Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 8, 1990 TAG: 9003071519
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I am going to be too tired to go dancing and drinking and carrying on.
I know. I know. There's nobody who can be the life of the party like Old Bennie here, but you're going to have to get some other guy to wear the lampshade for a while.
The reason I am hanging up the old top hat and tails temporarily is the semi-annual ritual at our house called The Laying Down of the Mulch - which also can be translated as the Season of the Broken Back.
It begins with a mound of chopped-up trees that shows up in your driveway.
Did I say mound? This pile is roughly the size of one of the Peaks of Otter.
It is so big you don't raise your voice around it because you might cause an avalanche that would bury the woodpile and the cat.
Never mind that this stuff smells good. There is enough of it here to kill you.
As any of you who have the slightest interest in mulch will know, it is not designed to distribute itself around dogwoods, pines, azaleas and a number of places that are very hard to get to.
This means that you must shovel it into a wheelbarrow and push it, most of the time in a uphill direction, to the proper place.
It only seems that it takes you a year to move all of this stuff. It is true, however, that loading and pushing the wheelbarrow easily takes a year off your life - while your waist size stays exactly where it was.
You mulch experts also know that if you leave it piled up for very long, it has this alarming tendency to smoke or catch fire.
If the above happens, you will be embarrassed by people who will drive by and yell: "Pardon me, sir, but I believe your mulch pile is on fire. God knows what this will do to property values in the neighborhood."
It is also well-known among mulch-lovers that something really spooky makes it disappear every two years.
You can have it really thick around the dogwoods and, so slowly you don't notice, it sneaks off somewhere.
One of these days, I want to do a paper on this called: "Dissertation on the Phenomenon of Biennial Dissipation of Certain Organic Material" or: "You Mean It's All Gone Again?"
So, the good times are gone for a while, girls.
But, heck, we'll still be friends.
If you want some really good exercise, let's have a nice visit at my place.
Bring your own wheelbarrow.
by CNB