A Place for Pickin’ and Diggin’

During the last weekend of July 2019, we had the great pleasure of hosting dear friends from South Bend, IN that we have known since the late 1980s.  It didn’t take much effort to dig into our memory banks and pick a bounty of wonderful recollections.

We also literally picked blackberries from our vines and dug new potatoes from the ground.

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

            -Seamus Heaney

            https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47555/digging

Also, on the morning of July 27, I put on my hat as Associate Director of the OSU SOM, and dug through an “Excellence” report (a misnomer) to read what an internal College committee uncovered about degree programs in the College of Arts and Sciences at OSU.  The report identified various obstacles that are in place that prohibit the units in the College from moving up in College rankings.  My take away is that the College is too large for the budget that supports it, and at the end of the day, the upper administrators in the College must prioritize which units to fund and which to dismantle.  Unfortunately, my digging uncovered information that predicts a bleak future for the School of Music as it has traditionally been structured.

Later in the morning, I had the pleasure of “pickin’ the brain” of my friend from South Bend and to listen to his account of the financial wellbeing of the endowment at the University of Notre Dame.  Good decisions have produced much fruit to be harvested when needed.

Blackberries-both black and red

Blackberry Pickin’

I reach in, avoiding the thorns,

To find plump black knobs

Sweet to the taste.

I am tempted to pick the berries of red,

But leave them alone, knowing what’s ahead.

Now comes the test:

Do I pick the berry mixed black and red?

Yes, and I find tartness

Should have waited.

            -CPW

In conclusion, as one digs and picks, there are choices to be made, some rewards and some disappointments. Enjoy the tasks.

Photo by Erik Leigh Simmons
Caption: "The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest"
William Blake (1757-1827)

CPW