A current rage is “The Asian Challenge”: how to respond to their explosive growth, power and influence, and how to relate to Asians as individuals, families, neighbors and communities. Toyota will soon pass General Motors in size; our local supermarket sells vegetables grown, frozen and shipped from China; and over the last ten years, about a quarter of Burpee’s workforce has become comprised of immigrants from Southeast Asia. Almost all my clothes are from there. Indeed, the future of the U.S. nursery industry may very well take place in China. Certainly most of Heronswood’s rare plants were collected somewhere in Asia.Over the years, Japanese literature has given me signs and guideposts, so to speak. Vivid and original novels, such as ‘The Lake’ by Yasunari Kawabata and ‘A Dark Night’s Passing’ by Shiga Naoya; poetry such as the mountain series of Basho; and universally appealing spiritual traditions, such as Zen Buddhism, have provided me with an understanding of the inner life of the Japanese. Being the horticultural center of Asia, Japan has also functioned for me as a bridge to its less proximate or familiar neighbors. In plant breeding, they lead the world in several major classes such as broccoli, cauliflower, pansy, primula and lisianthus. Amateur flower breeding is a very popular hobby among Japanese retirees. They do it in pots on their porches. Very committed.

So, in the late 70s I came across a book about Japanese clinical psychology and became fascinated. Turns out to be one of the few published in English. ‘Anatomy of Dependence’, by Takeo Doi, remains a seminal work and platform from which to view not only the Japanese mind, but also our own. As Freud suggested, we are all more or less fully formed by age 6, give or take a year. Therefore, an analysis, or “anatomy”, of the Japanese experience of childhood is like a mirror into a sliver of their adulthood. Understanding dependence means you gain insight into their humanity and, thus, our own.

I still nibble at this brilliant book every few years, and each time find something new.

I cannot honestly remember being as excited as over the last week, since the announcement of the discovery of the earth-like exoplanet, GL 581c, which deserves a better name.While the possibility of human life may be remote, plant life may be abundant due to the old age of the planet and the low light levels, both which would promote evolution. Testing GL 581c’s botanical life will be an honor bestowed on our great-great grandchildren, since Star Trek-like space travel technology isn’t available in the near future. However, I shall lay aside the resources so that, in about 2107, Heronswood Nursery will have the means at least to participate in the intragalactic garden evaluation process.

Currently, what baffles me is how little attention this momentous discovery is getting, compared to the usual tabloid fare. Alas!

It is amusing to think of the distant future, such as the post-colonial period on GL 581c. I imagine the ethnic pride parade put on by the immigrant earthlings. What would they wear, suits and dresses? I’d like to think they’d wear Brooks Brothers.

Seriously, this is a tremendous discovery, perhaps the most important ever made. Not only will it yield secrets in its analogous biological processes, but it will also allow humanity a true second chance, an opportunity to take seriously the stewardship of our lives, environment and planet. A cosmic child, indeed.

Now, back to dreaming about the Earth Pride Day Parade…

A charming walk-around city, like a miniature version of London, Boston has nevertheless succumbed to the excesses of urban planning over the last 30 years, since I rambled around there. I lost my way last weekend on streets I knew perfectly in the 70s. It’s disconcerting to pass by chain restaurants and mall stores on Newbury and Boylston, but there it is. Actually a very small city—just over 500,000—Beantown still overflows with students. The smoky shot-and-beer bars are gone, as is the stinky old bus station. The roller skating drag queens have long since departed. The elegant Ritz Carlton, now one of many overdone luxury cookie-cutters, has been renamed The Taj. But couples still walk dogs, kids play Frisbee in the Commons, and the golden dome on the old statehouse shines in the sun.
“Japonisme” has gripped the city, as I discovered on my Holy Saturday trek out to Fenway to gawk at the ballpark and buy a souvenir. (They got Josh Beckett and they’re still hungry?) I took Boylston all the way out (“You’re going to walk there?” the concierge puzzled) and after a few miles came to a swale to the left of Storrow Drive. There I discovered the entrance to a surprisingly large complex of community gardens. Fenway Park—formally the Robert Parker Garden—may not antedate the famous ballpark, but it certainly rivals it in psychological satisfaction. Each tiny plot is carefully fenced and lovingly tended. Even on an extraordinarily frigid spring weekend, about a dozen souls—all male—dug the wet soil and puttered with various tasks. In contrasting relief to Boston’s relentless bustle, the peaceful space resembled a scene of a medieval village.

