Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Come on, what did you really move here for?

By J. Frank Lynch

Some of you may be wondering how my war on wisteria is going, almost a year after I wrote about it in my first column for The Citizen.

I told you then how a single sprig of wisteria planted by my grandmother decades ago had grown so unchecked in recent years, it threatened to consume the old family homeplace by the time I moved in Thanksgiving before last.

When I tried to kill it, it fought back with a vengeance.

Thankfully, I’ve managed to make it well into my second spring battling the stuff. If our troops can hold out for extended duty in Iraq, I certainly can survive on this front line.

Since last year, I’ve hacked, sliced, tugged and yanked so many lengths of wisteria that the yard often resembles the set from a Tarzan movie. Dead wisteria vines still dangle rope-like all over the place, just out of tug’s reach. Like a stuck cat, I figure they’ll surrender and come down eventually. I may be wrong.

Many folks are misinformed about the enemy known as wisteria, and that’s understandable. It often is portrayed as a peaceful, friendly vine in the Southern region. I’ll bet money you’ve eaten at a Wisteria Room or slept at The Wisteria Inn. If not, you’ve bought stuff you didn’t need at a store called Ye Olde Wisteria Shoppe, or maybe Wisteria, Etc. & More, Inc.

How did this truly evil Southern vine manage to become so unconditionally adored that every Holiday Inn along I-75 from Detroit to Lauderdale has a dining room named for it? (Seafood Buffet on Fridays! All-You-Can-Eat with a Bulletin on Sundays! Bus Drivers ALWAYS Eat Free!)

The answer should be obvious: It turns on the charm. Early each spring, but never for longer than two weeks, wisteria drapes itself in the most unexpected places and explodes in bunches of purple, grape-esque blossoms that smell like the Rich’s fragrance counter.

But it’s all a ruse. Folks take in the brief springtime display enthusiastically and then get on with their lives, forgetting until the next spring. The wisteria, meantime, continues to wreak all kinds of havoc, hiding among the azaleas, toppling the apple tree, tunneling in every direction just beneath the front lawn, throwing itself onto each and every unsuspecting living thing within sight, all in a never-ending quest to conquer new heights.

(Of course, being the vulture that it is wisteria consumes dead things too, like power or phone poles covered in that gooey stuff that smells like Six Flags. Last year I learned the hard way that even when wisteria has completely hidden all evidence of the lines running to your house, it’s best to stay out of it. How was I to know that dead wisteria vines are heavier than living ones?)

While tooling around the yard one Saturday back in March, I looked up and searched in vain for any sign of an impending wisteria explosion. I could see none, just empty brittle vines swinging in the breeze. I felt guilty, and a bit sad. What had I done? I killed it! And just because ... well, it tried to kill me first? Is that really a reason? Justifiable homicide?

I felt remorse. The wisteria, I swear, giggled.

And would you believe, on the very next day, a Sunday morning no less, the sun rose to reveal that battle-scarred wisteria vine blooming in all its thumb-nosing splendor. Mind you, it was a wounded soul and maybe a good quarter of the monster it once was. But it was alive. And thriving.

Later that same day, the neighbor next door remarked that my wisteria sure looked pretty. Her house is set back twice as far from the road, which means from her driveway she can take in all of my place. She’d lived there seven years, she said, but had never noticed the wisteria before now. She wanted to know, when did I get it?

Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees, so to speak.

I suppose it just goes to prove that stepping back from any situation and looking at it from the fuller perspective is always worthwhile. How you or I believe things to be up close almost always prove something quite different when considered from afar.

Like our ongoing war in Iraq, and the importance of the upcoming presidential elections, and the gay marriage debate, and the still-struggling economy, and the unending tide of newcomers pouring into Georgia, many of whom don’t look like you or me.

Just take the place you live, assuming that place is Fayette County. How well do you know it? Do you care about it? You may appreciate your little corner, but do you really understand how it ended up this way? Or how all the parts connect?

If your kids go to Whitewater, can you get excited about Sandy Creek making the playoffs? If you reside in Peachtree City, have you ever been to Brooks, just because? If you live in Tyrone, should you care about traffic congestion around the Fayetteville square?

For that matter, do you know why you live here? Seriously.

You didn’t move here for the plentiful white-collar jobs, the easy commute or the affordable housing. None of those things exist. Nor did you move here for the golf courses, green spaces or tightly-controlled zoning laws. They might all be attractive incentives, but they aren’t cause to relocate from Omaha.

Put another way: What is the single overwhelming factor that drives our community to be the kind of place your family wants to live? Ponder that until next week. A correct answer means you understand the place more than I give you credit for. Prove me wrong.

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