Veggies du Mal

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Veggies du Mal

The President may cultivate his little vegetable garden at the White House without fear of let or hindrance, but such freedom of agriculture does not obtain in Oak Park, Michigan, where the oaks had better be oaks; no apple trees need apply.

Julie Bass’s lawn was dug up because of repairs to the sewer system, and she chose to re-plant part of her own yard with cabbages, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, and herbs.

You and I, Julie’s fellow Americans, do not possess a veto in the matter, nor do we want one. Julie owns her yard and pays her taxes, and if she wishes to plant salads instead of grasses, such is her small expression of the freedom we all share. We are free to approve or disapprove of her horticultural aesthetics, and she is free to ignore us.

Your ‘umble scrivener highly approves, not that anyone cares or should care. A tomato plant is aesthetically pleasing, all pretty and green in the summer sun and, with care, soon accented with attractive red spheroids which are also edible.

One of Julie’s neighbors, who is not into freedom, turned her in to the Oak Park plant police, the corn constabulary, the marrow marshals, the veggie vigilantes, the cabbage carabinieri, the potato Peelers, the gourd Guardai, the carrot crop cops, the mustard green Mounties, the soybean shore patrol, the broccoli bobbies, the hominy highway patrol, the garlic gendarmerie, the peas posse, the dandelion deputies, the shallot sheriffs, the chive Cheka, and the sweet potato S.W.A.T.

Oak Park’s Planning and Technology Director (that is a real title) ruled that Julie’s veggies are disruptive. No kidding. Disruptive. And he wrote her a ticket for growing vegetables in her own yard. Your peppers, please, comrade.

T. H. White, in The Book of Merlin, posits that the rule of an ant colony is “That which is not forbidden is mandatory; that which is not mandatory is forbidden.” Such is not the rule of a free people, but such is, alas, the rule of Oak Park, Michigan.

How infinitely ant-colony-y of Oak Park to spend scarce public funds on the pumpkin patrol; in these troublesome times every American walking a lonely street fears assault by a drugged-out rutabaga or a gang of feral Brussels sprouts.

We have elected a federal government which has sent thousands of illegal automatic garden trowels across the border to Mexican garbanzo gangs who in turn used the garden trowels. Given this, there is no logical reason why assault garden rakes in America should not be registered and regulated. Thus, Julie and her disruptive vegetables may be sentenced to 93 days in jail, and perhaps her unlicensed hummingbird feeder confiscated.

What a country – a woman may kill her baby with the approval of the courts but she can be jailed for raising a row of carrots.

Perhaps the problem is that vegetable gardens, like Julie, are productive, and don’t gee-haw with the current behavioral template of passivity and dependence.

We’re waiting for the telly reality show: Vegetable Cops – Houston. In tonight’s episode, Inspector Digg Durt is in hot pursuit of a dozen crazed cucumbers who have hijacked a tomato tray. Tomorrow – Durt goes under groundcover and gets the dirt on a woman reportedly smuggling concealed potash.

And what if the Oak Park comrades were to picket the White House and demand that the President surrender his sweet corn? Imagine the protest signs: “Beer Summits, Yes; Fresh Vegetables, NO!” “No Irish Potatoes in Our Country!” “We Demand to See the Guest List in The Old Farmer’s Almanac!” “No Vegetation Without Representation!” “Sweet Corn is Not in the Constitution!”

Oak Park’s most famous resident was Ernest Hemingway, the Gabby Hayes look-alike who never met a tyrant he didn’t like, especially his pal Fidel Castro. His socialist ideology has indeed come home to Oak Park. Perhaps Julie Bass should give up gardening to become a writer. Her books might include: The Sunflower Also Rises, But Only With a Permit; The Old Man and the Unmutual Seeds; For Whom the Bell Pepper Tolls; Across the River and into the Government-Approved Trees; The Short, Happy Life of a Socialist Cucumber; A Moveable or Else Feast; and A Farewell to Broccoli.

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