I took the dogs for a walk this morning since the extreme heat and humidity have been brutal in the last week — Dobermans don’t do well with extreme heat or cold, due to their lack of undercoat. Today promises rain and even as I write this, the room has darkened perceptibly and now, just now, the rain has begun to fall.
On our walks through Elliott we normally take the road to the top of the hill, turn right, and approach the Overlook. It’s funny to live in a working-class neighbourhood where tourism is minimal and the buildings are 95% residential because no one goes up to the Overlook, not even on a sunny Saturday morning, and it’s never overrun and over-trafficked like Mount Washington. So, the dogs and I journey up that way and we run into a couple of people at most — sometimes they want to pet the dogs and greet them, other times I hear a quiet murmur as we pass: “Beautiful dogs,” or “I think those are dobermans.”
On our way back, I take a parallel road down and I nearly always lead them down Comstock Way, a steep alleyway that promises a scenic view of numerous backyards. Ever since I moved here just over a year ago with Mishka, I discovered a piece of property with a substantial farming space at the back edge of the property abutting the alley, surrounded by deer fence and always abundant with plant life. After I got Daria, I kept making it a point to walk through the same alley. Sometimes we would run into a cat, but mostly the street is silent, to the point where we’ve never even interrupted a car on its descent or climb.
Today was different — as I passed my favourite urban farm property, I saw a man spraying the plants. “Good morning,” he called as we passed. “Good morning,” I said, and stopped to tell him I always marvel at his property when I pass and that I make a point of taking Comstock just to see it. This turned into a lively conversation of about 20 minutes. I learned a lot from Tony Reiss, beyond his succinct German name. He, like most of the residents I’ve been running into in Elliott, has lived here for most of his life. He and his parents started their life as a family on 281 Advent which is just a few blocks away from where we stood. He’s 65, single, and an only child by the gist of the conversation, which was that his parents had him late in life, and he spent his adult years taking care of them before they passed, so that he never had time to settle down and have a family of his own. He keeps a cat for company.
We talked about the beauty of nature and how people my age — and hell, people his age — don’t garden, don’t spend time outside anymore. Tony lamented that they all sit inside air conditioned buildings at home and at work and when it comes time to do something outside, the excuse is, “It’s too hot outside,” and in the winter, “It’s too cold outside.” I agreed wholeheartedly. When I talked to him about what I grew and how much of it I had, my pumpkin patch, my squash plants, my abundant tomatoes, he kept laughing and shaking his head and saying, “If only you were 30 years older, or I was 30 years younger,” and I said, “It’s funny how life works, isn’t it.” He has 35 years on me to know that better than I do.
Tony taught me to put a small handful of Epsom salt into a spray bottle filled with water, and to use it on my plants to give them a boost when they are growing. He told me to bury four or five matchsticks in the ground around my seeds to increase the magnesium in the soil. We talked about hardy greens for the 98 degree weather we’re having and he said, “Black seeded Simpsons,” and for green beans to keep them from growing too tall, I could instead plant the Kentucky bush varietal, and keep the beans low to the ground and easier to manage. When we talked about my budding pumpkin patch, he told that when he was still a kid, his next-door neighbour planted a pumpkin vine down by his car in the driveway, and the vine grew all the way up to the back doorstep before it produced a pumpkin — right on the very end.
While we were discussing the garden and all the things Tony used to grow versus the things he cut down, the groundhogs ate, the deer tore through, he kept saying, “Next year, if I’m still alive then,” and I found myself thinking, what could he possibly have to worry about? If he’s 65 he’s got loads of years left, and if he’s outside all the time, planting in his garden, eating the fruits of his labour and presumably not drinking or smoking himself into an early grave, he can stick around for a while yet. Before we parted, he joked that in thirty years, if I don’t have anybody, I can come look him up if he’s still kicking. Amazing that no matter how old a man gets, he perks right up at the attention of a woman. That, if nothing else, will keep him alive and well.
I sit writing this at my kitchen table, the windows wide open to let the cool rainy air into the house, a basket of ripe tomatoes in front of me. I talked to Tony about my lifelong dream of retiring to the country — sell everything off and buy a few acres in Kittanning somewhere, have 20 chickens, a pig, some goats, maybe even a horse. Of course I’d still have Dobermans. It breaks my heart that I’m a rarity. Tony called me a country girl when we spoke. I found myself beaming with pride despite myself. I said, “That’s how I was raised.” I’ll go visit him when my yellow squash has matured — I’ll bring him a few vegetables and we can sit outside in the sun and talk about the beauty of nature.
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