It Doesn't Take Much

Dad always appreciated a good thick spread of St. Augustine grass. One of my earliest memories is of Dad carefully digging up neat squares of sod grass from our old place, circa 1958, to transplant to the yard of the ranch house we moved to when I was five years old. More than fifty years later the grass is still there, thriving.

Dad always said it was the water, and our windmill pumped good water -- sweet. To date, it is the finest tasting well water I have ever come across. The water was so soft you could hardly rinse the suds off of your hands when you washed before supper. After a bath your skin felt silky smooth and your hair was as soft as a baby's. That was long ago and Dad is gone now. Sol me quedan los recuerdos.

Dad's parents, a brother and a sister, aunts and uncles, are buried in the Salas Cemetery, a half-acre patch in the heart of what was once a great farming community in the day of my great grandfather. When my father's father was laid to rest there in December of 1957 the cemetery was bordered by farm and pastureland in all directions, but by then, the decline had begun. The farming communities that were the norm of the time, and the area, became fewer and fewer. Today, a vast tangle of mesquite brush has dominion over the land that cotton ruled a half-century ago.

Time marches on. Ours is a different age and a different economy. A good number of the old Salas clan lay underneath that ground. A couple of times a year some of the living will hoe off the weeds and tidy up the place, but our number will to perform that chore is in decline. The graves, like the memory of the people that rest beneath, are being forgotten. It doesn't take much -- just time. Before the present generation passes, the weeds and prairie grasses are going to hide them from sight.

The idea that no one would tend his grave irked Dad. Offhandedly, he let it be known that this was a great concern to him. As dearly as he loved his parents, he declared on more than one occasion that when the time came, he wished his remains to be deposited in Benavides.

"A si me ponen flores y regarán el zacatito mas sequido," was how he worded it.

He got his wish. The flowers that color his grave may be artificial, but they are bright and pretty. The grass is real. It is thick and green. At first I tried getting Bermuda grass to cover the ground there, but it would not take no matter how much effort I made. Sun, no sun, water a lot, water sparingly, aerate the soil, for years I tried. Then I did what the old man would have done. I dug up a good bit of sod grass from my brother's yard in Bruni and put it to work at the cemetery. I watered it religiously and bingo -- the grass took and thrived. Dad just had to have his way. He wanted what he appreciated most, St. Augustine.

Today I mowed it in this hundred degree heat and then gave it a good soaking for a couple of hours. Even during this miserable dry spell, the resting place for his earthly remains is green and shady -- just like he would have wanted it. The old man has been gone since the fall of '95, but I still follow orders. It doesn't take much.