The Cathedral Garden

My grandfather (Russell Wagner) would have loved the gardens at Washington Cathedral.   The intoxicating smell of hot boxwood time-warps me back to his terraced flower beds in Marietta, Ohio.  Russ' garden had rose beds, cutting beds, and a vegetable garden down by the garage.  A thick border of variegated red petunias ran along the house.  The cinder block wall was topped with a mosaic of portulaca.  Forty-five years ago my summer afternoons passed by rolling in the grass, singing, and searching for fairies in the lily bells.  At night there were lightening bugs to catch. 

I don't have flowers at my house.  Instead I claim as my own the garden at Washington Cathedral.  This is my lunchtime bench.  This is the spot where I read picture books to a long-ago toddler.  I know the twisting paths, the smells, the bells.  When out-of-town visitors come, I bring them here for a rose-scented visit.  If you come on a Tuesday night you can listen to change ringing practice and pretend you're in Oxford, Lincoln, or Washington.

 I have a fantasy of my grandfather working in the cathedral garden - accomplishing more in a morning then others in a day - oblivious to cathedral politics and concerns.  When budget/staff cuts come he would take on three men's work without complaint or trouble, all the while glorying in the magnificence of the surroundings.  Bringing home snapshots of his work to keep in albums arranged by year.

In truth, he enjoyed his work as a telephone lineman as much as the gardens he kept.  He proudly shared photos of lines restored after The Great Hurricane of 1938, along with his log of that year's overtime hours.  When he retired from Ohio Bell, after 50 some years of service, he collected and sold antique telephones and telephone insulators, maintaining a basement stock with hundreds of colors and styles. 

On my walk home from the cathedral today, on the corner of 38th and Quebec, I look up and see insulators on top of poles.  I thought they had been outdated, but insulators are just around the corner from my house!  Russ is following me.

One of Russ' white insulators sits on my window, along with a Buddha, a birdhouse and a boat.  I keep these dear ones near while I write. 

 Come visit another Thursday and hear the cheetah's story.