BACK TO THE GARDEN

“Back To the Garden”

My new book just came out. It is titled BACK TO THE GARDEN. It has nothing to do with gardening. I have tried to stress that at every opportunity I have been given to talk about the book. Still the title seems to have more power than I have.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from a company in Minnesota. They made bird houses. They wanted to know if I was interested in doing a tie-in with their product and my “gardening” book. They seemed to think bird houses and gardening manuals would go hand in hand.

Another company asked if I would be open to having a packet of seeds in each book, which would be provided by their store/company. “Your book could be a conduit to beautiful flowers sweeping the country,” they wrote. Who do they think I am – Johnny Appleseed?

I am not a gardener, have never been a gardener, and don’t want to start now. I don’t have anything against flora and fauna but I am not good with growing things. Even things that are grown elsewhere and then brought to our house, die. We had someone send us a plant a couple of weeks ago and when the florist tried to drop it off the plant put up quite a battle. It had its leaves wrapped around the door jamb and was holding on for dear life.

The plant lost. It came into our home and was placed on the kitchen table where it would get plenty of sunlight. We watered it, fed it, and did all the right things. We had funeral services for the plant this morning.

Growing up my mother would plant things in the yard. She had flower beds and other beautiful planty things. So I wasn’t raised to be a plant heathen. It just happened over time. Perhaps it was me marrying Terry that put the seal of doom on our future plants. She and I share a lack of love for gardening and always when she would try to make an effort it ended badly. She finally gave up after a particularly beautiful azalea plant withered down to its roots.

So here I am an author of a book titled BACK TO THE GARDEN. It is about the “garden of Eden” and not about “gardening.” I gave a talk a few days ago to a nice group of ladies. I stressed what my book was about and that there was nothing in the book about planting gardens or doing any kind of flower work. I vehemently stressed this as I read from different stories in the book.

When I had finished and was packing up to leave one of the ladies in the group came up to me to ask a question. “Do you have anything in your book about chrysanthemums?” she said. “I am always looking for information about chrysanthemums.”

She wasn’t kidding.

                                                                                                                                          Jackie K Cooper

Jackie K Cooper, author of BACK TO THE GARDEN, is surrently on the run. He is wanted for questioning in regards to the deaths of plants, flowers and shrubs