Let's get down and dirty

As all my ABH friends and faithful Slight Detour readers know, this is a seedy morning for me. Now that the dirt has been flung in the political arena, things are sprouting according to conventional well-orchestrated, devious schemes.

Lots of people are happy today; some, like me, prefer on mornings like this to turn to the garden dirt. After all, if nurtured and watered, it brings forth the beauty of our earth.

And, when it all comes down to it, cucumbers in the fall and asparagus in the spring sustain us and make us much happier than the sinister, low-down dirt we see on our television screens, read in our Internet emails and hear from the radio talk-show gurus during political campaigns.

In that gardening arena, when the going gets tough, strategically-oriented, weed-infested seeds get planted with great care for perfect timing. The sole purpose of these seeds is to ravage all glimmers of hope that something will some day change the way our political system does its business.

I should be smart enough to know better, but I am one of those naive souls who holds out for the silly notion that humans can rise above the dirty tricks of personal destruction through innuendo, fear and half-truths.

This morning, my hopes are dashed but not destroyed. I know, as a very amateur gardener, that conditions must be right for plants to flourish. I know that when insidious and parasitic influences eat away at the stems and leaves of delicate plants, they've got that much more of an uphill battle to reach their maturity.

I've seen plants triumph in spite of adversity, though, and will continue to hope for the best in this political season.

In the meantime, the cucumbers in the upstairs bedroom are coming along nicely. Soon, the snow will leave. I can bring my greenhouse home, and they can thrive within its protection until it's time for the summer dirt, which is a lot more palatable than what we're beginning to see in the political gardens.