Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 28, 1993 TAG: 9307280124
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Twenty years ago, for example, I would have smiled at the challenge when they dumped a load of mulch in the driveway.
I'd have hauled that stuff off in the same day, bubba, and dared them to bring me more.
I'd have it all raked out by the next day, and the whole place would look like the country club, and people would drive by just to see my mulch work.
Women would call and make interesting proposals because they admired my way with mulch. I never accepted any of these offers, of course.
One thing you learn early is never mix your mulching with pleasure.
But the years have eroded the man I once was. When they dumped a load of mulch in the driveway just the other day - a pile roughly size of your average volcano - old yours truly here wasn't smiling about it.
In my latter years, I've become allergic to most items on this Earth - including mulch, certain brands of after-shave lotion, and most things the deity has caused to flower on this continent.
Mulch kills me. After the third wheelbarrow, I can no longer breathe. I try to see how really neat and orderly it will look when we rake it out all over the half-dozen places in the yard that has never known grass.
I can't see this, of course. All I can see is my life passing before me as I dump the fourth wheelbarrow full of this dangerous stuff.
At night, I lie awake and listen these strange wheezy noises that are coming from my chest - noises I try not to make.
There is a long period each summer when I can give people simple instructions on how to get to our manor on Happy Highfields Road:
"You can't miss it. There's a pile of mulch in the driveway about the size of Mount Aetna.
"Might be some neighbors picketing and carrying signs saying BENNIE IS TRASHY, but don't pay any attention to them."
Not that anybody would want to come to see me. Who wants to put up with some clown who wheezes and sneezes all the time, squirts stuff up his nose and tells you between gasps that the gods have always conspired against him?
The time when I snapped my fingers at the challenge of mulch have passed. But don't worry about me. I'll get by and that pile will be gone no later than Nov. 1.
I can play this game of life with the best of them. Let time take its best shot.
To be honest, though, I do miss those calls from the women with indecent proposals.
by CNB