Okay, I’m not young. I did grow up in the hippie generation though, so I’m not entirely out of touch with environmental awareness. I also worked as a horticulturist for years, and I know some things about the evils of pesticides.

I tried to instill environmental decency in my kids as they grew up. My youngest son, Chris, is now renting a house with a yard, and decided to put in an organic vegetable garden this year. He hauled loads of compost from my decaying leaf pile, and worked on it every weekend. It was his first chance to grow a lot of vegetables, and I loved watching his pride and amazement as things sprouted, grew quickly and began producing real food.

People who love gardening as I do, get warm fuzzies upon seeing a newbie get excited about gardening. Even better is the realization that my progeny will find happiness in an endeavor that fulfilled me and my dad before me. So all was good for weeks this spring.

As my son worked in his garden he got to know the elderly man next door who was also growing a large vegetable garden. The man talked to Chris about canning vegetables and gave him some pickle relish he put up last year. He enthusiastically promised to show Chris how to can when late summer came and the tomatoes overflowed.

Chris looked at this fellow as a wise old garden mentor and planned on soaking in his every tip and secret. I was glad he also kept checking with me when he had a question.

One day he told me his neighbor advised him to get some Ortho weed killer to put between his rows. I just about turned purple and yelled, “Don’t you dare!”  More shaky advice followed, and Chris politely ignored it.

Chris and his girlfriend went away for a weekend. When he came home all his pea plants were dead and a white powder covered the ground in his garden. His roommate filled him in. In a casual conversation, the old guy laughed and said, “That kid and his girlfriend like to garden, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He gotta use different stuff.”

Chris was stunned at the sabotage. I was really angry, but not surprised. Old people are the DDT generation. When they were young, pesticides were modern miracles designed to save the starving masses from grasshopper clouds and magically make crabgrass disappear. Who knew or cared about the consequences? Whaddya mean, let ladybugs eat the aphids, bugs are bugs, kill ‘em all!

This is not to say he should be excused. Respect for another person’s right to do things as they please should be a given. I’m simply guessing the genesis of his outlook, because I’ve seen that mindset in other geezers.

There’s one in my neighborhood who is the sweetest old fellow around, except that he constantly pours turpentine, oil, whatever toxic liquid he’s using for his home projects into a little spot of land at the back of his yard, right on the other side of my fence. He’s been doing it for probably fifty years. Needless to say, not a weed nor any living thing sprouts in that spot, but he thinks, so what, it’s just a little 3′ x 3′ area far from the house. That’s okay; maybe the grandkids will find a way to clean it up.