Leon Hale’s weekly column is up at the Houston Chronicle…This section in the middle caught my mind’s eye and reminded me of my year living with my Grandparents back in the early 70’s.

When sprummer comes to the country, what arrives along with it is a lot of work to be done. A place like this, small as it is, needs labor, and it has none.

Well, there’s one old man who works here, or anyway pretends to. If you watched him at what he calls work, you would wonder why the lady of the house puts up with him.

Right now he is supposed to be planting a vegetable garden, and most days he does go out back to the plot. You see him carrying a hoe now and then, or a spade, but he uses them mainly to lean on while he rests. He must be the only member of the labor force who rests more than he labors.

It’s so hard nowadays to find good help. Look out there to check this old dude’s progress and you’ll find him gazing at the sky, watching buzzards, or hawks, or airplanes leaving contrails, or sandhill cranes flying north.

He reports planting potatoes and beans and squash and various other vegetables, but nothing seems to be coming up.

via Leon Hale: Good help is hard to find | Lifestyle/Features | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.

The images dancing through my head are of working in the garden with my grandfather. My memories are a mish-mash from a decade of visits and longer term stays. The gardens were in SE Texas before the move, and South Texas after my big stay…Grandpa always had something growing. Once he retired, he started planting over an acre…mostly corn to put out during hunting season.

Working beside Grandpa, the ease with which he handled a hoe was a wonder to my mind, and an inspiration to my young, aching body. Unknown movements on underused muscles left one very sore young man trying to keep up with a much older mentor.

Thanks for the memory snapshot Leon…