| Subtopic | Posts | Updated |
|
By KateC (Katec) on Thursday, April 18, 2002 - 11:42 am
Person: Third person. Tense: Now in present, then in past Violet is picking tomatoes and watering at the same time. This has been such a hot July that every morning, the garden is dry as a desert all over again, and Lord knows, tomatoes need lots of water to grow plump and juicy. There�s something about gardening that reminds her of being a little girl; she still feels the same wonder at watching the flowers and vegetables leaf out and grow. Daddy made her weed the vegetable garden every Saturday, but he was downright stingy when it came to watering because of the water bill. Oh, she could remember standing at the kitchen sink, rinsing off soapy dishes under a running faucet. Daddy came stomping in from the yard. �Shut that water off! You think we�re on a well? Or are you just TRYING to make the water company rich? How many times have I told you�run some rinse water in a dishpan. Don�t leave the water running!� �Yes, Daddy. I forgot.� �You�d forget your head if it wasn�t screwed on.� As she moves the hose to another spot, Violet notices a mound of dirt heaped up right where a lettuce plant used to be, the one she meant to harvest for a nice salad today. �Oh shoot!� It�s so aggravating. Just when something�s all ready to pick, another gopher just takes up residence, burrows up, and pulls that wonderful lettuce right down its hole from underneath. Well, it can�t be helped. She�ll just have to cook some yellow crookneck squash for supper instead. Violet searches among the lush green leaves. And look, she has cucumbers, crisp and sweet. They�ll be good sliced thin, marinated in vinegar, salt, and pepper, served with sliced tomatoes. Daddy�s vegetables were usually stunted and bitter because he wouldn�t water them but once a week. Nevertheless, the water bill stayed high because when Daddy saw fresh gopher mounds, he forgot all about wasting water. He had tried several methods to get rid of gophers: traps (�useless�), sitting a few feet from the mound all day with a 22 rifle, waiting for the gopher to come out (he missed), and even putting a snake down the tunnel (that worked, but snakes are never around when you need them). Then one day, in a blind rage, he shoveled the mound out of he way to expose the tunnel, pushed a hose down, and turned the water on full-blast. Water bubbled up out of tunnel entrances all over the garden while Daddy waited, and finally the gopher washed out. Daddy finished him off with one whack of the shovel. At last, he�d found a foolproof method. After eradicating a gopher, Daddy would grin and chuckle to himself for days until the water bill came. Violet knows how Daddy felt. She gets the same satisfaction putting out bowls of beer for the slugs, where they drown themselves in alcoholic bliss. Now, she takes a packet of Juicy Fruit gum out of her apron pocket, unwraps a stick, and pushes it down the gopher hole. She learned about this in her gardening club on the Internet, and it works every time. �Kill �em with kindness,� she murmurs as she straightens up slowly, careful of her back. Person: First Person Tense: Now in past, then in present John liked the sliced cucumbers marinated in vinegar. I served them with sliced tomatoes, although I�d meant to have a salad. I�d gone out to water the garden and harvest vegetables this morning only to find that a gopher had burrowed up during the night and stolen the lettuce. It was sweltering summer weather, and the garden had to be watered every day to keep the vegetables from drying up. As a result, my garden was lush and green, a big contrast from the garden we�d had when I was growing up. My dad didn�t hold with squandering water. He hated the water company with a deep resentment and saw every drop of water coming out of the faucet as a quarter being siphoned off to line their pockets. Being out in the garden that morning, watering like Dad never did, sucked me right back into the past as if I were still a girl. There I am, standing on a step stool in order to be tall enough to reach the sink. I�m rinsing off soapy dishes under the faucet when Dad comes stomping in. �Violet! Shut that water off right now! Somebody tell you we�re on a well? Or are you just TRYING to line the water company�s pockets? How many times have I told you�run some water in a dishpan and rinse the dishes all in the same water.� Oops�I�m caught again. �Sorry, Daddy. I forgot.� �You�d forget your head if it wasn�t screwed on.� I get told that a lot. At least I�m lucky they gave me a pretty name. My best friend is Mildred. In the garden this morning, the hot sun brought out the violet perfume I was wearing to go along with my name. I�d worn violet perfume ever since I got the idea in my twenties, hoping it would make men remember me better, and it became so much a part of me that I felt all wrong whenever I didn't wear it. I was just moving the hose when I discovered a gopher mound instead of the lettuce I was planning to pick for a nice salad. It was so aggravating�now what was I going to fix for John? I decided to see if there were any squash that I could slice up and sauté in butter, and besides yellow crooknecks, I found some cucumbers that were just waiting to be picked. Dad�s cucumbers were shriveled and bitter because he didn�t give them enough water. But our water bill was sky-high anyway, all because of the gophers. Thinking about the way Dad hated to water started up memories like reels of old home movies. In this one, I�m pulling weeds from around the green beans while next to me, Dad has found a fresh gopher mound. He�s already tried a lot of things to get rid of them: traps, lurking near the hole with a gun, and putting snakes down the tunnels, and nothing has worked. By now, Dad is taking it personally, and the sight of that new mound has him hopping mad, cursing at the top of his lungs while I pretend not to listen. He�s just fit to be tied. Suddenly Dad attacks the mound with his shovel, dirt flying everywhere until he uncovers the hole. Then he rams the hose down and turns on the faucet full blast. By now, I�ve stood up to watch, my weeding forgotten. Water starts bubbling up out of tunnel entrances all over the garden while Dad waits, clutching the shovel, teeth bared in a fierce grin. Finally, the gopher washes out and Dad whacks him with the shovel, yelling �GOTCHA!� Dad grins and chuckles to himself for days afterward. I finished my watering and headed back to the house with the squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I knew how Dad must have felt, because I got the same satisfaction when I found the bowls of beer I set out filled with slugs that had drowned themselves in alcoholic bliss. I got a pack of Juicy Fruit gum out of the kitchen drawer and went to the garage for the shovel. Back at the gopher mound, I dug out the tunnel and pushed an unwrapped stick of gum in as far as I could. I learned how on the Internet and it worked every time. John taught me how to work the computers at the senior center, and I joined a garden group. Dad liked to clobber things, but I preferred to kill them with kindness. Either way, they were just as dead. |
|
By Sarah (Sarah) on Thursday, April 25, 2002 - 09:23 am
Kate, I really love the fist version of this story. Violet seems much warmer and approachable, and the writing more energetic in that version. Do you notice anything like that? Maybe I'm perceiving that simply because I read the first version first... Your tense switches are very natural and I didn't always notice them first off. (I might not have noticed them at all if that weren't the point of the excercise...) Oh, I really liked that part about Violet's perfume. I imagined the smell and that was a treat! (BTW: I think that if you'd written something like: "her perfume smelled like violets" then I might not have paused to pull up the memory of what violets actually smell like.) |
|
Administrator's Control Panel -- Board Moderators
Only Administer Page |