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Plodding and Persistence

Once upon a news conference at the White House
when Harry Truman was the President,
the President led the reporters to the rose garden.
His pride was as plain as he, himself.

The secret, he told the reporters, was manure, lots of manure.
He waxed Missouri eloquent about the virtues of manure.

One of the reporters asked Bess Truman
whether she might be able to get the President to say "fertilizer".

"Do you know," Bess Truman replied,
"how long it took me to get him to say manure?"


Mari is converting our spare bedroom into a quilting workshop.
That is my term, not hers.
There are two sewing machines, cutting boards, bobbins,
and a mountain of material.

"I have been watching you work," she said,
"so I am just sticking to it."


It brought to mind how I first learned
how to proceed when faced with a numbingly large task.
I was probably about fifteen, on the small farm in Washington
where our father had planted us, as a place to grow up,
and for him to come home to between fishing trips.
It was a pattern transplanted from Norway,
where the fishermen lived, growing potatoes, and raising sheep
when they were not at sea fishing for cod and halibut.
We had potatoes, a horse, cows sometimes pigs and chickens.

We got up early, milked cows, and went to school.
After school, we pitched the cow . . . manure onto a winter pile
outside the barn, where it collected until spring,
and milked the cows again as the day grew late.

Spring was no joy.
It meant pitching the manure into a wagon
and spreading it on the garden and fields.
It stank, we stank and sweated.
The manure pile was endless.
It was always endless; impossible.

I recall thinking that there was no way to get the job done
except by plodding and persisting.  Sticking to it.

I am building a rondavel--a round building with a conical roof.
I am also scheduled for a second hip replacement in a month or so.
Years of plodding, persistent running and walking ground down
the cartilage in my leg joints.  I move now, bone on bone, and it hurts.

I climb ladders, and carry lumber deliberately,
slowly, persistently, with intention and a lot of plod.

But it is more than that:
I ran that way, too.
I plan that way.
I did research that way,
built log houses that way,
follow ideas that way.
I speak slowly,
one forkful at a time.

It started with manure.

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