The man who found the cure for religion.
The homeowner who posted his property with a sign that warned us about hydrangeas was indulging his sense of humour and in some sly psychology. Goodness, that was seventy years ago and the image is still clear in my mind.
I am telling you stories like this so that you might begin to know me as I make the claim to be very naturally a plant person. A talent, if I can call it that, that came with my genes. If I had wanted to be a linguist, a musician or a mathematician I should have chosen different parents.
In the Nature/Nurture debate I come out strongly in the belief that Nature wins every time. This is a comfortable stance since it absolves me from my errors.
"Fallor ergo sum." Aquinas.
My bookshelves should be revealing, very little fiction, mostly popular science with an emphasis on plant life. My great hero is Charles Darwin, the cleverest man that has ever lived. The man who found the cure for religion.
There are almost no people in my albums of photographs nor in my 35mm slides; and no dogs. My interests are the natural world, the world that surrounds me; particularly the plant world on whom all other life depends.
Some might argue, but I don't consider myself a misanthrope (although we are a frightenly dangerous animal). Call me a biophile.
To capsulate my view of life in a phrase that I adopt as my credo, a quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; "Zum erstaunen bin ich da." which can be translated perhaps as, "I am here in astonished wonder."
We have to have water and we must eat. If you don't eat you die. Only when you are well fed and confidently expect to always have your daily bread, can you write a symphony or just listen to one. But the need for food is constant and never goes away.
It is fit and proper to always be looking for something to eat.but don't have a proper fit when you find something that does not want to be eaten.
If you do things my way we will get along fine. So please stop calling things poisonous. In my vocabulary a poison does not discriminate and a small amount would be fatal to any one of us. Not something that takes excessive amounts, not a rare susceptibility nor an allergic reaction.
Now that we are doing things my way, I will make my first pronouncement : from now on Poison Ivy will be known as Skin-Rash Ivy.
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