Former basement-dwellers enjoy a day on the deck, joined by rookie annuals.
Autumn-blooming clematis.
Somebody's idea of a joke.
Big maple and myrtle. I didn't capture the periwinkle blue, but you can see the
world's most unfortunate, psycilocibin-induced mulch color in the background.
Oddly "Big Maple and Myrtle" was a short-lived radio comedy (six episodes) in 1938,
part of the ill-fated "Pall Mall Comedy Carnival", in which American's most luxurious
cigarette brand sponsored an entire evening of programming. Myrtle was a Southern
socialite "temporarily embarrassed" by the Depression, and Big Maple the colored maid
who kept the household fed and fiscally afloat through her many amours with local tradesmen.
The humor--most contemporary accounts actually deny there was any--came from
Big Maple's mangled English, as when she'd tell her employer, after revelations of
the most recent financial dilemma, "I gots to set to confabulatin' 'bout dat." The program
was wildly unpopular in the South, not because of Big Maple's casual sexuality, of course,
but because her confabulatin' outsmarted a white banker in episode two. On second thought,
it was Big Mabel, so just forget I brought it up.
Aren't all annuals, kind of by definition, rookies?
ReplyDeleteHeh. Rugosa is a pedant after my own heart.
ReplyDeleteI do hate that we call flowers that bloom once annuals, even if we have perennials for the ones that, in fact, do live to bloom another year. In no other context does annual suggest anything but "year after year." I wish I/we could come up with a good alternative.
Nice pictures, though, Mr. Riley. And I always like a blog post that concludes in the spirit of Emily Litella.