Can of Worms

Chapter 3

Can of Worms

When it rained in Northern Minnesota summers it really rained! Usually the rains came every night and by morning the sky would be blue, and the greenness of the world was almost overwhelming- even the few people who didn’t tend their lawns had lush verdant swaths of emerald albeit somewhat shaggy! Sometimes it did rain during the day and often these would be violent thunder storms but there was the occasional gentle rain and many times my siblings and I and our friends would be out on our bikes exploring or just meandering along aimlessly enjoying the cool rain on a hot day. If there was any fishing planned in the near future, we’d hop off the bikes and grab a coffee can reserved for this specific purpose and go Worm hunting; well, hunting wasn’t really the word, it was really Worm picking. All along the curb at the street there’d be standing water and it was only a matter of time before it would be littered with Earth Worms who were being drowned out of their subterranean homes only to be snatched up by the birds or the grimy hands of a little kid like me! We’d only pick up the fat ones and into the can they’d go with a plop- if we didn’t actually go fishing we’d hear from our Mom “Someone let those poor Worms out into the garden, somewhere out of the sun!” and one of the little kids, me or my little brother Tim, usually pulled the duty. Our garden was a plot in the back yard behind the swing set, and another one along the back of the house too, where there was afternoon sun but morning shade for Cucumbers to grow.

On one such morning Timmy was out spreading worms and I was in the bedroom we shared, and I heard my little brother talking to the Worms as he released them back to the wild in the Cucumber patch right below our window.

“Ok, little wigglers, we didn’t stick you with any fish hooks, and we didn’t forget you in the garage, so Mom says” and here he quoted and mimicked our Mother nearly perfectly “Put them in the garden so they can make our food grow better!” He even did it in a kind of sing song voice and if I had closed my eyes it could have easily been Mom down there. But then he stopped, and his voice became somewhat sinister. “But not you little one, you look like you’re not going to make it so YOU get to go live in my sisters bed, at least until she finds you and screams her head off!” he chuckled and off he went on his merry way presumably to be evil!

I was stuffing a pack with BB’s and snacks and a book because I was going to spend the day at the creek with a friend or two so I forgot about the whole thing till hours later at bedtime when, from our room, we could hear the panicked screaming of Stacy as she discovered what awaited her tucked securely between her sheets. I was in the top bunk and leaned way out to look down at Tim

“Well, that ought to get you killed if she finds out it was you!” I whispered with a grin.

His face turned a little white and he started to deny it, but I cut him off.

“None of my business…” and I mimed zipping my mouth shut. “But we’d better go see what’s happening or she’ll know it was one of us if we don’t turn up with everyone else, ya know.

So, we went and looked concerned and tried not to giggle or know too much, but it was very hard!

Our sister had been systematically terrorizing us that summer while our parents were at work (see, Is there not a Man Among Us? in The Birch Lane Chronicles) so Timmy and I weren’t really all that callous or as mean as you might be thinking.

But it is true that Earth Worms are good for a garden as they don’t eat live plants, only dead or decaying ones so if your Tomatoes have drowned and rotting roots the Earth Worms will come in and eat only what really needs to go and if you do quit overwatering your garden the Tomatoes may still come in on time! You can see their work when you come across soil that is granulated like big black pieces of salt- that’s Worm poo and it’s great soil now! Earth Worms have nine hearts so really, maybe Tim was telling Stacy in some weird way that he loved her, like a demented, belated, Vanentine’s Day card!! And when you cut a worm in two, they rarely die, so when our mother did this when we were fishing and running low on bait it wasn’t really as cold hearted as may have seemed to non-fishing folk. Personally, I used a night crawler harness, which had three hooks in a row, and you had to stick the worm three times and let its’ tail end dangle past the hooks a bit. At the front of this rig was a silver spoon spinner to flash in the water like a new bike in a window for the unsuspecting fish that would soon be eaten by me! Anyway, if they’re not used as bait, or forgotten in the garage in a Folgers coffee can to dry out these little beasties can live for up to six years, and they are found nearly everywhere in the world where they can keep their skin wet, and they perform the small miracle of ingesting rotting plant matter and expelling rich black soil.

“What’s the most important thing to know about a Scientist?” My fifth grade teacher asked the class. Hands went up all around: they’re smart, they know a lot of things, they have college degrees, they have microscopes, they wear white coats, and more like that, but none of these answers, although all correct, seemed to be what Mr. Sedevick actually wanted to hear. Finally he said we’d be having a pop quiz and amidst the groans he explained that there was only one question on this quiz, and no one could possibly fail. That got our attention and we all pulled out paper and pencils as he wrote on the black board:

1. Write down one thing you are curious about in nature, one thing you don’t know the answer to, or one thing you want to know more about.

And he gave us a few minutes to think and write. I wrote:

Why does my Rabbits’ nose wiggle all the time?

At the end of the quiz he didn’t collect the results, instead he had us go around the room and read them out loud and my question was not as profound as some;

Why do we die?

How do we know how old the sun is?

