5/27/11 BLACK CHERRY, RED ELDERBERRY AND STOPPING THE BUCK

BLACK CHERRY TREE

...FLOWERS

RED ELDERBERRY

...FLOWERS

Friday, 8:30 AM, 46 degrees, up from 34 degrees earlier.  The barometer predicts rain and the sky is hazy. It was 34 degrees at eleven PM last evening, so I brought in all the baskets that I had picked up in the morning at Bailey’s Greenhouses, and all the plants I had brought out on the deck from the house.  Now they must all go back out. What a chore!
    The woods are full of blooming black cherry trees, Prunus serotina, a forest tree valued for its furniture and veneer quality wood.  When in flower the trees can be spectacular, terminal branches covered with long racemes of white flowers.  The resultant red cherries turn blue-black when ripe, and are edible if sour, or bitter.  The small cherries do not have much flesh, but are good for jams and jellies, and at one time were much prized for flavoring brandy and rum to produce the traditional “cherry bounce.”  A medium sized forest tree, its habitat includes much of the eastern half of the North American continent.
    The red elderberry in the back yard, Sambucus pubens, is now in full bloom. A far northern counterpart to the familiar elderberry of woods edges and fencerows, it bears red, rather than purple fruit, and its flower panicles are conical rather than flat.  This one is a volunteer, grown from a seed that found its way between the rocks of the herb garden.  I tried to get rid of it by cutting it down over and over but it has insisted on growing where it is and I finally gave in, accepted it, and now am quite fond of the tenacious thing.
    The office of President of the United States of America has somehow become primarily a ceremonial position, like the President of Russia or something; however, we have no Prime Minister to do the real work of running the country.  The President of the United States of America is hired to be chief executive of the republic, sitting at his desk In the Oval Office, where the buck is supposed to stop. 
    My early perceptions of presidents (Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Eisenhower and Johnson) were of decision makers at their desks, pen in hand signing bills; telephone to the ear, lining up deals and compromises, foreign and domestic…mountains of paperwork to read and analyze; they were executives, captains of the ship of state. They did not “lead from behind.”
    Somehow we no longer have a chief executive, but an entertainer in chief, a perpetual candidate whose concern is not governance but staying in office.  Going to tea with the Queen is not "running the country."  Carrying on a perpetual popularity contest, personal and national, is not "running the country."  Being the self-appointed emperor of the world is not "running the country."
    The nation has massive and seemingly intractable problems.  We desperately need a serious and competent chief executive.  One who knows that the buck stops at the president’s desk.