Gardener

Here’s a bit of advice from Fredrick Manfred: “Let’s start a cult in which we make heroes out of such ornery cusses as we may still have around—out of our lone wolves, go-it-aloners, dissenters, hermits, screwballs, aginers.   Such a fad, the fad of the ornery cuss or the oddball, might save us.   It is still a truth that the health of a society can be measured by the size and the vigor of its minority group. “In fact, I’d like to recommend that every village and town go out of its way to make sure it still has an ornery cuss in its midst.   At least one.   And should any village discover it doesn’t have an honorable dissenter around, I’d like to suggest that the mayor declare a state of emergency until such a citizen can be found.” A small college is a village, so a college ought also to have its dissenters and aginers.   Especially in the faculty and student body.   Among administrators it is considered treason to go against authority.   A...

A pomegranate is a fruit somewhat roundish in shape, but not round like an apple—though the poma part of its name means apple.   The pomegranate is roundish but flatter than an apple—something like a football, but that does not quite describe it either.   It’s more like---I’ve got it—like a grenade.   Aha!   That’s it.   In fact, the word grenade comes from the second half of the word pomegranate.   Pomegranates are sometimes called grenades, for short.   To the inventor of the grenade—and who would want to take credit for that?—the shape of this devastating little bomb must have suggested the pomegranate, and hence the name.   But a huge irony lurks in the word grenade, for this instrument of death comes from a word that signifies life.   From the very earliest times and in many cultures, the pomegranate has been a symbol of life, of resurrection, fertility and plenty.   In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of the harvest, ...