5/13/11 GARDEN TALK AND OTHER TALK

BAYFIELD IN BLOOM

Friday, 7:00 AM. 45 degrees, wind NNE, very light.  The barometer predicts partly cloudy skies. It is another day with a mixed message, and a chance of rain.     
    We have our Arbor Day celebration at 9:00 AM, 4th graders will walk down from the school campus to participate, and help plant a northern pin oak (Quercus ellipsoidalis) on Front Street, where an ancient sugar maple had to be removed last summer.  The Mayor will read the Arbor Day proclamation.  The Pavilion is all set up for the Bayfield in Bloom kickoff and the Garden Talk radio show, which begins at 11:00 AM.  We have sixteen exhibitors set up to sell their message or their wares.  Big Water Café will serve coffee and goodies.  It will be a good event.
    The city street trees were all planted yeaterday. and staked, watered and mulched.  It was an exceptionally good planting day; cool, cloudy and wet.  We will have an excellent survival rate.
    I have found another great book on my bookshelves, which I read probably thirty years ago, and it is as relevant today as it was then.  War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk.  It contains a comment about the end of the British Empire, which I find a chillingly prophetic warning for America.
    “When an empire dies, it dies like a cloudy day, without a visible moment of sunset.  The demise is not announced on the radio, nor does one read of it in he morning paper…the British people had long since willed the end of the Empire, by electing pacifist leaders to gut the military budgets.  Still, when the end was upon them, it was hard to face.”
    I have recently spoken with too many people who are willing, even anxious, so see America fade from the world stage, seeing it as a natural historical progression, and the lifting of a great burden.  What they are too blind to see is that when the British Empire waned, America was there to take its place.  Who or what would take America’s place?   What evil empire would emerge? Look around and choose among the contenders. The world would not be witnessing a reprise of the decline and fall of the British Empire, with civilization continuing in its wake; it would be witnessing a repeat of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, with a thousand year Dark Age ensuing. Forgive my gloomy thoughts. We haven’t had enough sunshine