Managed by The Fenway Garden Society, P.O. Box 230038, Astor Station, Boston, MA 02123, the real Fenway Park consists of over 7 acres of a diverse patchwork of about a hundred tiny gardens, each a self-portrait of “unknown craftsmen” (true Japonisme, that. Maybe Daisuke has a little plot, I thought). Fenway is as unmistakable as any great urban community garden: healthy, alive with the promise of the new season, and replete with the fussy signs of commitment. The “fen” in Fenway is there too, down at the far end where run-off and snowmelt have puddled the main road and some of the paths. I sank almost to my ankles. Won’t be swampy much longer, though, as the gardeners will soon be planting things out, and excess water will be sucked up by hungry roots.

I had a pleasant chat with the august and sturdy Arthur Rose, who was planting onions and wearing a “Milky Way Candy Bar” ball cap. “I’m alone now, so I can’t eat as much as I grow,” he confessed as he leaned on his shovel. So he gives most of his vegetables to neighbors. “I’ll never stop gardening”, he said, his eyes twinkling. Made my day.
A hundred million dollars over six years for a twenty-seven year old pitcher? Matsuzaka suits up well, does a funny little one-step, and packs an enormously effective screwball. But, hey, citizens of Boston! Set aside a few thousand dollars for some drainage tiles for the real Fenway Park. The Japanese are superb gardeners, owing to their millennia-old Shinto tradition of nature worship. Maybe someone will talk Matsuzaka into making an honorable contribution to Boston horticulture.

Step up to the plate, Dice!

While we recommend you wear old shoes and pack an umbrella when you visit our Hellebore Open on April 20 and 21, we promise you will be greatly rewarded with a full day of unprecedented early spring beauty.

Unbeatable value, too.

Imagine what a five dollar ($5.00) entry fee—refundable as credit for a plant purchase—gets you these days, and you cannot even dream up anyone to match our offer of a day filled with botanical delights.

Personally guided garden walks; free refreshments; monumental sculptures; 60 acres of a spectacular estate, cultivated test plots, woodland paths, ponds and fountains; historic house tours; a surprising goodie bag; and, finally, the fellowship of hundreds of fellow gardeners—all are included in the entry fee.

In addition, you will be able to purchase garden-ready plants from a selection of hundreds of rare and unusual cultivars on sale—grown especially for the Open Day event—with a special emphasis on exotic Hellebores from our research program.

Lunch will be available for purchase—around lunchtime—consisting of grilled hamburgers, bratwurst, Italian sausages and vegetables. Also, for only another $10.00 you may hear a lecture about colonial American plant exploration by Bill LeFevre, Executive Director of Bartram’s Garden.

Finally, if you attend the Friday event, you may wish to stay until 5:00 P.M., when we offer—FREE—wine “warmers” and hors d’oeuvres to all our guests.

We don’t “promise the world” at our Fordhook Opens, we give it to you. Just be sure to wear your old shoes, and bring an umbrella (just in case) to this one. April in the Delaware Valley is sometimes a bit moist.

Click here for directions to the Open or to sign up for Bill LeFevre’s lectures

My mom once asked me which sense I’d give up if I had to, sight or hearing? A teenager at the time, I wondered if it was a trick question. I thought about the blind people I’d seen tapping their canes along the sidewalks, and answered, “Hearing”. She told me she’d give up sight. I didn’t believe her. It was a kitchen table time-waster, but she went on for a while about ancient blind poets and sages, as well as Ray Charles, whom she loved. She also pointed out the vulnerability of the deaf, reminding me of a terrible traffic accident in our town a few years before.However, I dug in and refused to change my mind. I couldn’t imagine blindness, no matter how I tried. Being deaf was tolerable, by comparison. For instance, I dreaded the notion of learning Braille, since I was already a slow reader. Perhaps it was our 33 year difference in age.

But, lately, I’ve seen Mom’s point. Music was central to our family life, and has remained so for me. As I’ve aged, I’ve wondered if it might be better to be a bat. I comprehend more from a person’s voice than from their words. Thankfully, I’ve never had to make this tragic and absurd decision (knock on wood).

