Tulip Time

A few years ago Joyce and I took a nice jaunt from our then home on the eastern shores of Michigan to go to a train museum in the center of the state and then we spent the night in Grand Rapids. The next morning we drove to Holland. Not Holland Holland - Holland Michigan. It was a perfect trip - the huge crowds that invade Holland were gone and it seemed as though we had the town to ourselves - except for millions and millions of Spring flowers. What a wonderful place Holland is - either the one in the Great Lake State - or the one in Europe. I remember that one well from my Air Force days when I spent several months in The Hague working with the Netherlands Air Force.

i guess that all came back to me yesterday when we drove down to Evansville for a a college honors convocation in which granddaughter Jill was one of the honorees. The University of South Indiana is one of those places that has masses of tulips at this time of the year. Not just the University - the flowers were all over the city and it was beautiful. It really brings to mind the beauty of God's paint brush and makes one glad to be alive.

But I wasn't all that glad when our cell phone went off a when we were in our local bankers office the other day. The cell phone sounded off and it seemed as though everyone started laughing. I don't know why - all it was was a cell phone ring.  It was just a ring tone of Tiny Tim of past years singing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips". If you haven't heard it, or are unfamiliar with who Tiny Tim was, look him up on the Internet -  I'm sure you will be impressed - or at the very least puzzled why anyone in their right mind would use that ring tune. Then, again, I''ve not been accused of a somewhat twisted mind for a long time. Or maybe Joyce doesas well - I think the ring tone was her idea.

Then there is the story about  long flower beds filled with beautiful tulips - a little like the picture above. This flower beds ran from a sally port entry to a large apartment complex in Rye, New York. Running along the flower bed was a concrete sidewalk leading to an ornate entrance to the building proper. I was quite young - perhaps four or so - and we had an apartment, our first home on the mainland after my father retired (for the first time) from the active Army. This row or tulips was the managers pride and joy.

Needless to say, I had not completed driver education but I was equipped with wheels - a four wheel pedal car. Unfortunately it was not equipped with GPS and so, when I drove it, the little car had a mind of its own as the direction it went. If you are think that the car might have  affinity for tulips, you are 100 percent right. Not just one side of the sidewalk but both sides experienced a floral demolition derby. From one end to the other. It was not a tip toe through the tulips - it was mass destruction.

If memory serves correctly, we did not last in that apartment complex. I've been told that the manager invited (urged? insisted? demanded) us to move quickly after my moment of floral devastation and we ended up in my grandmother's boarding house. The picture above is of the infamous vehicle with me behind the car and one of the Tucker boys to the left. Granted, the picture is a bit faded, but so am I at the moment. And wonders of all wonders, I have a considerably better respect for flowers - especially if they are my wife's.