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Previous Articles Exposing Hollywood's anti-German agenda I'm not ashamed to be religious or a liberal 'Beat Me with a Stick' Elmo and other great toys Making a difference: why I do what I do Telemarketing ban has ended a great pastime I don't rule the world, and that's fine with me Making the journey from prejudice to understanding There's no comparing genocide and killing geese All that's left is an empty feeling An unrequited love for some really neat words Foster dads offer hands and hearts ... for the time being. Thanksgiving dinner and other forms of ritual madness. Zen and the art of not getting run over by a Mack truck A lifetime of regrets as another year goes down the tubes Reform Party Convention ends in shoot-out Virtual immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be Insider's look at the Republican National Convention turns up many surprises Car Repair for Dummies, Part One: This is a Car Sadness marks the passing of a beloved mattress At last, something worse than 'Jane Eyre' Every town has a story. Tombstone has a fixation. Forget the Trekkies, the real nutcases are on the Luce Chalk one up for the faceless restaurant customers Feeling sick? Maybe it's time to get a shave. Guest Writer: Toto, I don't think we're in Mayberry anymore Guest Writer: The need for speed Does this mean we won't get free popcorn anymore? Out of the way, Martha Stewart -- I'm in the kitchen now How I'm surviving my brush with 'Jane Eyre' First blizzard of the year evokes frivolous memories, no deep thoughts Isn't it time to jump on the bandwagon with the Real Thing? Forward this column and you can turn e-mail into $300! Trips to the moon, disaster figure in mildew prognostications True confessions (more or less) of a closet survivalist Who understands what dreams may come? Hey, everyone, look -- it's an elephant! Wouldn't 'Senator Learn' have a nice ring? To my little girl: while you're sleeping . . . Special Report: Entering the Baby Zone Battling the suburban white whale Wanted: Politician to tackle key issues Something else to worry about this fall Wanted: Dumber Mice and Better Mouse Traps One More Stop on the Road to Adulthood Follow the fashion leads of the journalist from Krypton This is why naming children by committee never caught on Psoriasis may be ugly, but at least it doesn't leave scars Another casualty of the ancient family curse Quest for baby names too big to handle How the seniors taught me to get down And don't forget your scarf when you go inside Guest Writer: No room for Paradise as vandals force Dew Drop Inn to close The samba of the mad Vulcan Maybe I could be directed by Spielberg The aliens in Rhode Island don't want you to read this Voice of nostalgia is a call to destruction My wife is having the baby, but I look pregnant The end of the world as we know it Run for the hills - Y2K’s a’comin’ fast What's in a name? Shakespeare had no idea Don't waste your energy on the 'gas out' Career choice leaves a lasting mark One Easter leftover, hold the ham please

Another casualty of the ancient family curse By David Learn Recently I have come to feel the full weight of an ancient curse God once levied upon humanity. It's worse than the curse of Tutankhamen, worse than the mummy's curse that legend credits with the fate of the Titanic. This one's a real doozy: Children are destined to do the same thing their parents did. Now you should understand that at my parents' home in Level Green, Pa., my father has a huge garden, I would guess 20 feet wide and 15 feet deep. Dad loves that garden, and spends several hours in it every weekend, pulling weeds, watering the plants and generally avoiding any housecleaning. One summer in the mid-1980s, Dad planted three rows of Swiss chard. For the entire summer those bitter leaves showed up in everything we ate. We had Swiss chard salad, Swiss chard sandwiches, Swiss chard casserole, Swiss chard on our hamburgers, Swiss chard with our cereal, and Swiss chard in our pancakes. Dinner became a screaming match as the four of us would shout in unison, "No! Not Swiss chard again!" and Dad would say, "It's good for you; have a no-thank-you helping." (No-thank-you helpings were my parents' way of making us eat things they knew we hated. I once tried to outsmart Dad by asking for a thank-you helping, and regretted it immediately. To this day, I insist on serving myself lest I make the mistake again.) Relief finally came that summer when we offered to help Dad weed the garden. First we weeded out the actual offender, followed shortly afterward by anything that looked remotely like it. Many innocent plants were martyred for the great cause before we felt safe. "Carrots?" "Dunno. Could be related. Rip 'em out." "Tomatoes?" "Don't take any chances." Dad still plants the stuff, but only half a row, and he never serves it to Mom or to us when we visit. He's probably afraid that if he tries, we'll soak his garden in gasoline and burn the whole thing down. Now one of the other things I should note about Dad's garden is that it's made entirely of red clay. Red clay, to the horticulturally challenged, is really bad for growing things. It has virtually none of the nutrients plants need to grow up healthy. Dad's solution was to conscript my two older brothers, and later my younger brother and myself, to dig a compost pit. Into that pit went pulled weeds; old litter from our menagerie of rabbits, hamsters, guinea pigs and gerbils (they themselves eventually were composted separately in small cardboard boxes buried throughout the back yard); raked leaves; bad produce and other organic waste. The result of 20 years of composting is that Dad's garden now rises noticeably above the surrounding yard. This is handy in the spring, when rain turns the yard into a swamp, but it makes life difficult for the local topographers, who have to update their maps every couple years to show the steady increase in elevation. The irony is this: Even with all the composted leaves, egg shells, potato peels and God knows what else, Dad's garden is still made of red clay. It's fertile clay now - he gets better produce than some farmers - but it's still clay, as he found last summer when the sun dried it up and nearly killed the entire garden. Despite my childhood travails in Dad's garden, I was thrilled to discover when Niki and I moved into our new house that the previous owners had planted a garden in the back yard themselves. There are a few things in there I could do without - like the brussels sprouts - but there also are tomatoes, onions and a few herbs I'd never heard of. As I was saying, the curse is coming to fulfillment and I am following in Dad's footsteps, albeit without the benefit of forced labor. This past weekend, even though our dirt is good soil a few feet down, I dug my very own compost pit. It's not as big as the pits we dug for Dad since our yard is smaller and since he's not here to make me dig it any deeper, but it should be big enough. "It looks like you're digging a grave," Niki said as she stood over me in the hole. "Don't be ridiculous," I said. "Hey, could you do me a favor and lie down in this for a minute? I want to see if it's long enough." Niki muttered something inarticulate and walked away. I was feeling proud of myself for having done something so useful, so I called my younger brother Steve, who said I'd have been better off with some above-ground palettes. Such a set-up helps aerate the compost, encouraging actual decay instead of just putrefaction. "You only dug one because Dad had them when we were kids," he said. To his credit, Steve not only was right, but also tried to share my pride. "Well, how big is it?" he asked. "Probably about 5 feet long, about 2 1/2 feet deep and about as wide," said I. "That's it?" he said, and started laughing like a howler monkey. "I thought you dug a big hole or something, the way you were talking about how long it took you!" I thought of getting even somehow, but it's all right. Steve's two years younger than me, and I figure it's just a matter of time before the Curse of the Garden catches up with him. And when that happens, I'll be ready to help him out. You see, I have a packet of seeds ... David Learn is managing editor of the Hillsborough Beacon. Permission is given to forward this article, but please leave this notice intact.