Lovely flower colors manifest the miracle of sight. Hellebore flower heads occupy a rare and exquisite niche in the world of color. My eyes have to “stretch” a bit, dilate and refocus to take in the wide range of subtlety in each bloom. Anchored in a soothing pale green undertone, Hellebores possess a musical quality, a palette that suggests the richness of a cello and the sweetness of woodwinds or French horns. Listen to Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet (K.581) and Divertimento in F (K.247). Hellebores define the tranquility of late winter in the garden.

Most Hellebore flower heads nod downwardly, and one must gently turn them up, like scratching a cat under the chin. A few cultivars angle upward a bit, but the overall effect of the genus is of great formal dignity and delicacy, like an introverted child. Therefore, plant them in groups of 3 or 5, here and there, in your partial shade. They will array themselves serenely about your quiet spots of dappled and diffuse light.

Sometime in the mid 70s, I celebrated a party with friends at a then-landmark French restaurant in Chicago—the first of the “nouvelle”—called Le Perroquet. (There I tasted my first “mesclun” salad.) As we talked and dined I discerned, through the wine haze, that the place was utterly unique. Outside New Orleans, New York or San Francisco, no place like it existed, since fish was the focus. Thirty years ago, old line French restaurants served dishes like Chateaubriand for two with heavy sauces and peas with pearl onions, such as “Frog 1 and 2” enjoyed famously in ‘The French Connection’, while Popeye stamped his feet in the cold outside. Le Perroquet had no Chateaubriand—rather, they excelled in poached and grilled fish of all kind, especially red snapper. It was among the first of the new generation of fish restaurants, of which there are now thousands across the nation.Once “fish” meant Mrs. Paul’s Friday night fish sticks—breaded, fried and frozen. I loved them. Then, once a year, the parents took us to The Blackhawk in Chicago, where I’d get my photograph taken at the table, everyone staring at me gorging on frog’s legs. The babysitters would occasionally vary the Friday night routine (my folks traveled on business) by making salmon casserole—with its celery slice geometry lessons—and, rarest of rare, frozen shrimp. Ugh. No wonder my mother hated it. But fresh grilled or poached fish? Never. Later, as we matured, Fridays weren’t family dinner affairs anymore, and we stopped eating fish altogether.

Fast forward to the early 80s, as Reagan’s morning in America dawned over hundreds of “fish grills” and similar expense-account-themed restaurants across the country. My older brother took me to dinner and announced his “new idea”, The Red Lobster Effect. This, he explained, holds that every rare, exotic, heirloom, bespoke, etc., fish restaurant owes its existence to The Red Lobster for, in effect, breaking America in to a steady diet of fish and crustaceans. It was an original idea. According to my brother, Red Lobster’s 25 years of missionary work in the hinterlands of America resulted in today’s thousands of yuppies chowing on Chilean sea bass, bouillabaisse and even sushi. “It all started with Red Lobster!”, he enthused. I thought of another “effect”. President Kennedy’s Council on Physical Fitness, a tiny government program—that cost almost nothing—led to the “health club” movement, and then to millions of joggers. Similarly, Red Lobster sparked the current interest in eating fish as a regular habit, and less red meat. Good for them. Thank you, Red Lobster.

I often think of the “Red Lobster Effect” when I read our sales reports. There’s no doubt that, by making gardening fun and exciting to novices, Burpee is creating an interest in seeds and plants that matures into a true and lasting enthusiasm for gardening and, by extension, such rare and unusual cultivars as are offered by Heronswood. Burpee is a sort of “Red Lobster” and Heronswood’s a “Manhattan Ocean Club”.

I must add that I like Red Lobster, though I never ate an actual lobster there—or anywhere—until I was in my mid 30s, at the old Bookbinder’s in Philly, after a long day of selling impatiens and petunia seed to, of all companies, Burpee. The legendary seedsman Bill Scott and I drank about 5 martinis each (those days are over), since the hotel was across the street. So, I don’t even recall what the lobster tasted like. I remember only laughing at our silly bibs!
Thanks again, Red lobster, and President Kennedy too. I’ll hit 80 at least, as a result of his raising my consciousness.

