Coffee, movies and planting seeds

You know, I don’t seem to embrace sleep very much these days; sometimes I go to bed late and get up early; sometimes I go to bed early and rise an hour or two later.

Occasionally, someone would ask my wife when I slept and she would respond, "When I go to bed, he’s up and when I get up in the morning he’s up; I’m not sure when he sleeps."

Often after retiring for the night, when I worked at the prison, I would awaken at 3 a.m. some mornings, get up, take a shower and go to work. Sometimes the 12-8 staff was a little surprised by my visit.

I would stand a few chow lines later.

Now, in my retirement years, I get up early and write columns. Sometimes, I even head to the Little Brick Coffee shop around 5:30 a.m. for my first cup of coffee; and they don’t even open until six. Because they are so endearing to a Dargan boy, they often serve me my first cup of coffee early in a ceramic mug.

The hospitality there is something over the rainbow.

And often I find myself on occasion moving from the bed to the bedroom recliner to look for a good movie on the Turner Classic Channel.

Wuthering Heights (1939), an old favorite, might be there about a love story between a poor boy named Heathcliff and a well to do lady named Cathy; it is a sad story that never works out quite like you want it to.

I found an old version of Les Misérables on TV one early morning which was really neat; and the Hunchback of Notre Dame with Quasimodo ringing the bells and falling in love with the gypsy girl Esmeralda, another Victor Hugo classic for many fans.

But all too often when those good movies are limited, I come across a TV evangelist who is always trying to entice some of his audience to send him in a few dollars for the purpose of planting seeds for God.

The other morning, the preacher was up early seeking 300 people to plant seeds and send him $1,000 a piece to do the work of God; on other occasions he is telling stories and holding up his books and asking folk to send in $58 dollars so that God’s work can be done.

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Now, I’m not really sure what kind of seeds this fellow is planting; he may have all the good intentions in the world and has a paying job working for God almighty himself, but to keep asking people for money to plant seeds seems a tad ridiculous to me.

Poor Dargan folk don’t have a lot of money.

But every time I see this fellow, and if you’re up at three in the morning, I’m sure you will be able to find him on TV, because I’ve caught up with him on several different channels.

He is an entertaining chap, well dressed and often presents some interesting points, but I never see any garden hoes, rakes, dirty hands or vegetable stands on his show in regard to seeds.

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Each time I see him, however, my thoughts of my Grandpa’s Dargan garden come to mind.

My grandpa planted all kinds of seeds and even small sliced potato pieces with eyes. Seeds of all kinds were dropped in the rich Dargan soil to produce vegetables later on in the season. Fresh corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, onion sets and others would arrive.

As these vegetables grew from these tiny seeds, it was something to watch how God sent the sun and rain to help them grow along the way.

Nothing better than a tomato sandwich with bacon, or a hot cooked corn cob covered with kernels dripping with butter, a little salt and pepper.

Yep, that preacher man when he talks about planting seeds always takes me back to the days of my grandpa’s summer garden.

And you know the good thing about planting seeds in that Dargan rich soil, you didn’t have to worry about sending in $58 or a $1,000 to someone on TV because we never could afford that much money anyway.

Rich poor people like to eat their vegetables from their cupboard plates and share with their neighbors, too.

As I sat there some mornings catching a glimpse of this fellow, I couldn’t help but think what he does with all that seed money he collects.

I was thinking too about sending him a few packets of those Goliath tomato seeds this spring, as he does seem fairly desperate at times.

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And besides all us Dargan folk know how good those tomatoes taste anyway.

Especially me!

God bless.

Pete Waters is a Sharpsburg resident who writes for The Herald-Mail.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Coffee, movies and planting seeds