It’s Time to Sell a Loaf of Your Bread

My mother was fond of quoting adages that often did not seem to have any meaning for the times. One of her favorites, and truly an unusual one for the 1930s, when our country was in the midst of the Great Depression, was: “If you have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy a hyacinth”.
This made little sense to me. First, it was an old Arabian saying. Secondly, we very seldom had two loaves of bread at one time, unless company was coming, and then we would probably have cornbread or biscuits. But as I recall the life of the Hirt family I have come to understand the meaning, and it could well be something for today.
The nomads of the desert prized bread as a food that complemented the dates grown at the oases. These were not loaves such as we purchase at Winn-Dixie. They were hard-crusted and durable and something, I would suspect, similar in construction to the hardtack issued to soldiers in the War Between the States. But to suggest that a man sell half of his food and buy a flower……..that was almost unthinkable. The truth was that the bread filled his stomach, and one loaf would suffice for the day, but a hyacinth, the lovely flower that floated in the rather rare pools that he found in his travels, would fill his soul.
Rossie Hirt filled our souls, with music and good books inside our small home, and with flowers outside. In a town of many gardens, ours always seemed to be special. I still own the house on Morgan Avenue in Chattahoochee, and it is still filled with azaleas and day lilies and camellias…..above all camellias, the beautiful winter flower that is a closed bud one day and then suddenly a large, lovely bloom. One of the plants that stands there was rooted from a cutting from Rossie’s mother’s garden, which came from her mother’s garden. It is a japonica, not a popular variety today, but one that has meaning to me and is well worth a loaf of bread.
Rossie took the hyacinth thing to heart. She had my father build a small fish pool in the back yard. In the pool she installed some goldfish and, you guessed it, a hyacinth, or water lily. We enjoyed the flowers that floated on the surface, and the neighborhood cats enjoyed the fish. Rossie borrowed my slingshot and fired away at the predators, only hitting one. Flossie, a large Persian and our neighbor’s pride, picked a cold day in December to fish, and Mother shot at her and struck her broadside. Startled, the cat tried to jump the pool lengthwise, and fell into the icy waters. When the two neighbors visited over the fence after that, Flossie would disappear.
Before we relate this saying to modern times, I must make a disclaimer. Hyacinths once choked the great St. Johns River, bringing its flow almost to a standstill. It was an invasive species, possibly an early attempt by Muslims to bring our commerce to a halt. The University of Florida, being a land grant college (I’m not certain what that means, but it seems to be a statement that one must work into stories like this one), decided to see what could be done with the pest. Cattle feed? Didn’t work. Fertilizer? Nope, mostly water. Wall board? Aha! The professors pressed the water out, dried and treated the residue and made a fairly good looking construction item from it. And then it got wet and ……..sprouted. Even the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright would have trouble with that, and he was known for using strange building materials.
So hyacinths were finally brought under control. Now we have kudzu and hydrilla and crab grass. Since I have begun mowing my own lawn again I would place centipede and St. Augustine in the same category.
So today we think about our need for beauty. Most of us eat too much, but few of us fulfill this need in our lives. We are fortunate, here in Jackson County, to be surrounded by beauty. My morning walks are alongside a pasture, lush and green, with cattle grazing there. Interspersed among them are birds: cattle egrets seem to sort out the cows so that each bird has a cow to stand by. Along the fencerow are mockingbirds and cardinals and a myriad of small songsters, each keeping an eye on me and I watching them and their antics.
We have music. Our churches have choirs, if not great then certainly above average. The Baptist College of Florida has emphasized not only church music but classical as well and has regular concerts. Chipola College passes out scholarships to outstanding musicians who offer free concerts. Chipola also brings in very talented artists and admission prices are reasonable.
And each quarter St. Luke’s Episcopal Church has guest musicians in, and there is no charge, although Father Dave, with good humor, reminds us that there is a “rather large bowl”, just suited for checks and bills of all denominations, and placed so that we must pass by it on the way to the ladies’ “modest” reception. As an aside, the Episcopalians serve wine at the reception, and they serve it well, recommending the right one for your chicken salad sandwich.
We are bordered and dotted with bodies of water: Lake Seminole and the Apalachicola River; Merritt’s Mill Pond and the Chipola, Jackson Blue Spring and ponds and smaller streams. Each provides a beauty that can fill the soul. I still recall a Christmas Eve when I was returning home down the River Road. I looked across at the huge orange harvest moon rising and filling the sky and setting the water aglow beneath, and wished that I could call someone to come and share it with me, to see a miracle and to witness an example of God’s grace.
I believe that Rossie Hirt, if she had been there, would have turned to me and said “See, that is what I really meant about the hyacinth”!