During the mid-nineties I shuttled between Philadelphia, Chicago, Frankfurt and Cairo at least a dozen times. For pleasure, Cairo won hands down. From ’94 to ’97 I spent about four months in and around Cairo trying to launch a vegetable division of a corn seed company. Alas, without success. However, I became acquainted with some of the most interesting and friendly people on earth. Nothing beats a European education, and the typical Cairene I met certainly had that. As the New Zealander is more English than the Brit, the Egyptian is more continental than the European. Also, the younger adults are Americanized, at least in their music and vocabulary. And everyone watches U.S. television. “Baywatch” in particular. It was amazing to sit with the hotel staff—from bellmen to cooks to front desk supervisors—on a slow night in the back office, and to enjoy the almost mythological stories of the seaside lifeguards with their timeless plots. Gradually, I saw California as the “new Mediterranean” and Americans as ancient Greeks or Romans playing on a universal stage. Such heroism, intrigue, and triumph! It was weird. I’d never so much as glanced at “Baywatch” before. In crowded, noisy Cairo it was an escape for the young, while for the older employees (all men) it was amusing to see young people flirting with danger (not to mention the actual flirting).
Cairo is incredibly—and permanently—beautiful, like LA can be at fleeting moments, or when viewed from Pasadena. After gazing, transfixed, into Ramses II’s face, with its skin, hair, teeth all intact, and even wearing a slight expression of life, I shuffled out of the Cairo Museum and proceeded down nameless streets for several hours, haunted by the palpable sense of a cosmic clock, of which I was an atom sized gear, pounding the ancient pavement. “At least I have this much,” I thought, as I trudged the sidewalks. Infinite footsteps.
The pyramids would finish off a sick man, I’m sure, so powerful are they. See them healthy! Actually I didn’t recognize the first one, the great or Giza. It registered first as a distracting sky pattern, and barely that, at the side of my vision as I rode in a cab. Then a double take, and the science-fiction size took my breath away. We were several miles from it, yet it was completely still and as if within an arm’s reach.
My mother was a huge Naguib Mahfouz fan, so I went to the café he frequented, hoping to see him, but by then he was too ill. A modern master and Nobel laureate, he died last summer. Hardly anyone noticed in the U.S. I am partial to Albert Cossery, who wrote Men God Forgot while in exile in Paris, a book of working class Cairo stories from the 1920s, impossible to find outside a library, unfortunately. However, both are fantastic writers. They laid a path for Al Aswany and others.
After the Oslo peace accords in 1993, much of the money that wealthy Egyptians had placed for safe keeping in Zurich and London flowed back to Cairo and the city boomed. It’s still thriving, though it quieted down somewhat after Rabin’s assassination in November, 1995—a great tragedy for the Middle East. My friends among the hotel staff shared their alarm and sadness with me, and my business partners became nervous, if not a bit crazy. A nation of 75 million—larger than all in Europe except the unified Germany—and the undisputed cultural center of the Arab world, Egypt suddenly became a difficult place to do business. This was a great disappointment to me. I could have easily lived in Cairo. The magically beautiful Nile alone was reason to stay. The character of its people made it almost impossible to leave. Without a doubt the safest city of 7.5 million in the world, Cairo will always call to me, like a womb of civilization. For example, a woman may walk home from work unaccompanied down the streets of Cairo after midnight and never be molested. Except for petty theft among the poor and “crimes of passion” (rare family murders), there is literally no crime, extraordinary even in a city of a million. After hearing of them, I checked the crime stats with my Egyptian colleagues. Certainly, I saw hardly a single policeman the whole time I was there.
My favorite memories: long stretches of the broad city avenues lined with huge beds of nasturtiums—the favorite annual of Egypt; the cries of the boys playing soccer at recess (on cement) in the school across the street from our office; the gentle and poignant call to prayer of the muezzin after sunset, so like a cantor’s; the delicious boiled and sautéed broad bean, or “fava”—enjoyed at breakfast with the oily flat bread and strong black coffee; the fabulous meals the men’s wives would make of lamb and stuffed pale green summer squash. I loved this last so much, that I imported seed and introduced it as “Sweet Gourmet” in the Burpee catalogue. They love it in Michigan and Southern California, where most of the Egyptians and Lebanese live. Light or pale green is the favorite color in the Arab world. Green shoots alongside a stream.
Our gardens—indeed, our very notion of gardens—are versions of those invented in the Islamic world. It was to be a literal reflection of heaven—a piece of paradise—mirrored on earth. Before the Crusades, a garden as we know it didn’t exist. A few monasteries contained botanical collections—like ours at Fordhook and Heronswood—while the kings and courtiers of Europe went hunting. The poets and philosophers of Islam gave us the small, enclosed garden of contentment, pleasure and meditation. One can often see them very clearly in classic Persian, or Oriental, carpets.
If there’s a city whose air I wish to breathe again soon, it is Cairo.

