2004-10-19 - 2:55 p.m.

Minter Gardens

While in British Columbia, I did manage to visit Minter Gardens near Chilliwack, British Columbia. It was only drizzling, but actually I felt that added to the experience. I rather like gardens. It is funny that somebody who likes machines and factories (me) would also have a part of him that wishes for nothing more than to spend the rest of his days in a garden. I wouldn't mind tending the garden day after day, so long as there was a promise of tea at the end of each day and a dry table to sit on.

When we entered the gardens, the ticket lady pointed to a set of umbrella's hanging on the fence and told us we could take one. There really is something very comforting about being half dry, half wet and feeling free to stroll through the gardens. As an added bonus, the flowers seemed to be happy about the rain as well. They all smelled great.

I guess I really am my parents' child. They go on Berkeley house and garden tours several times each year. Though I don't really want to join them, I do understand why they want to do this.

As for the industrial side, well, I grew up going to junk yards with my dad and I also have equally fond memories about driving by the abandoned steel mills in Pittsburgh. As a kid I never wondered who was in the steel mills at the time (probably homeless people), but instead always fantasized what it might be like to have seen the mills in their prime.

My grandfather and great-grandfathers (from my father's side of the family) were steel workers. While there is no doubt in my mind that their life was not pleasant, the stories of my grandfather are that he was a very calm and caring man.

I'm not sure if there is or is not an afterlife. I don't see how there could be one, but at the same time, I really don't see how people can be self-aware either. There certainly is no reason to either believe or disbelieve in an afterlife in my opinion, so therefore I choose to believe that there is such a thing (keeping a certain amount of doubt hidden in the back of my mind). In any event, I've often talked half-jokingly that when I die I'd like to become a ghost. It is only a half truth. I certainly would like to travel when I die, and in addition to spending my afterlife enjoying a few gardens, I also have plans to haunt a factory or two, sit inside a geometry or geography book, and finally I'd like to get a chance to see my relatives that I've never met.

I don't think I'd have much to say, but that isn't the point. The point would be to see who these people I've imagined about really are. Maybe they are sitting in a cold wet garden waiting to see me as well.

n.p. suicide commando :: one nation under god

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