JOY ALONG THE WAY: SAMI GROWS GREAT THINGS

Last summer my "growing-up" neighbor, Sami, creator of the city's children's flag, decorated a miniature flower pot for me. With some kind of fast-drying paint/glue she had written my name on it and added little colored dots all around it. It was filled with potting soil and, as she said, was sown with wildflower seeds. When I asked her what they were, she shrugged and said, "Just wildflowers." Well, I thought, I can guess at what to expect and try to identify them when they come up. Fleabane, henbit and wild mustard had probably gone to seed. Maybe some wild sweet Williams.

I watered the little patch of soil dutifully as she had instructed, but nothing ever came up. Not even a cocklebur nor a sunflower whose seeds are constantly being scattered around here by the birds.

Being a little impatient with the delay of spring planting time and so eager to see something sprouting, I put some fresh soil in the tiny pot and dropped in a seed of Indian corn. A hank of it has been hanging on the back porch wall since last Thanksgiving. If it doesn't spout in what I think is due time, I'll dig it up and try a lima bean, or just any old seed I can find, so eager am I to see the season progressing.

This all harks back to the time in my early grade school years when our teacher had us place a grain of seed corn between two blotters -- remember blotters? -- keep them damp and inspect them each week to see what was happening.

I was fortunate to have a desk near a window, and when the sunshine fell on it, I would move my blottered (new word?) corn seed into its warmth.

All of us conducting this test had helped plant corn in our home fields, but none actually knew about what happened to the seed before it poked a little green leaf above ground.

Each day at school I couldn't help but peek at my corn seed. Mine was the first to sprout. One day, I saw a little white thing protruding out the end of the kernel. I hoped I hadn't done anything wrong. I had, erroneously, thought that the first thing that would happen would be a green shoot popping out at the top.

"No," said the teacher when we next studied our seeds. "That little white thing is a root. It grows down. The part that we see above ground, of course, grows the other way, up."

In addition, she said in her voice that meant we should remember this, "Every growing thing must have root firmly grounded first or there would be nothing to support that which comes above the ground." Things that teachers say, way back, and in such a manner, we tend to remember. That is one of mine.

When Sami comes over one of these warm spring days to visit with me in the porch swing and my corn shoot is showing above the top of the pot, I'll discuss with her this matter of the need for roots for all growing things.

Sami is smart and will probably say, "But we don't have roots like corn that has to stay in one place all the time." That will open up a discussion that may last all summer about other kinds of roots. She will already know about the root of belief in the Creator which is basic, but we will discuss the roots called honesty, courage, integrity, loyalty, accountability, all like a corn root that puts out so many additional roots, some even above ground, to support the stalk in windstorms, heat stress, hail and all manner of things that could cause it not to grow upright.

We will talk about the strength of these unseen, intangible roots that keep up from being beaten by the first little whirlwind that comes out way.

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.