Last night ‘The Illusionist’ put me to sleep. But I bolted up when the orange tree fruited without flowering. I imagined nearly a half-dozen people across the world shaking their heads in displeasure. Years ago Anne Raver wrote a nice article about movies that screw up garden-related details.I long for the old days (“when movies were movies”). ‘Rome’, on HBO, is startlingly good. But it’s a never ending serial. At least it has characters. When will John Milius turn his attention to the years before the Old Testament? He gives us the perennial story of pre-Christian Rome which, I think, is relatively safe and easy. Plenty of excellent historians ready to help. Lots of family, blood, sex, swords and sandals. The dialogue is great. But it ultimately descends into a “Dallas”-like palace drama to appeal to the goobers.

Please, take on an important background subject: the world of Abraham. Get some real nerve. The world needs an honest panoramic view of the roots of the Judeo-Christian tradition in the ancient world.

But anyway, God bless the BBC, and especially PBS. We boomers must remember how bad TV was before the Brits got cranking over here. That was the real British Invasion. We’d still be watching ‘The Three Stooges’, ‘My Three Sons’ and ‘Queen For A Day’. The closest we got to Masterpiece Theater in my childhood was ‘Hazel’. So, John Milius, get together with David Mamet and do it. Use actors from Brooklyn and the Bronx, just like the Romans with the English accents.

And, please, someone make a gardening movie. Combine it with outer space themes. Nothing gets me warm and fuzzy like a plant-related conspiracy theory. I was drooling after they announced ‘Signs’. I thought to myself, “Finally, a movie about crop circles with lots of corn stalks!” I anticipated it like it was a magic pair of shoes. Then I saw the wretched thing. For a minute, at least, before I passed out.

There are a few flicks I’ve seen that touch on horticultural subjects. ‘A New Leaf’, with Elaine May and Walter Matthau, portrays a botanist as a sweet but absent-minded heiress. Matthau is truly hilarious as the aging bachelor. ‘Medicine Man’ is entertaining, if a bit flat at the end. Two botanists in that one. ‘Bridges of Madison County’ casts Meryl Streep as, well, a passionate gardener. ‘How To Make An American Quilt’ showed a few seed packets (Yeah!).

But all these are small potato tubers next to ‘The Southerner’, which certainly gets the heartbreak of a crop failure right. And who doesn’t love a movie that prominently features a catfish named “Lead Pencil”?

George Sessions Perry Walls Rise Up — Most hobo tales are weighed down by sorrow and angst, but not this one. A little known, hard to find gem that tells of three Texas dust-bowl drifters who find trouble yet remain “pure of heart”. Jimmy, their leader, is unforgettable. Perry later wrote the novel, Hold Autumn In Your Hand, which became the movie, ‘The Southerners’, about a poor farmer and his family in depression-era Texas, starring Zachary Scott. The great Beulah Biondi plays a remarkable “granny”. Perry influenced Larry McMurtry.

Lynn Snowden Nine Lives — In the tradition of George Plimpton’s role immersions, Snowden took nine widely ranging jobs, from a roadie for a rock band (Skid Row) to a production line worker in a chocolate factory. The result is a fascinating trip through working class America in the nineties. She commits herself gamely to each job, which is amazing in itself. She followed it up in 2000 with a prescient book about her attempt to become a boxer, and has published little since. A classic work of journalism and fun to read.

Jan Valtin Out of the Night — I used to fish used book stores in my youth and often find several dusty copies of this thick tome. Finally, someone told me it was an enormous best seller in 1941. I read the first sentence and never looked back. Although an excellent new edition is available in paperback, I recommend the old hardcover to grateful friends. This autobiography begins with Valtin as a bicycle courier for labor unions on the docks in Hamburg (his dad was a merchant seaman) to his role as an agent in the Comintern in ports around the world. Finally, he infiltrates the Nazi Party, then gets captured and sent to a concentration camp. He’s held long enough to be hunted by both sides when he escapes. Many “firsts” here, from his eyewitness accounts of secret meetings with Goebbels to an insider’s perspective of the death camps. Impossible to put down and I’ve never found a book that matched it. If you like Robert Kaplan, Sebastian Junger or Jonathan Krakauer, you’ll feed off this for a month.

