When I Married My Mother: A Daughter's Search for What Really Matters - and How She Found It Caring for Mama Jo by Jo Maeder

Author:Jo Maeder [Maeder, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: “Rock and Roll Madame”, Jo Maeder, home ownership, mother-daughter, hoarding, bible belt, Eastern Star, Alzheimers, New York, Z100, pest management, family crisis, drag queens, dolls, dementia, memoir, eldercare, female DJ
Publisher: Vivant Press
Published: 2014-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

16

Can’t See the Trees for the Forrest

Eklutna Lake, Alaska, 1961. Mama Jo won five dollars for this photo in a local contest.

“Ya gotta real mess here.” Landscaper contestant number 1 had several teeth missing and was wearing a John Deere baseball cap. He was dressed in jeans and an old work shirt. “Ya got these here trees that was damaged by the ice storms that needs ta come down. And ya gotta lotta mulchin’ to do.”

“Do you mean composting?”

He pushed his cap back and gave me a surprised look. “Mulch is what you put on the flower beds to keep the weeds out, the moisture in, and make ’em look nice and purdy.” His parting words were, “I’ll get you an estimate.”

I never heard from him again.

Landscaper contestant number 2 was a crisply professional African American man in his forties who arrived carrying a clipboard and pen and wearing a shirt with his company’s logo on it. He took a while walking around and scribbling things on an official-looking form.

His final analysis was, “You have a real mess here.”

I’d bought the house in the dead of winter, before I knew how much of God’s green earth I’d taken on. He handed me his estimate.

“Seven thousand dollars?!”

“Then we can talk about a monthly maintenance fee.”

When I told my brother this, he said, “That’s ridiculous! I know someone at church who might be interested.”

Landscaper contestant number 3 had long, stringy gray hair. I would later learn that he once had a serious substance-abuse problem. He had clearly been through something. He seemed genuinely humble and reliable now.

His estimate was fifteen hundred dollars. “But you need to hire a tree guy to take down the damaged ones,” he said. “You really should do that, or you could have a much bigger problem on your hands if they fall on your house.”

“You’re hired.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Just tell me what kind of mulch you want.”

“There are kinds?”

He gave me the same funny look the first guy had. “I suggest you stop at a nursery, take a look, and let me know.”

“I don’t have time! Just pick out something.”

He backed off. “No, no, ma’am.”

He’d obviously made mistakes trying to predict a woman’s unpredictable mind.

I went to a nursery and stared at six-foot-high mounds of mulch: black, brown, red, and all sizes of nuggets. This was too hard. I asked the man working there for advice.

He said, “Just depends on what you like, ma’am. There’s also pine needles.”

He pointed to an even bigger mountain of square bundles that I had thought were hay.

“Local folk seem to go for the pine needles more than out-of-towners. They’re cheaper, but you have to replace them more often.”

Still proudly clinging to my I’m-not-from-here attitude, I went with the medium-size bark nuggets.

Ted gave me the name of his tree man with the hard-to-believe-but-true name of Forrest.

What Ted didn’t tell me was how cute he was.

Little did I know that when Forrest ambled up to my front door wearing wraparound sunglasses with yellow

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