Sweet and Sour Leaf Blower

Yesterday I was using my trusty lawn leaf blower to clean around the pool deck and I found myself once again with tears in my eyes. No, it wasnt because I found myself concerned about the poor dead leaves scattered about my patio. It wasnt because of fumes getting into my eyes while I was working. There's a story behind my leaf blower. There is meaning to my leaf blower.

You see, back in the sixth grade our school held a science fair and every kid was to participate. You remember those science fair projects dont you? Spewing model volcanoes, electricity from lemons, model rockets...you know, typical little kid science fair projects.

I had intended to make a lava oozing model volcano but, being the procrastinator that I am, when I submitted my intended project to my teacher, I was told that there were already 5 or 6 model volcanoes slated to be spewing their lava at the science fair and that I would have to choose another project to present. There would be no messy paper mache mountain engineering and fiery gook explosions for me.

I remember I really wanted to win that blue ribbon and I had already thought about how to put together a volcano that would shoot tons of gook all over the place like a real volcano so, needless to say, I was disappointed. I only had a few weeks left to research and put the project together and everything else that was cool was already taken.

We had just been learning about plants and their reproductive systems in science class at the time so I figured I could get in good with the teacher - one of the judges - if I applied my just learned and overwhelming knowledge of botany to my science project.

I went to the local library - remember, this was in the old days of actually having to look up and read books, there were no calculators back then, much less computers and internet - and I began my research. After a few hours at the library and much to my chagrin, I realized that I didnt have the time required for growing any kind of vegetation nor for any of the other botany related projects that I had just read about.

Then, just as I was ready to go buy a few lemons and some wire and a lightbulb I came across this book on grafting. Eureka! That was it. I was going to make a tree with two different kinds of fruit. All I needed was a couple of fruit plants, some grafting tape and a sharp knife. It was the perfect science project for the procrastinating lazy student. I was pure genius.

I had my dad take me to the local nursery and buy me two plants. Both were hybrid citrus plants, one sour orange and one sweet orange. Then we went across the street to the hardware store to look for grafting tape. Of course, they didnt know what the heck grafting tape was at the hardware store so I had to settle on this cotton type tape that I was sure would work. So, we took the two orange plants and grafting tape home and I began work on my science fair project.

I carefully picked the branches that matched on both plants, made the correct cuts on them and taped them up. It took me all of a half hour, tops. Plus, I now had not one but two grafted orange plants. Pure genius. The only thing left to do was put the information on a poster, which I did that same day. I was done with my science fair project in 2 days.

The following Monday I took one of the grafted plants, the one that was bushier and looked healthier, to school along with my poster board and submitted them to the teacher as my science fair project a whole 5 days ahead of schedule. The projects werent going to be judged until that coming Friday. As soon as I handed obver the stuff I knew that I would be free of homework for the remainder of the week. I'd be able to get home, change my clothes, hop on my bike and screw around all day. I had five days of a little kid's utopian life ahead of me.

That Wednesday it was my classes' turn to go to the school library where the science projects were prominently displayed. I remember I walked in bragging about my project and how I was going home with a blue ribbon and how I had done it in only a day and how unbelievably wickedly smart I was. But then, as I took my friends to look at the project, I was horrified. The grafts hadnt taken and the leaves on the ends of the attached branches were already fading and wilting.

By judgement Friday, the leaves were completely brown and the attached branches were basically just dead sticks taped to a plant. I had lost in the science fair. Not even gotten an honorable mention or anything. The new kid, one named Louis from France who spoke like 5 languages and had all the girls going wild over him, had won the blue ribbon. My arch enemy had built a binary computer. It was so complex that I think the science teacher even had trouble understanding it. I never liked the French after that.

I got home that Friday and was so angry I was going destroy the other grafted plant. Set it on fire, kick it around, stomp on it. But I couldnt. My mother had planted it, grafts and everything, right there in a prominent location in her garden.

And the plant grew into a tree. A big, beautiful, fruit producing orange tree. My mother had nurtured the plant and the grafts and made them take. It became the centerpiece of her beloved garden. The focal point. The one tree she bragged about with the neighbors or anyone else that would listen. It has two types of oranges, she would say. Naranja agria y naranja dulce.

If you ever wanted fresh squeezed orange juice at my parent's house, mom would go outside, walk up to the sweet fruit side of the tree, pick a few off and make you the most delicious orange juice you'd ever tasted. If you needed sour orange to marinate the lechon for Noche Buena, mom would go to the sour orange branches of the tree and pick out the best, most juiciest sour oranges on the planet and voila!, the pig would be marinated and ready for roasting.

Both mom and I loved that orange tree. It was like something pure to us. Something we had created together. It was our tree, to sit under and chat or to make juice or mojito from. That orange tree was her baby. Her pride and joy. Like me.

So what does an old science fair project turned into a beautiful fruit bearing tree have to do with me welling up when using my leaf blower you say?

Two words: Citrus Canker.

A few years ago there was a big citrus canker scare here in South Florida. Orange farmers in Central and North Florida were terrified that the disease found here in South Florida would spread to their crops and thus destroy the citrus industry completely. Quarantine zones were set up, teams of inspectors went door to door checking all citrus trees for canker. If a tree was found with canker, then it would be cut down and all the citrus trees within, at first, a 100 yard area would be cut down. Then the area spread to 250 yards, the 500 yards, then 1000 yards, and so on and so on and so on.

There are basically no citrus trees remaining in South Florida. None.

In the middle of the canker scare one day my mom called me up and asked me to come by their house. She had something for me, she said. When I got there there was a big, gift-wrapped box waiting for me. I was surprised, it wasnt my birthday or anything. Why would I be getting a gift?

So I tore into the wrapping and there in front of me was a brand spanking new leaf blower. The one I had mentioned that I needed for the new house.

I told mom that I couldnt accept it. It was too expensive for her to buy it on her Social Security pension. There was no way I was going to let her spend that kind of money on a blower for me. They had a hard enough time making ends meet as it was.

But then mom gets up from her chair, gestures me over to the sliding glass door and with tears in her eyes points to an empty spot in her garden. A prominent spot where our orange tree used to be.

Our sweet and sour orange tree was gone.

"They came by and cut it down," she said. "And then gave me a $100 gift coupon for Walmart so that I could replace it." But I knew and she knew that we could never replace that tree.

"So," she said. "I got you the leaf blower you'd been needing."

You know, I can just picture my mom standing in the Walmart garden center, her little citrus canker gift card in hand, looking around at all the beautiful plants and flowers she could have taken home and planted and cared for. Then for a brief moment, remembering our sweet and sour orange tree, and smiling.

Posted by Val Prieto at December 8, 2004 09:15 AM

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