Jill Montgomery and I were sitting at her kitchen table, talking about one thing or another. She was gazing at her backyard when she said, as much to herself as to me, “I sure would like to get rid of all that bamboo.” Before I lifted a finger, I should have found out what kind of bamboo I would be working with; the people at Happy DIY Home could have told me.
Now what must be understood is that for six years, Jill and I had happy, relaxed and mutually supportive friendship. I did things for her, she did things for me. I picked up and took care of her children Larisa and Sergey many times, I mowed her yard, took care of her cat when she was out of town and generally said yes to any requested favor. She reciprocated in a multitude of ways. I had an open invitation to do my laundry at her house. I had a key to the front door. Jill and I never sought to determine who gave more in a relationship that benefitted all four parties. She often needed a break from the “little darlings,” and my paternal nature was indulged to the hilt. Sometimes at Stacy Pool, one of their friends observed our interaction, which seemed to be that of a father and his children. The question was asked, “Is he your dad?” I had to suppress a smile as Larisa or Sergey answered, “He’s not really our dad, but he’s sort of our dad.”
Volunteer work
Back to Jill and her off-handed remark at the kitchen table. She was not asking me to take on that back-breaking job. No, no. Fully a third of her backyard was a dense forest of bamboo, and it was encroaching, inexorably moving forward. But I like to please, to contribute and to help. I also like a challenge. Who knows? Maybe the kids would learn some lessons in hard work and perseverance. One day when Jill was away, I went to her house and got to it. I had a shovel, a pick, a pitchfork, a saw, an axe and a pair of leather gloves.
As Mao Zedong used to say, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So I randomly chose a 15-foot stalk of bamboo and dug it up by the roots. I cast it aside and moved onto the next one. On that first day of my self-appointed project in the summer of 2003, I may have taken care of 20—which left approximately 380 still standing. When Jill and the children came home later that day, they were surprised and may have had some doubt about my sanity. I cleaned up in the bathroom, and the four of us had a nice dinner.
Jousting with Larisa and Sergey
I took on that bamboo methodically if not fanatically. I remember one time when Larisa and Sergey were out there with me. Bamboo is actually a member of the grass family (there are more than 300 varieties), but when mature it is hard and the roots grow deep. Some of these things were like trees, and getting them out of the ground was no easy matter. One in particular had a huge clump of roots, and my task appeared hopeless. Or so it seemed to Larisa and Sergey. They laughed at me. Nay, they mocked me. “You’ll never get that out!” they chortled. Oh, really? From every direction, I dug, I pulled, I yanked, I chopped and then I dug some more. Gradually, the ground loosened up and gave way. The kids were now watching intently, offering advice. Finally, after maybe 10 minutes of intense labor, I pulled that monster out of the ground. Larisa and Sergey were bug-eyed and whooping whereas I was bent over in exhaustion, and covered in sweat and dirt.
Throughout that summer, I removed bamboo from Jill’s backyard almost on a daily basis. I took pleasure in seeing it retreat toward a long-hidden fence. She was ever so grateful to have it done and reminded me that I had taken on the work voluntarily. True enough, but I was doing it for her. I draw a parallel between this and a task given to me and my brother Randy in 1966. After expansion of the Pennington house in Dallas, a big pile of bricks sat in the backyard. They had mortar on multiple sides, and our job was to remove that mortar. Both of us had a hammer and a chisel. The work was not easy or pleasant, but we kept hacking. Eventually, every one of those bricks was free of mortar.
On some Saturdays and Sundays, I spent two hours in Jill’s backyard, had an energizing dip at Stacy Pool and returned to do more battle with the bamboo. I hesitate to say it was dangerous, but I sometimes feared falling and landing on a jagged bamboo stump. The worst thing that happened was when I was chopping a big bamboo stalk and ended up hitting my left calf; the scar is still visible.
A task completed
In time, all of the bamboo was cut down and carried around to the front where the city’s workers took it away. No, not all of it. I kept a dozen long, straight stalks. After my friend David Kendall helped me cut a circular floor, the bamboo was tied together by ropes, rising to the top like an inverted ice cream cone. A blue plastic covering was attached thereto, and Larisa and Sergey were presented with a nice tee-pee. It was a little bit ad hoc, and I doubt Native Americans would have been too impressed. But I might have gotten half a merit badge for such a thing back when I was in the Boy Scouts.
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