Tulips

 I finally got my tulip bulbs in the ground. I bought them so many weeks ago and now that we are into November, I was running out of weather and excuses. Beautiful day. Might as well. A few weeks back I had sprayed whatever grass had been growing there with vinegar, so clearing that dead stuff was a breeze. The ground was pretty hard, but not too rocky. The whole operation took maybe half an hour. I did, indeed, make sure the pointy ends were facing up. 

Tulips always bring two memories. One is growing up in my Wonder Years back on Julep Lane in Greenhills, Ohio. I was lucky to have been a kid in the 60's. My folks had planted tulips on the south side of the house, and I thought that was pretty cool given our street's name. I'm probably fonder of roses but tulip bulbs are pretty easy to plant and don't require much care at all. I admire how they peak out of the ground on a false spring day and then retreat when they realize, "It's still winter!" These should come up in a few glorious bunches next year. 

The second memory is of my late friend, Wendy. She and I had gone to school together, but never met, despite having mutual friends. I know that sounds odd, but there were 1300 kids in our graduating class, with close to the same number in the junior class, so you are talking some 2500 kids in in one big ass school every day so you couldn't possibly know everyone. I knew her name though. Mike S talked about her a lot! According to him, Wendy was a slut, a whore and a bitch. I wasn't the most sophisticated high school boy (understatement) but I figured that Mike had an unrequited crush on her and, boys being boys, felt rejected and didn't take it very well. That wasn't the case, I would learn later- post school. Mike was an obnoxious asshole, but it turned out he was quite gay. Shit. Maybe Mike had had an unrequited crush on me! Yikes! We never got along. I figured it was because he was an obnoxious asshole. He didn't really get along with anybody, so I didn't feel special.  

Years later though, Wendy friended me on Facebook, probably back in 2009 when everybody in the world first got on. She messaged me one day saying something like, 'I don't know who you are, but we have a lot of friends in common, so we might as well be Facebook friends!' I couldn't argue with that. She turned out to be a real gem on FB. She was fond of posting; "You know what's better than roses on the piano? Tulips on the organ!" Wendy was very boisterous, funny like that in kind of a Shelly Winters way. Bawdy as they used to say. But a good friend to everyone. Even Mike. Lots of funny stories. Just a good attitude about life and people, even when life or people weren't good to her. 

So, I thought of her today. You know, we still never met. I've got a few internet friends like that. You love them, cherish them, really, really know them, but you never meet for one reason or another. Usually distance. But they are still friends. They still count. Wendy passed several years ago. Cancer. I'll think about her again in the spring. And I will smile when I see the tulips.