In about 2006-07 I had a short-lived column at a local bi-monthly called the Southwest Journal that served southwest Minneapolis, a clever name for the publication to be sure. But like Darts World magazine, you knew what you were getting.
A victim of the early days of the pandemic, the paper is sadly gone now, but I popped off close to a dozen of what I like to think of as humor columns before mostly self-induced circumstances had me moving on.
One of my favorite features of the publication was a poetry spread every quarter or so, edited by the poet laureate of the Minneapolis neighborhood of Linden Hills, a magical land where residents evidently have enough free time to appoint a poet laureate (named Doug).
Doug thought enough of one of my poems to put it in a book and pay me $10 for it. That was the day–the single (greatest) day–when I felt like I could claim that I was a writer and not feel like a fraud. I had published a poem (in a small book that had a circulation of less than 1,000), and I got paid for it. I got paid for poetry. The poem was about space travel, love, and cheese.
Another poem of mine that the Southwest Journal published was about wishing there was such a thing as a hamburger tree; a zebra is killed in that poem for some reason. And while most poems I’ve written have been kind to animals, another that made print laments the death of a bird… that I killed (accidentally, with my car). A couple more were about aging and my frequent contemplation of my inevitable death.
Last weekend I went fishing at Lake Phalen in St. Paul. Walking to the dock I saw a crowd had gathered nearby, and as I got closer I could see a man giving CPR to a person on the ground. An ambulance zoomed into the parking lot. The medics didn’t seem to be in a hurry, unloading a stretcher and walking toward the crowd at a pace that could barely be described as brisk. It was noticeable enough that people in the crowd began to raise their voices asking why they weren’t hurrying.
The man on the ground was fairly young, late 30s probably, and appeared to be reasonably fit. One of his flip-flops lay a few feet away from him, and he was still wearing the other. His mouth was opening in a way that seemed to be a reflex of the body, a gasping for air without actually taking in or exhaling any air. Whatever regrets that man had, whatever he’d left unsaid, whatever risks he’d wished he’d taken, and whatever plans he had for the future—I don’t think he will get to them, although I sure hope he does.
The weather that day was beautiful, and the lake and surrounding park were full of people. A young woman began to cry and her boyfriend put one arm around her shoulders. The man was put on a stretcher and wheeled toward the ambulance. His flip-flop was placed there with him. Soon everyone dispersed, and I was off to fish.
Honestly, I don’t know how this affected me. I felt bad. Nothing much deeper than that. But for the past few days the sun has been shining, and while I can see it, I can’t seem to feel it on my skin. Something in it is diminished, or something in me has hardened against it.
I think what I saw was a catalyst for my thoughts around these past few years or so, where time seems to have accelerated. The days seem shorter, even in late May now when the sun sets at nearly 9 p.m. The weeks and months don’t last like they used to. Friends are busier. I just recently received my first graduation celebration invitation from a friend whose daughter finished high school. And I find myself wanting to leave. To travel more miles and work from the road as I did all February and March (the impetus for this blog), so as to at least extend space, if not time. I feel another poem about death coming soon. Or at least one about hamburgers.
But that isn’t what I meant to talk about here at all when I started writing this. What I meant to talk about was a column I wrote for the Southwest Journal around 2007 about a woman who I worked with years ago who gave me a petunia. The column was titled “Cardening.”
Sometime in 2021 a woman named Linda Besner, writing for Maclean’s magazine, contacted me suggesting I’d originated the term cardening, and that it was now a thing that was picking up steam, “going viral.” We did a little interview and she wrote a story, saying “It all started when Adam Overland’s colleague gave him a petunia. To transport his new plant home, Overland hung it on the grab handle over his car’s backseat window. In his humour column the following week, Overland praised the roving greenhouse fashion he had accidentally created: “I’m calling it ‘cardening’—that is my new term,” he wrote, “but you can use it, as long as you let me merge.” The publication is based in Canada, so they spell humor wrong.
Soon, the usual thing began to happen. Numerous blogs picked up the story and people made it their own. The Florida Daily ran it. Gardeners sent in examples of how they’d been cardening. Etsy now sells cardening accessories. A story in a larger publication, The Guardian, wrote “…in-depth research by the Pass notes team has found a reference dating to 2007, when a man in Minneapolis recommended cardening as a way to combat road rage.” I had been reduced to The Onion equivalent of “area man.”
A lifelong goal of mine has been to create a new word that gets into the dictionary, and this seems like a good start, but writing this now, I see that spell check does not yet recognize cardening, so there is still work to be done. There’s still time. Isn’t there?
The “Cardening” column, as it was written, is posted in full below (SW Journal online archives appear to have been removed).
Cardening
I mentioned to a coworker the other day that I was thinking of getting some plants. Remembering this, she bought me one over the weekend. I think she has so many already that she hurries to live vicariously through gifting plants to others; she seems like a plant addict, so far as I can tell.
The plant she purchased for me came in a pot that has a hook on it, so that it can be hung from ceilings. Its leaves are on long strands of green spaghetti, and it has purple flowers. She says it’s a Petunia. We went out to her car and I moved it from her dark trunk to my backseat, where I hung it up on one of those hang-on handles. I’m thinking maybe I should just leave it there. It gets very good light in the car, and it is fairly safe. I don’t think anyone will break into a car to steal a plant. With any luck, they may avoid my car altogether, thinking I’m a crazy person or flower-child with nothing of retail value.
I could even hang additional plants from each handle, except for the driver’s side, which might get annoying during turns, bumping into my head like a plant-pendulum. But I could have at least three hanging plants. If I ever have people passengers, I can take the plants out or provide each person with a helmet.
Perhaps I will also line up a few potted plants on the ledge near the back window. A hearty plant like a cactus that thrives on direct sunlight might do well; maybe even a shrub or two. How about laying some sod? I could turn my car into a veritable green car. I wonder if this might get me special privileges, like driving in the carpool lane. If I was pulled over, I could wait for the officer to come around to my window and then say to the plants, “keep quiet, let me do the talking.” Maybe he wouldn’t give me a ticket. After all, people who talk to plants are relatively harmless.
It seems to me that many of us spend so much time in our cars that this may be the next logical step in our and our houseplants’ evolution. My daily commute is sometimes two hours. That’s almost as much time as I spend at home on weekdays, at least while I’m awake. I may as well make my car feel more like my home.
Volkswagen is already traveling down this road; most of their popular Beetles have a big plastic daisy and vase near the dash. Plants in cars might have other benefits as well. Road rage for example, could become less common. Think about it. Whenever I see a VW Beetle trying to merge, I find myself making room for the little guy. Perhaps because his merging doesn’t seem to be the act of aggression that so many other motor vehicles exude. It is not the overreaching confidence of a polished chrome sports car, or the big arrogance of an SUV. He’s not going to hurt anyone with that daisy on the dash. Go ahead, you first. Imagine the privileges one might garner with an entire car-garden!
The next step may be to actually have our cars run on “flower-power.” Alternative fuel vehicles are already on the road, with new innovations always around the corner. Individuals have even taken it upon themselves to convert vehicles to run on biodiesel; if an exhaust pipe smells of French-fries, it’s probably because the engine is running on the grease those fries were cooked in. So why can’t an automobile smell like Petunias?
Anyway, I can’t afford a house, but I would like to do some landscaping and gardening, so I’ve decided to take it to the car. I’m calling it “cardening.” That is my new term, but you can use it, as long as you let me merge.
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