jumpingfish

“If I did that, I would have been in trouble,” Trudy said.

I just had taken a step on our garden path and inadvertently pushed an Iris stalk aside, breaking it off the plant. She was right, although I remained silent to hide my shame. I picked up the stalk and and stood there for a moment and then pointed to it.

“Look,” I said quietly. “There was another blossom coming in a couple days.”

“I would have so been in trouble,” she said.

I tossed the stalk into the messy place where the Spiny Lizards and Stag Beetles certainly roam on hot days, a good place for the stalk to decay, I thought.

That was a few days ago.

Today, as I walked around the yard after the commute home, admiring Texas spring in full bloom, I spotted that stalk. It had not begun to decay, far from it. Instead, that nascent bud that was going to open in a couple days had done so. And there, lying on the ground in the messy place, was an Iris blossom in full bloom: purple and orange, lost among the fallen leaves and Oak pollen tassels and sticks and logs that assemble there. 

I can no longer hide my shame. The flower has called me out.

There’s a good (long form) article in the Washington monthly by Brian Feldman that talks about the decades-long decline of St. Louis and how much of it can be attributed to the fact that our political system has turned its back on the kind of anti-trust law that I was taught in junior high when I learned of the break up of ITT. The article is full of concrete examples of law after law that were relegated to dusty shelves as Democrats and Republicans alike let loose the furies of mergers and acquisitions that exploded in the 1980s and continue to this day. (Can you say, “Too big to fail”?)

I have a thought about this. Two thoughts, actually.

Thought number 1: Look ma! I read a long-form article. Me, Mr Short-Attention-Span.

Thought number 2: Robert Bork.

I am not a student of this, but I remember hearing a few years ago about how over his career, Bork embarked on (among other things, I assume) a project to rewrite the law surrounding anti-trust. As I recall it, he kept at it year after year, slowly crafting a new legal framework, slowly building an edifice that rejected the kinds of protections they taught in my 7th grade class. I half-expected to see mention of Bork’s role in the St. Louis decline in Feldman’s article.

I probably have some/many of the details wrong, but you don’t have to search far to find pieces of that story. For example, here on Wikipedia, where his book, The Antitrust Paradox, is discussed. Or read this Washington Post article which discusses Bork’s anti-trust legacy.

So my second thought is this: The essence of his framework was to elevate consumer welfare above all else. That anything goes as long as a bag of chips is cheap. Nothing is of value other than the prices paid by consumers. (Maybe I have it wrong. But that’s my grok-age of his framework.) And so, that brings us back to St. Louis: how does the steady and significant decline of a city measure in Bork’s economic calculus? Is that not a cost worthy of consideration?

Oh. And I have a corollary thought about Bork. It’s not a new one: … OMG, did we dodge a bullet.

“Dude, you’re on a roll today.”

Here’s that guy again. He shows up from time to time to lob shots at this blog. I’m not sure what his objective is most of the time. I’m not quite sure how to respond. (To be honest, I’m not sure he even exists and isn’t instead just a voice inside my head, but we won’t go there.)

“You got nothing better to do on a weekend than sit in front of your keyboard?”

“Patience my friend. There is digging to do, and you’re free to pick up that mattock and help.”

“Wh…what are you talking about?”

“That’s ok. We won’t get started for a while. In the meantime, here’s some purple for my caretaker and companion, Chachi Bette, who recently returned from an all-too-brief sojourn down here and has now returned to the frigid land of snow-encrusted driveways.”

“But hey my friend, it’s glorious outside. The sky is blue. The sun is shining. The Mockingbirds and Cardinals and Wrens are singing. And as you have evidently noticed, the flowers are blooming. So we’ll wait for you in the backyard with the mattock and a couple shovels while this picture uploads. Join us, because this is indeed no day to be stuck in front of the keyboard! And because there is honestly no better way to celebrate a day like this than by digging in the dirt! We’ll see you in a few minutes.”

I’ve told you about that Green Anole lizard, the one who has lived in the Agave near the driveway for several years. What I haven’t told you is that he is not alone.

On sunny days like yesterday, he can be found sitting on one of his back patios warming his cold-blooded bones.

And on those same sunny days, his cousin, whom I have not mentioned before and who has lived in the Boxwood for several years, can be found on his patio.

Any sunny day now the Texas Spiny Lizard will show up. He lives in the cluster of Turk’s Cap growing beside the Ash tree. He is not as taken with sunbathing as these two are, but on a good day, we can find him on his patio, a pile of dead wood at the base of the tree. We’ll keep our eyes peeled.

I come by it honestly, this business of picking up sticks. My grandmother did it. We all do it. Although I confess that when I do it here, I’m not collecting kindling for the fireplace.

Anyway, there were sticks on the ground this morning. It must have been a windy day, and the Ash tree has been on its last legs for some time now, and I was picking up Ash twigs that had fallen on the sidewalk and french drain. 

And into the agave. An ash stick had fallen into the agave and was wanting to be cleaned up. So I leaned over the top of the agave and looked in, because you see I know that there is a lizard who lives in there — has for years. But it was cold this morning, so I figured he had retired to the nether apartments to stay warm. And based on that belief, I slowly reached in to clean out that stick.

I was wrong. He was there. As I reached in, he poked his face around the corner of the central agave spike with an alarmed look on his face.

The stick will wait.