'StoneHouse Perennials'

Yes, now in our early dotage, wife Ginny (67) and I (70) have switched our collective physical activities from rebuilding and gussying-up run-down, but architecturally promising, old Nevada houses (which we could buy for about $5,000 in the later years of the last century), to introducing Nevada's discerning gardeners to a plethora of hostas, other perennials, and ornaments you can't buy at Wal-Mart. I reported on most of our 15 house rebuilding adventures and misadventures in a long (some said endless) series of newspaper columns known collectively as "the Stumble and Bumble Papers" (wife and I never settled on who was Stumble, who Bumble). In any event, apologies go to Mr. Dickens, whose "Pickwick Papers" were my original inspiration. My subsequent apologies go to the same newspaper-reading audience for neglecting to keep you up to date on our adventures in the far-less-physically-damaging flower racket. In the two years we've been open for business, I haven't once bloodied a thumb or nailed a pants cuff to our office roof, much less pulled a 3-story-high hosta down on my head (though, admittedly, there's still plenty of time for that).

Early in my own Stumble and Bumble career, when I was in my late 30's, my carpentry work -- ripping row after row (as many as 3 in all) of brittle, age-old shingles from the wood slats on our roof, then nailing sheets of fresh plywood to our roofs, finally nailing shingles to our sheets of plywood -- were enough to remind me that when I needed brain work, I'd better to rely on my friend and mentor Robert W. Palmer. Mine was pure grunt work. The grunt work, however, gradually gave me confidence that, when all was said and done, I could do more in the world of work than grade and comment on freshman themes, although decades after they graduated, some students write that I could do that pretty damn well. Besides, carpentry work kept me physically fit. At least, in those years, I didn't assume a pear shape.

Now, at age 70, after a second heart attack, and with Nevada's summer temperatures well above 90, I've given up hammering on roofs. Besides, Ginny is doubtless thinking, no passing motorist wants to see my topless-clad body (at least male) sweating profusely on his roofing nails.

Oh, yuck!

Instead, Ginny thinks creating labels for the stuff SHP ("StoneHouse Perennials") offers its customers is more my speed. And I guess she's correct, I think to myself, as I greet Stan and Cheryl Mowry, two of my favorite Nevadans. Part of my job description, printed on one of SHP's brochures, reads "chief greeter," after all. This way, too, I can snicker and smirk whenever someone comes in the door and complains about the unbearable heat outside.

I'm still a bit nervous about operating our cash register. I've got every right in the world to be proud of our low prices. From the very get-go, Ginny and I decided to keep them as low as we could, without having to go out of business. Ginny and I both trained to be college teachers, and no one with that goal ever hopes to make a bundle of money. No, we'll settle for a modest profit, enough to buy a couple of books per week, say, and a Saturday evening meal at Buzz's restaurant. Since I no longer smoke, and we don't go out to movies very often, our average weekly expenses are pretty slim. Mainly cat food, I suppose.

But back to our cash register! It's a Royal, and I think I can operate it pretty well. Of course, that's what I thought the day I was first turned loose on it, and caused a good customer to drive away, plantless, until Ginny could be there and deal correctly with his cash. As a result of my mechanical inexpertise, I was even more embarrassed than I'd been when, in 5th grade, I ... but wait a sec, I think I've already told you this story six or seven times in the last decade.

One of the services of mercy I performed today was for our pear trees. Each branch of every tree was so heavy with fruit that it was dragging on the ground. For the sake of the trees, I drove our Snapper with a box-shaped trailer attached, to a handy spot beneath the tree, turned off the motor, and proceeded to load the trailer with pears from the tree or from off the ground. I fancied I could hear the tree breathe sighs of relief as I relieved it of its killing weight. (Yes, I know: one of my abiding weaknesses is the compulsion to humanize dumb animals and plants. I'd make a rotten hunter, even if my prey were groundhogs or butterflies.) I named the pear tree I was helping Gilbert.

I didn't want to destroy the pears I'd stripped from our tree in the front yard, so I just left the whole load in the wagon and left the wagon in the driveway by the office. When our friend and helper Daniel Palmer passed by, on his way to replace a few shingles that had come loose from the roof of our 1865 stone house, I offered him as many pears as he could use, thinking he'd show me how appealing what I had to offer -- free, no less -- would be to future customers.

"Help yourself, Daniel! I've just picked these from our trees out front! Take as many home with you as you'd like! Look, you'll never get as good an offer as this one, ever again!!"

"Thanks, Chuck. Don't mind if I do."

"But, Daniel, you've only got one, and a small one at that, not much bigger than a cat turd."

"That's okay, Chuck. Don't want to spoil my appetite, this close to dinner. See you guys tomorrow bright and early."

Well, at that point, I went home to do some writing and reading. And later, when Ginny came home for supper, she brought with her the welcome news that the afternoon's customers had virtually gobbled up Gilbert's bounty. That changed the day's whole complexion for me. And I'm sure it did for Gilbert.