William Kotzwinkle Fata Morgana — Before the author of E.T. became famous, he wrote many marvelous and quirky novels. My favorite is this romantic elegy to love and middle age. A weird and unforgettable fantasy.

Peter Reich A Book Of Dreams — The son of a cutting edge pioneer in the early days of psychoanalysis, Reich acquits both himself and his dad beautifully in this heartbreaking memoir. Wilhelm Reich was treated brutally by the federal authorities in the 50s for making the sorts of claims that today would draw a small fine. One of the best, and most unusual father-and-son books, and hard to find. Published in 1973, it’s carried by the larger public libraries.

Several years ago I tried to find our town’s trash dump. Turns out there is no such thing. I called the Bucks County commissioner’s office. None in the county. I searched on the internet. What a mess! The nearest place I could take some exceptional “trash”—non-essentials of deceased relatives that I wished to throw out in a ritual manner—was over 25 miles away in New Jersey. Too tired to drive so far, but with my curiosity piqued, I looked up landfill research on the internet, eventually landing at the book, ‘Rubbish’.
It turns out the author, William Rathje, grew up a few miles from where I did in Illinois and his aunt, the late Mrs. Jane Rathje, not only lived two doors from us, but also taught me to diagram and parse sentences one winter at my mother’s request when I fell behind in grade school. She’d been an English teacher, and her husband, Richard Rathje, was William’s uncle. His dad, Bertram Rathje, was the chief county judge and the law partner of John Woodward, the father of the famous Watergate journalist, Bob Woodward. Since they lived in Wheaton, I attended different schools and never met him. Besides, someone 7 years older than a pre-teen lives in a distant world.

However, Mrs. Rathje made a lasting impression. Her home was built by Frank Lloyd Wright, so the dining room where I received my drills was a grand, “Prairie Oriental” affair with hunter green walls, long dark wood panels, and an impressive horizontal design. I studied at a big table and Mrs. Rathje wore elegant, old-fashioned clothes and taught rules that were similar. I loved it, and looked forward to the late winter afternoon lessons that ran several hours until dinnertime. (Like many of us, I was a victim of “Dick and Jane”.)

Years later I learned from Mom that Mrs. Rathje had a nephew who had studied anthropology and became a professor somewhere out west. However, I remembered this only when I was astonished by this odd title and the author’s description on Amazon, and I bought ‘Rubbish’ right away. It turns out Rathje is the world’s leading “garbologist”. As he asks, “Why wait several thousand years to poke through our own trash, like anthropologists and archeologists do now for information about ancient civilizations?” A brilliant notion. Rathje initiated a research project to analyze and study American trash and garbage—called “solid waste” by experts—at the University of Arizona in the early 70’s that continues today. The most surprising statistical average is that plastic comprises just 15% of the total content of landfills in the U.S. The largest volume category is paper products, at about 45%. (He could have fooled me.) He also provides a fascinating history of mankind’s struggle with garbage.

As one might guess, there’s a consistency to junk. Humans act generally the same, after all. There’s a lot of construction waste, massive amounts of no scrap value. All this refuse is crushed many times, and continuously pressed down into the fill by gigantic vehicular rollers. Eventually a final post-industrial grunge, appropriately called “leachate”, oozes to the bottom and, if not contained by lining on the base and sides of the landfill, into the environment. Methane created by some of the decay is piped out and burned for energy. It’s a huge and complex logistical undertaking. Yet few of us know about it, because human beings are also consistent about not looking very closely at our past. But we should.

The most startling fact is that there is so little plastic. For example, disposable diapers take up between 1 and 2%. Rathje’s book provides many such fascinating insights, and stimulates much curiosity. Paper or plastic? He’s moved on to Stanford, where I plan to write to him to inquire about both Aunt Jane and his unusual and vitally important research. The other day a colleague visited me and informed me and my staff that there is “an enormous blanket of plastic twice the size of Texas sitting on the ocean floor somewhere between California and Hawaii”. Hmm. And I was just looking for the town dump.