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Updated 11:31pm - Mar 18, 2010
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Opinion Columns Gopher Gulch: A ‘yard’ can be slippery
Gopher Gulch: A ‘yard’ can be slippery
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Do schoolchildren still chant, in unison, “12 inches equals 1 foot, 3 feet equal 1 yard, 2 yards equal 1 fathom?” I never did find much use for the term “fathom,” but I thought I had a grip on the word “yard.” In the middle of the 20th century it was possible to memorize a lot of facts and still get through school functionally ignorant. I’m living proof of that sad state of affairs, and have spent my adult life getting an education in bits and pieces. Every report card carried some version of the phrase, “Not working up to potential.” I wasn't a mean kid, or a bad kid — I was a slippery kid. I’m also quite slow in some ways. I didn’t understand that I was expected to stay there all day, every day. Even when the sun was shining.
When I was in the primary grades, school personnel often called my
mother after lunch or recess to say, “We can’t find your little girl.”
I’d be in the tidepools stroking the tentacles of a sea anemone to feel
the sticky strangeness of it all, or hanging out in the harbor.
In the 1950s, we caught perch and flounder off the dock. There were snapper and cod in the holes around the jetty, and when the smelt ran, they flashed silver and rippling in waves across the bay. Keeping me in a classroom on nice spring days was a major challenge for teachers who already had too many restless little savages to deal with. If anyone explained all the meanings of the word “yard,” they must have done so on a day when I was absent. Which is really too bad, because it’s a perfect example of useful information that everyone should have. “Yard” is one of those slippery words with lots of meanings, and I thought I knew them all. A yard is where the kids play. A yard is 3 feet long. A yard is something that can be gained and lost 17 times in an hour of football. I knew about yardbirds and yardarms and yardsticks. And then a few years ago I bought a yard of dirty fines, the compost that Snoozey Shavings makes at the Hambro plant from wood chips, dirt, and fish leavings. There are ground crab and shrimp shells in the mixture to enrich the soil and discourage slugs and snails by scratching their tummies. It’s rich and black and loamy and full of nutrients. You, too, can have dirty fines or composted manure from one of the dairy farms. They’ll fill your pickup with a backhoe and charge you by the yard. A yard of compost fits comfortably in the bed of a small pickup. Unloading a yard of compost, even when the truck is parked right where you want the stack, will give you a new depth of understanding, a whole new feeling, for the word “yard.” A yard is a whole lot of work! |
