african violets

She is more like a cat than the bulldog stuff I grow outside.

Just half a cable reel someone tossed in the yard,  no kid alive who wouldn't tip it up and roll around.  Taller than me and of course the big brother chased me into the bushes. Something broke off of it or maybe it came apart and we went off to do other kid things. Couldn't understand why mom got so upset. Kids broke her new coffee table before she could even get it in the house.  

Some kind of repair to the round top and a wood box cut out of plywood for the base, then stretch bague Nagahide over the whole thing, secured with round head tacks. Hole in the middle, maybe a foot or so across in which she had a planter growing African violets.

Three memories of mother from childhood days, three that I'm going to mention here anyway, every time we spotted an old fashioned wagon wheel she talked about wanting a dining room table with round glass over the wheel, Frankoma wagon wheel china. She always went gaga over cattails alongside the road and that round Nagahide coffee table. Play on the floor under the edges, don't let her catch you climbing over the top, and be careful of the African violets. Of course, they got accidentally kicked lots of times.

Third grade before Halloween and I'm being led up the stairs by a woman who just screamed at her boss she didn't want me, school so old the stairs are worn down from countless children's feet. Cement steps outside.  Rows of cast iron and oak top desks screwed to the floor. No resource rooms in those days, she sat me down toward the back of the dumb row. Three reading groups, teacher's pets, sweat hogs in the middle who kind of get it, and the dumb row who couldn't read yet. Teacher gave me some old readers to practice at home, fun stories that I almost remember. Wish I still had those books. Probably sell on eBay.

Old classroom. One picture on the wall, George Washington.  High double-hung windows that hadn't been opened since FDR sat in the Oval Office on one side, sagging glass distorts a daydreaming boy's view of the sky, hissing radiators under.  African violets lined the wide window sills. 

Not quite the same story, but teacher's total pet, Enid came over to show me how to use the spelling workbook. Pink party dress, curls, and Patton leather mary janes that didn't touch the creaky wood floors, and me just starting to notice something almost magical about some of the girls. Enid sat next to me at the desk. First over the moon feeling next to a girl, and no one had told me the birds and bees story yet.

Teacher didn't strike such a positive figure.  Old school harsh keep us boys in line. Threaten to come into the pee stall to shut us up, three or four little boys peeing into the same toilet. Yuck.

One way or another I ended up on the list of kids who had to stay after school.  Almost everyone walked home, so a teacher could have kids stay after, sometimes for poor work or bad behavior, other times to help her around the classroom.  One time my dad and brother had to wait around while she made me work on a mural, painting with those kid brushes and tempera, so there must have been something on the walls beside Old George and chalk dusted blackboards.

Dad had borrowed a shotgun, take us boys out hunting pheasant.  Far cry from teacher's African violets. Us boys walked quietly behind along a row of stubble in a winter wheat field. Skiff of show. Scared one bird up and dad's shot went wild, came home empty-handed but for a little boy getting to shoot that twelve gage at a can on a fence post is almost as much a rush as Enid.

Mostly I recall the old lady teacher making us carry African violets between the school and her ground floor apartment a block and a half away.  She probably was trying to make nice but I hated and feared that woman more than anyone I ever have known. Story of my life, working hard to please a difficult woman.

Walk home alone afraid a carload of teenagers will screech around the corner, decide to pance the little kid, or maybe a stray dog who wouldn't come after the gang of kids walking together might take after me.  Never got panced, but did get chased by a bulldog back in second grade. Stayed after a lot then too, and the teacher was nice and kind but I still didn't do my work.

 

About that time mothers cherished African Violets, still growing in the center of the coffee table, weren't doing so good. Stopped blooming, dead leaves that should be in their prime, and she couldn't figure out why.  Did I know why or did the fantasy that I'm a doctor and the needles I stick in the fleshy leaf stems are life-saving medicine?  Third-grader probably didn't connect torturing mom's plants as a passive aggressive way of getting back at the hated and feared teacher.

Unfinished business with mother never told her that story.

Couple years ago I'm waiting for my paint to get mixed at Lows and found myself in an aisle lined with African Violets.

Brought home a purple one, treat her right, make up to mother and teacher?  

Other than she doesn't have a name, my plant's personality is pretty much the same as a cat. She likes certain places in the house and is especially finicky about putting out blooms.  

I use sharp scissors to remove spent bloom stocks, which have a name that I didn't remember ten minutes after looking it up.  Also, dead leaves carefully removed then someone else around here attacked her with thumb and fingernail, she refused to bloom for half a year after that incident.  Maybe longer.  Between retirement and covid time has been running over itself lately, but she definitely hated being trimmed in such a rough manner. 

During last summer's heat dome and it's over a hundred in the plant room. I kept her well watered, filling the tray at the bottom of the pot, now she will bloom for sure, won't she? Hot house plant and it is hot in this house, but no she hunkered down tight to the ground. Housemate finally told me to get her into a milder climate, so I moved her to a shelf up by a window in my room. 

By the next day, she had lifted her leaves toward the light, and in a few weeks blooms started to form. Treat a girl right and a guy might get what he wants. Too bad I've never managed to get that one straight out in my real-world life, but at least for now my African violet is happy.