the mountain, in 1998, saw a pretty fair ice storm. Upshire Puckette called soon thereafter, asking me to clean up the impressive box which had taken a substantial hit along the front of her home. I spent several days working on the cleanup. My goal was to remove the damaged and broken limbs while leaving the plants looking as best they could.

Of course, this meant a vast amount of trimmings. I can remember a January evening, freezing in the dark, sticking cuttings from the trimmings in a propagation bed. Now, after they have lived in Midway, Jump-Off, on Natural Bridge Rd., and here in Bobtown, they are two feet tall and ready for transplanting into the landscape.

I had intended to plant them along the fence by the drive, ultimately creating a 6’ hedge to block out the real world. Granted, I would be lucky to live long enough to see this. However, I can remember a Thanksgiving with my cousin Billy, at the farm his father purchased early in the 20^th century, marveling over the towering box he had planted as a boy. Billy was 72 at the time. The box are by far as big as any I have ever seen in the US. So, maybe there’s hope.

Then, I received some news which was a blessing in disguise. The house across the street, which the University owns, is slated for removal ahead of building a new dorm. This house has some of the prettiest boxwoods on campus, and I have managed to claim salvage rights to them. So, IF I can find someone with a back hoe to help me, for free, I will have a fairly instant hedge. They will face the chainsaw soon, whacking them from their current 10’ to something more manageable, like 5’.

Flashing back to the rejuvenation of the boxwood at Cheekwood, I remember how ferocious one can be with the box. The box there had grown scraggly, had a lot of dead in them, and needed rejuvenation. A specialist came from Monticello to oversee the project, and whack they did. Several of the stumps left were several inches in diameter. These stumps were left from branches eliminated to get light into the heart of the plants, from the plants being topped at about 6’.

This is a task which I have, to a degree, executed a multitude of times – crawling “inside” the plant and removing dead wood is the beginning, followed by removing rubbing, diseased, and exceptionally long branches. I am always amazed at how much wood can be removed from a plant, each twig removed allowing more light.

All of this is but blather when compared to one of the greatest privileges of my horticultural career – pruning Rosemary Verey’s knot garden, an epic task of microscopic precision. Before getting into that, a thorough definition of “knot” is required.

Boxwood is very tolerant of pruning, as described above. Topiary, the training of plants into various geometric or animal shapes, is fascinating to me, especially when I consider how long it takes for these plants to grow. Parterre, the shearing of box to form tight designs, is another use of box. The French and Italians used this extensively during the Renaissance for the sculpted look it provides.

However, clipped box does not a knot make. As Mrs. Verey explained, a true knot has over and unders, as would rope tied in a knot.

Alamy Images

A sculptural green-on-green knot garden by Rosemary Verey

This knot, at Barnsley House, Mrs. Verey’s home garden, is two distinct knots next to each other. One, “the true lovers’ knot” is in the rear in this photo. Both designs are from medieval tapestries. They are featured in plan view in her book “The Making of a Garden”, about the 40+ years she spent developing her estate. The knots are next to a patio attached to the late 17^th century manor house.

When assigned the task, I followed Mrs. Verey to the tool shed. Reaching for a 6” electric shear, Mrs. Verey gave me her trademark skewed grin and, eyes twinkling, queried “And what are those for?” I assumed this would be the tool of choice for clipping the knots. The Yank was, once again, operating on American tactics. I was soon informed, in elegant detail, how wrong I was when clipping her knots.

She handed me some grass shears, as they are called on this side of the Atlantic. A downscaled version of the typical hedge shear, these 8” scissor blades were operated manually with handles like the average secateurs. Then, rummaging in the potting shed, she dug up a few empty plastic bags which had contained soil or some such. “Follow me,” she said.

I had discussed the knot and my enthusiasm for the form multiple times with RV. She, in turn, had directed me to various gardens with excellent examples of ancient British Box of all shapes and sizes. One garden had rooms divided by extraordinary walls of sheared box, topped with crenulations such as one would find on an ancient castle. To me, it was an honor and a privilege to clip RV’s knots. The head gardener saw it as more of a fence white washing a la Mark Twain.

Little did I know at the time, but I was entering a 4 day Zen journey with the Buxus. By this point in life, Mrs. Verey didn’t move as swiftly as she did once on the tennis court, her ankles swollen and arthritic. Following her was an exercise in patience by itself. We arrived at the knot and the lesson began.

First and foremost, I was forbidden electric shears because they throw clippings all over the place, making a proper, tidy job impossible. What’s more, she stressed, one goof with “electrics” and you could screw up the slow growing knot for years. The hand shears would prevent excess damage from a mistake or slip up. The plastic bags would be placed along either side of the base of the plants, keeping the tiny clippings out of the impeccably clean gravel framing the knots, leaving the space totally free of unsightly debris.

The hand shears, she explained, will also slow me down, making me think about what I am doing as it is a very intricate undertaking. The “overs and unders” must be precise for the shape to have the contrasts needed. “Do you have your book?” she asked, referring to her latest, “The Making of a Garden”. The drawing of the knots, a watercolor in plan view, showed the subtleties of the knots, mapping the over and unders clearly.

After going down the lane and across the street to the cottage she lent me, I retrieved my book. Returning to the knots, I placed the book, opened to the knots’ picture, on the box to be damn sure I didn’t screw this up. Of all parts of the garden, this was one of the most photographed and replicated. I would later find an attempt at the design in Nashville.

She was a woman of few words, all of which were inordinately important, always delivered with the expectation they would be followed to the letter, and God save the man who veered from them. I saw her retribution once. It was not pretty. A 78 year old woman violently scolding a young horse of a man who had transposed step one with step two.

So, taking all of this very seriously, I set to with the clipping of the knot. The other gardeners laughed at how serious and deliberate I was with the task, but I was oblivious. I was in hog heaven. The exercise required total attention, taking me to an out of body type sensation, an “in the zone” feeling shared by few other experiences. Sand sculpture, drawing, or a Grateful Dead concert are the only other activities I can describe as having the same effect.

The process, at the beginning of the day, started out as tedious. As time went by, and hours turned to days, the subtle magic of the knot unveiled itself to me. Since I was a young child, I have been fascinated by the manipulations of boxwood. Now, I was participating in a centuries’ old practice, an art form dating back to the 1300s at least. Once “in the zone”, time not only stopped, it ceased to exist. My progress was etched in razor sharp corners and fluid over and unders. Never had I felt so close to a plant.

As I was finishing up the trimming, at the end of a day, a woman emerged from behind the house and stood silently, studying the knots. I did not notice her for a second and gasped with surprise when I did. She asked if I were finished, and complimented the work. I said that, yes, I was just about to finish. I worked until well after the usual quitting time to knock out the project. The next day, working on the herb garden knots, I saw the woman again, just after starting work.

She had arrived at the patio knots at sunrise to capture the knots at the utmost of drama. The slanting pinkish sun colored the surrounding gardens in surreal beauty and exaggerated the contrasts in the knots. It turned out she was a photographer who was often featured in gardening publications. She had been working with RV, photographing the gardens. She relayed that RV made several comments praising my job of trimming, quoting her as saying it had “never looked so well”. Over the following couple of years, I actually saw some of these photos in various magazines.

I still have precious memories of the experience, a talisman of which are the clippings, now preserved for 17 years, which fell in the crack between the pages of her book, where the knots are mapped and which I used as a guide. Inscribed inside the front cover are her compliments on a job well done.