Nor was it as silly as others:

Why do farts smell?

Why do little kids eat their boogers?

Heck, I’d often wondered about that last one concerning some of the kids in my own fifth grade class! And since there was no failing this test I didn’t give the others’ answers too much serious thought and I really had often pondered the ceaseless movement of Harvey’s nose.

Finally, Mr. Sedevic handed out to each of us a large envelope which further commanded our attention because nothing good came from school in an envelope, and the bigger the envelope the worse the news for our parents, and us, was going to be.

“Don’t open these yet, not until I tell you.” He commanded with a smile as he walked around the room and finally as he ended back up front he said “A scientist is always asking questions; a scientist always wants to know more. That’s the most important thing you need to know about any scientist! Congratulations, you are all Scientists now!!” and with that he dismissed us to go outside into the cool fall day for some free time and all we had to do was to bring our envelopes with us. He didn’t tell us to open them, but it was, we all thought, what he wanted. I found my favorite monkey bar and climbed it with my favorite monkey friend and together we carefully and maybe even reverently opened our envelopes, Scott went first and what he pulled out was a certificate that stated:

Scott Dahl, Scientist

Scott has asked a question about the natural world

and

Is now charged with finding out the answer

and

To keep asking questions.

On your shoulders rests the future.

Scott had asked:

Is my dog really smiling sometimes, or do I just think he is?

After seeing Scott’s certificate, I knew what mine would say but I still had a loud beating heart when I opened it to read:

Wade Dickinson, Scientist

Wade has asked a question about the natural world

and

Is now charged with finding out the answer

and

To keep asking questions.

On your shoulders rests the future.

These certificates had blue and gold scrollwork all around the edges and someone had very carefully hand lettered the whole thing (1971, no computers and no desktop publishing or laser printers) I looked and looked at it in disbelief and when I glanced at Scott it was clear he was in the same state of mind. We weren’t scientists, were we? We were dumb ass kids who liked throwing snowballs at each other’s sisters and playing Monopoly on cold winter days, but scientist’s? But we were also pretty good kids and it clearly said that we were CHARGED with finding the answer to our questions and it was clear we needed to do that so we decided to work together as a team and even if it was never a quiz question we’d present our findings to Mr. Sedevic. I kept that certificate on my wall under the window and right above where I assembled and painted models all winter long, for years, until we moved to California in the fall of 1978, and from there I lost track of it, but never of its’ intent.

Mr. Sedevic was a demanding teacher and he clearly had his favorites of which I was one on a few rare occasions. He expected a lot from us, and I think, as a class, we gave him our all and our best. I suppose it was the last line of the certificate, cryptic and terrifying and challenging as it was, that was also somehow freeing for me: If the future rests on my shoulders then can’t I just relax and go with the flow? It’s going to happen weather I want it to or not and in my own small way I will shoulder the burden as well as I can.

Or is that all a lie? Did Mr. Sedevic open something in me that I was, and would be, unable to finish? I knew, even in the fifth grade that I was not college bound, that I’d not earn a degree unless you counted first or second degree murder (that’s a joke, I’ve never killed anyone!) but really, did he only add to my already growing neuroses of not being good enough compared to everyone else? The answer is maybe… but if so, I’m glad he did because his challenge helped me put myself out there and explore more, to try more new things, and to accept most failure as an experiment with an unexpected outcome, and not a moral failing. And it think, that statement more than anything else, Wade Dickinson, Scientist, inspired me to never stop learning and being passionate about the natural world. I’m an engraver, but under my work clothes has always been an imaginary white lab coat, yes, with a pocket protector, I’ll admit it, that I can instantly change into and ask any question that meanders through my mind without shame or embarrassment, and I can revel in the answers, each one another tumbler clicking in an endless lock…

Reflections:

• Diana will get a “Scientist Certificate”. If it doesn’t come from school, and it probably won’t as Mr. S, in hindsight, was an awesome and unusually inventive teacher, it’ll come from me.
• Stacy probably didn’t deserve the worm in her bed. She never suspected anyone had done it and was constantly wondering how it had crawled all the way there and if there’d be more.
• It’s kind of amazing when you can ask a question where there is no one ridiculing or belittling you. Goodhearted good-natured laughter is fine, but the other two are poison to the soul and create voids in the future.
• When harvesting Cucumbers there is only one way; you reach your arm in under the big leaves and all the way to the back and feel with your fingers which ones are big enough to pull from the vine. Sometimes you take a small one anyway and wash it off in the garden hose and eat it on the spot, skin and all! Putting your arm in there is a leap of faith: There is no giant python waiting to grab me, no dead man’s hand alive and searching for revenge, any revenge…
• Must take Diana somewhere where we can harvest something she loves to eat! Strawberries, Blackberries, Apples or the like. We’ll hold off on the Cukes till she’s older…
• By the way, a Rabbit’s nose wiggles because they are moving around the sensitive olfactory glands in their nasal cavity, thereby collecting more of whatever scent there is in the air! Plus, it’s really cute!!