Why I love snapdragons and hate juniper trees

My cousin, Mike, and I would race to Grandpa's side when we'd hear his Zippo flip open. We knew he was lighting his pipe again and for whatever crazy ten year-old reasoning, we'd take turns blowing out the flame. Looking back, I have absolutely no idea why this was fun, but we sure got a kick out of it.

My grandpa was a neat old man. He always wore overalls. He always smelled like tobacco. He let me dig up potatoes, pick corn and pull up carrots. I would follow him when he made his watering rounds and ask him what each plant and flower was. I don't remember any of them except the snapdragons. I remember those because we'd pick the little black seeds and collect them in old glass jars. That man despised juniper trees; thought they were a nuisance. So I always have, too, by default, I guess.

He helped me build a wooden box once. Mike and I had this favorite tree in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard. It was huge and had the perfect limb to sit on and dangle our feet below. The limb was pretty high up and you definitely needed two hands to climb the tree, but we needed to have sodas while we were up there talking about life (we'd get parched with all that talking to do). So Grandpa came out to his workshop with me and we constructed a wooden box. It was just the right size for a couple of sodas. Then we tied a rope around it to pulley it up to our limb. I still have the wooden box. I keep art supplies in it, and I think of my grandpa every time I look at it, and remember that he was the one who always told me I could.