THE COMMON ROUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24448, 6 November 1940, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND

By Wayfarer

To our anecdotage we add the epic of ’arry, who belongs to a country community not a thousand miles distant as the bus flies. It is the ;abit (excuse it. please—) the habit of ’arry upon a Saturday evening to wander down to the local to have a few slow ones in an atmosphere convivial. On a recent evening. what with the developments in the Eastern Mediterranean and debate concerning the best remedy for the cow of Briggs, which had got in among the seed potatoes and become blown, the session was protracted. . Shortly after midnight ’arry departed in the best of good spirits upon his homeward w.ay. Another citizen who was late abroad, returning from*’ a carnival dance in the next township, saw in the moonlight a strange sight. It was ’arry making progress. He would lean his head gently against the macrocarpa hedge of which fences in our village are composed; then, his eyes closed and a gentle song issuing from his lips, propel himself forward, to grasp the telegraph post on the other side of the rough, footpath. A short pause to take bearings, and 'arry would shoVe off again, back to the shelter of the macrocarpas. And so on. The friend, fascinated, watched this erratic progress for a time, and then, deciding four legs might be better than ’arry’s uncertain twain, approached.

“ Hello, Harry, what do you think you are—a ship tacking?” ‘‘No. Bill,” said ’arry happily, lurching across to the next telegraph post, “I’m playing I’m ruddy bee!” “ Bee? But. Harry, I always thought bees flew in a straight line for home! ” “’S right. Bill,” exclaimed the cheery inebriate, “ but I’m a ’oney bee—jus’ flitting from flower ,to flower.”. v Though not, we must confess from our acquaintance with ’arry, one of those most admirable insects which imorove each shining hour.

In the past few weeks we have been aggrieved by a tedious, response of our friends to any suggestion for an airing, an outing, or an invitation to come up and have a look at the radio, as there seems to be a valve wrong (strange,'how many of one’s friends are prepared in normal times to have a look into the radio at no cost except that of hiring an expert afterwards to repair the damage they’ve done!)—in the past few weeks, we say, their response has been: “ Sorry, I’d like to, but I’m busy ( breaking in a new piece of ground,” or “ I’m putting in a vegetable garden.”

This sqrt of answer, constantly reiterated, has an inevitable result. Our eyes stray to our own somewhat luxuriant growth of “cooch” and last season's cabbages gone to seed, dwell o» the heroic struggle which the Astor daisies are waging against the natural Nazidom of blitzkrieging weeds (assorted varieties); eyes telegraph to conscience a disquieting S.O.S. and protesting inwardly we are soon on the downward path to the nurseryman’s, to invest in packets of seed depicting, before our stupified gaze, lush spinach, giant cauliflowers, gargantuan green peas, and such blooms as never were on heaven or earth.

To put it briefly, before we properly know what we are about we are—and still in a positive state of unknowingness—scraping, hacking, sweating, scrabbling, in the great seasonal task of putting in a garden.' This is the stage of man which Shakespeare overlooked, in which he is sans everything of mind or consciousness, of thoughts -for the future or pleasure in the past, a mere grunting, toiling, soiled automaton, so close to the earth, as to have become a disturbed portion of ,it.. his whole intellectual stature 'shrunk to the size of the seeds which, with dull, prayers and superphosphate, he presses feverishly into the dry, reluctant ground:

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground. The emptiness of rges in his face, And on his back the burden of the world. Who made him dead to rapture and despair, A thing Wist grieves not and that never hopes, Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox. . . Such as he is, behold him not with derision, but in pity rather—the amateur gardener! Of such, spurred on by the boastings of our acquaintances, the remorseless probings of conscience, the insidious appeal of the sunshine after a good, drenching showes, we ai;e become. In this semi-inanimate state there is little, of course, that can be done for us, but leave us to our grimy devices. And there is little we can do, but gaze with lack-, lustre eyes at our blistered hands, and review thoughts as blank as a newspaper column from which the type has been excluded. Which brings us to our point.

There should in any decentlyorganised state of society—and none of us will complain that our Government in New Zealand lacks the will to organise society—be a special dispensation covering the sad condition of the amateur gardener in the vernal period of the year. There should be remission of taxes, for at this period amateur gardeners are incapable of earning money to pay them: relief from the necessity of collars and ties and the requirement pf taking a bath and going into town to appear in them; a complete cessation of useful activities of a sordid, mercenary nature. And for columnists an Order-in-Council must be made, permitting them to display prominently a notice to some such effect as THIS SPACE DEVOTED FOR TWO WEEKS TO THE CULTIVATION OF CABBAGES or possibly; THIS COLUMN IS CLOSED DURING ALTERATIONS TO OUR VEGETABLE GARDEN (By Order) WAFE, The sooner the authorities take this matter up, the better for our vegetable marrows. Please, Mr GovernorGeneral!

The central block of the Otago Museum is being reorganised to hold a large map of New Zealand, with detailed maps of Dunedin at each end. This should show Auckland where it gets off. Joe Louis, states the radio, has declared that lie will vote Willkie for President. This assures, a correspondent suggests, that .in the event of his election Mr Willkie will be able at least to make one Brown Bomber available in the Battle for Britain.