Fellow Revelers, I hope you’re enjoying your Memorial Day weekend as much as I am.  It also happens to be my birthday weekend, and, as a present to me, several fellow revelutionaries have graciously agreed to guest host post over the next several days. So I am pleased to introduce you to our first, hailing from Wisconsin, an all around amazing individual and one of my most favorite people of all time, Kathe Johnson:

I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on tv. I’m not a gardener, but I love to read gardening books and listen to gardeners share their stories. As I do, I wonder what transformation takes place in the gardener as in the seed. What attracts a gardener to the activity? Does it teach patience? I don’t think so. I think gardeners want to be alone, and gardening is a way to shut out some of the commotion of their everyday lives. I’ve often asked myself why I don’t garden, even though I have curiosity about it, and – the answer I tell myself – I don’t know what I am doing. I would feel like a failure, if I planted a flower and weeds came up. Perhaps I should check out Gardening for Dummies. My friend, Roxie, gave me some potatoes with eyes on them to plant so I could grow potatoes. Guess what? I have no the hell idea how to put them in the ground. Do I cut them? Do I put the whole thing in ? What do I do with it? I’m serious. So I gave them to someone who already has a garden. Except one. I have one potato with an eye down there.

I feel joy and awe when I think about people and their gardens, knowing that there is a looming world food shortage and those gardeners might somehow be lessening the pain of hunger even if it’s just by a little bit. I wish that gardening were taught in elementary school in the classroom. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen wrote, “if everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world it would be.” I think if everyone grew just one little garden, what a right world it would be.

QUESTION: do you agree that gardening should be taught in public schools?