FLOWER Word of the Week

When I was a little boy, I went one day to a vacant lot near our house, where I gathered up some dandelions, red clover, and what I think now must have been wild chicory in flower — our Word of the Week. Of course, I was getting them together as a present for my mother, who said, when she saw them, “But these are all weeds!” Oh Mom, you dropped the ball on that one! I have to admit, though, that I like to see lawns full of dandelions when they’re in yellow flower, and where I lived in Pennsylvania, that was the common flower you’d see, along with what we called “bluebells,” but what were really a variety of wild violets. But everybody grew flowers, and in those days it was mostly from seeds and bulbs you’d buy in packets — we had no greenhouses. The Italians had to have flowers — it was a requirement of life. You’d see many an old Italian man planting flowers, like my grandfather, or like the somewhat crabby Mr. DeFazio across the street, who always seemed to me to look a little like Grant Wood’s famous farmer with the pitchfork.



Roses and Irises, by Vincent Van Gogh (1890); from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art

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