The other day I was cranking about foolish and lethal behavior on the part of some fellow citizens.
Yesterday was Boy Scout mulch day in our town and I feel better.
Every year in mid February, we get a sure sign of spring, even more accurate than baseball managers' spring training predictions of diamond glory for some rawboned (how can anyone be 'rawboned'?) kid pitcher out of Oklahoma or a hotshot shortstop from San Pedro de Macoris. The Boy Scouts drop off the flyer with the prices of mulch for their annual sale. This year, 5 bucks a bag, 50 cents more to deliver.
We always need 10 bags. 4 for the shrubbery around the front of the house, 5 to spread among the various trees under whose shade I will sit and sip my lemonade, and 1 to tear and spill all over the driveway. 50 semolians, and we can mulchify to our heart's content, the first dry sunny day we get.
Now is it worth five more bucks to deliver it? Yes! I'm glad to pay that, so I can sit here watching the Today Show, absentmindedly chewing on my homemade oatmeal muffin, and waiting for the truck to arrive. It beats driving down to the church and picking it up myself.
So they get here, and I open the garage door and offer to help hump the shredded tree bark inside, and the Scout looks at me in the time-honored fashion of Scouts since Baden-Powell tied his first knot and says, "Aww, that's alright, mister. We'll do it."
The money goes to their account so they can go on Scout camping trips this summer. Things have a way of evening out over a week. Kids in Fargo are sandbagging like beavers building dams, trying to save their city. Kids in my town are selling mulch, raising money to go to summer camp.
Things even out. Go on, Boy Scouts. Be Prepared.
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