Green thumb!

Mota. If George Washington could grow it, so could my mom.

My mom was a product of the Great Depression, of World War II, of racial prejudice and hard times. For her and her peeps Victory Gardens and home grown vegies were a natural thing. I imagine, then, that all those hard luck gardens she and her people tilled in L.A. must have instilled in them not only a sense of thrift but a taste for messing about in the dirt.

My mom kept that green thumb of hers alive. I saw her talents and efforts transform our forlorn, Orange County track home yard into a glowing version of what a sixties suburban garden was all about. So it was no surprise to me when I came home after a long summer West Pac to see the yard between the garage and the neighbors fence filled in with vegetables. The patch wasn’t large but it was jam packed with beans, chilies, flowers and corn. Sky high corn, a veritable wall of corn. Now it wasn’t that she was mad for a nice ear of fresh, yellow maize out of the pot, no, she loved the fact that it shielded her sky high crop of vibrant green mota!

In the mid 70’s I was always bringing home some new batch of dope or another out of San Diego. My mom was always kind enough to let me and my shipmates sleep up in the attic on our liberty weekends and so, thanks to her largess, there was always some sort of strange, powerful new kind of grass for her and her cronies to sample, always left discretely in a bowl above the stove in the kitchen. After experimenting with that wild weed of mine she managed to find a strain that was suitable to her tastes, and instead of pestering me to find some more she just culled the seeds (this was pre-Sinsemilla days, mind you) and put her green thumb to work.

In the end, though, all her hard work came to naught. She went out one afternoon to weed (no pun intended) her garden and found our neighbor peering through the fence. Not necessarily needing or wanting a visit from the local policia she judiciously pulled up her plants and hung them in the garage to dry. In the end she had a garbage bag full of poorly cured weed, which, after all the wild Thai stick, Maui Wowie, Panama Red and everday Colombian brown I’d been throwing her way, suited her just fine.

My mom and George. I am sure that they could have sat down, rolled a doob and had a mighty fine conversation on the art and joys of growing weed. Maybe even shared a slice or two of pecan pie together afterwards! Even George got the munchies, I am sure!

Salud!