In a Garden Shop On a Saturday Morning

Those moments you forget where you are

In Sand Springs, Oklahoma, west of Tulsa, Melissa, her parents, her sister and her sister’s husband, David, and I went to Riddle Plant Farm, which has been around for 88 years or 4,576 Saturdays and where, “Every single person,” according to the website, “at The Plant Farm makes up the Riddle Family, whether you are related or not.” I watched them walk up and down the aisles, place items in their carts, and generally ooh and ahh over plants and flowers and $600 wind chimes and things that look like weeds — until you realize of the 380,000 known species of plants, none are actually called that. They all have names.

Gardening in America, like golf and pickleball and bowling and stamp and coin collecting, much less boating, flying, and traveling — like any hobby in the country for that matter, except, perhaps, walking in cheap sneakers — is expensive.

I then saw a man and woman, both in their 40s, I imagine, with —again, I imagine — their son about 14 and their daughter about 7.

And this is what I want to tell you.