SWEET CHERRIES COMING INTO BOOM: AND, JOHN'S MOTTO

JOHN VOIGHT, FIRST  DIRECTOR OF THE BOERNER BOTANICAL GARDENS

BAYFIELD'S SWEET CHERRIES ARE JUST COMING INTO FLOWER

Wednesday, 8:00 AM.  45 degrees F at the ferry dock downtown and on the back porch.  Wind variable and calm.  The sky is overcast, the humidity 97%.  The Barometer stands at 29.61".  Temperatures today will be around 50, with more rain possible.  We had a thunderstorm yesterday evening with heavy rain and wind, that left at least an inch of rain.  There are flash flood watches for area streams.
   The cherry trees at Apple Hill Orchard on Hwy. J are beginning to  bloom and will be a lovely, if ephemeral, sight.  They grow the cultivars 'Cavalier' (early) and 'Lapin' (late). both of which are vegetatively hardy  but can loose buds or blooms, and therefore a whole crop of sweet cherries, due to a late frost, which will occur every so often.
    Failure of the bees to pollinate the blossoms can have the same result, but I am told a good crop can more than make up for a previous year's loss economically.  So far so good this year, as long as the honey bee pollinators don't shirk their duty.
   My recorded blooming dates are as follows: 5/12/15; 5/05/15; 5/29/13.  I wish I had more data, but that's it; seems pretty consistent, though, as the late date could be earlier as we don't drive the back roads every day.

OFF THE CUFF

   When I was a young man, not long out of college, my first really professional job was as an assistant to John Voight, the first Director of Milwaukee's Boerner Botanical Gardens.  John was an intrepid, straight-forward man who operated on principle, and expected others to do so as well.  Consequently, he was always on the hot seat with the union, with higher administration,  with the politicians and ward heelers and sometimes the public as well.  Everything I ever was, or had hoped to be, as a public servant I owe to John.

   Anyway, given his indomitable nature, he was constantly embattled, and somewhere along life's pathway he was given  an engraved plaque, which he kept prominently displayed on his desk.  I wish he had willed it to me, but he didn't, and I am sure it no longer exists.  It was inscribed, in a sort-of Latin:

    "Illegitimi non carborundum" which  quite loosely translated, reads:  
 
 Don't let the bastards wear you down. 
  

   If John's motto were in my possession today, I would send it to President Donald Trump, who certainly needs that admonishment more than John or I ever did.  

   May God Bless the America I once new, and that is disappearing fast. May He deliver us from the leftists, the anarchists, the snowflakes, the self-serving hacks and all the other devils that assault us and try to wear us down.  John, gone now these twenty and more years, would be out in front in this fight, waving the flag, and refusing to be worn down.