Pastinaca Sativa

Max Ehrmann (of Desiderata fame) had it wrong. Deep-down, we all know we are not good enough, and so self-improvement is required, and despite what the poet claimed, we should not be gentle about it. The good news is that Covid-19 provides the perfect opportunity to focus our self-improvement efforts. The pandemic has forced people, sensible and otherwise, to stay home if they can do so: no visits to unpopular relatives, no frying in a traffic jam on the Jersey Turnpike, no bagpipe concerts, no heaping plates of fries followed by hot fudge sundaes in diners, no heavy drinking at the curling rink – no nothing. It can be very trying, certainly.

     Mental health experts have come on television to advise that it is important that people fill their time positively, in order to avoid a bad case of ennui during this pandemic. They get money for this advice. One of the best ways to both fend off ennui and to improve our inadequate selves is to develop interests and hobbies that heretofore have lain dormant. Seize the day and move up the Maslovian pyramid! Take steps toward blissful self-actualization, as personified by these mental health experts on the evening news.

     And so, what is this period of Covid-19, but a time finally to learn the Cantonese that you have put off for so long? Perhaps you can renew your high school Latin, and finally translate those racy bits about Caligula. It could be cooking: time to actualize your inner gourmet and turn those family frowns upside down! Imagine the family’s excitement when you serve up Canard à la Rouennaise – Duck in Blood Sauce? Or if more intellectually inclined, you could discover a third form of indefinitesimal calculus to rival the two invented by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz in the late seventeenth century. If otherwise deficient, but kinaesthetically intelligent, you could take up limbo dancing, and thereby not only become fitter, but also amuse your mate during endless hours in the living room. Is it to be music? You could pick up the contrabassoon, or if you live alone, the bongo drums. There is no end to possibilities.

     I am doing no less, and in my case, my new hobby benefits both me and the larger world.

     Wild parsnip (Pastinaca Sativa), an invasive species of plant originally from Eurasia, now grows in Upstate New York and other parts of the U.S. and southern Canada. The original plants appear to have escaped captivity, like that celebrity fugitive capybara did a couple of years back in High Park in Toronto. It grows along roadsides or other areas where the soil has been disturbed. Normally it will not invade established meadows and fields; however, it can do so from areas that have been troubled, usually by men riding machines that they recently acquired at the John Deere store on the payment plan, and which they use to inflict insults on Mother Nature.

     Mature wild parsnips have a yellowish-green stalk with vertical grooves. Leaves are in pairs and reach a length of about six inches. Each plant produces hundreds of small yellow flowers arranged in compound umbels (an upside-down umbrella shape). The plants are big, often standing five feet in height. The evil parsnips tower menacingly over the beautiful daylilies. For my new self-improvement hobby, I have taken to hand-cutting these alongside our gravel road, which stretches about a mile between two paved county roads.

     I must be careful while doing my hobby. Contact with the sap from the wild parsnip will produce an intense burning rash, with severe blistering and skin discoloration. It is called phytophotodermatitis; you look like you have leprosy, only unlike that disease, it is painful. As a result of this experience, you will come to remember your days of childhood poison ivy contamination as “the good times.” It is a burn, there is no cure, and it can last two years.

     And so, twice a week, I suit up: long-sleeved shirt, long pants, leather gloves, and work boots with tall white socks up over my pants. Eye and head coverings are important too, for sun and the mobs of horseflies. At first, I used sunglasses and a baseball cap, but these were inadequate and so now I’ve settled on tinted aviator goggles complemented by a rather stylish Panama hat.

     Perhaps you wonder: why white socks? Answer: to be able to see the tiny deer ticks of course! The ticks pounce on you as you lumber along in the roadside weeds, while the horse flies are attempting to eat your face. The ticks burrow into your skin to suck your blood, and while at it, they give you Lyme disease and anaplasmosis. City people especially, say nature is wonderful, but it is not quite true. That is why I do not watch those dreadful nature shows on PBS. Too much poisoning and exuberant gnawing on the limbs of fellow creatures, as far as I am concerned. Show me that stuff, PBS, and you can forget about asking for money!

     And so, I suit up and spray my boots, socks, and pant-legs with cancer-causing deet, with a lighter bug repellent for my face as a first coating, and sunscreen as a second. Then off I go with my clippers and a sickle, making my way up and down the sides of the road while singing inspirational songs, such as La Marseillaise. I sever the plants as low as I can, but no matter how low or high, there is great joy in watching the umbels tumble.

     There are moments of embarrassment, naturally, when neighbours drive by. Fortunately, this is rare, as there are only three other neighbours on the road and one of them, Lloyd, doesn’t come out since his goat died. You have to go see him and take soup and beer with you. The worst is when Charley, who is a dairy farmer, goes by in his yellow tractor. He is a nice guy, but for some reason he is always laughing and shaking his head. I try to be casual about it, drenched in sweat while lopping the heads off the devils. I give a jaunty wave and continue working in a casual fashion. People naturally view casualness as a sign of normalcy.

     Speaking of: one must be careful not to let this develop into an obsession. Like many hobbies, such as eBay-bidding, Facebook-checking, coupon-clipping, socializing in adult-only chat rooms, or marijuana-smoking, one must keep things under control. I limit myself to twice a week. That works – it means that only half the time do I have to restrain myself and wait the full four days before cutting again. Ah, yes, it is true: this is not a one-time thing – the parsnips grow right back.

     I know what you are thinking: Sisyphus! However, this is not so different from other things that moral people do in life. There will always be good and evil, but what we do is to stand for the good, knowing we will never totally defeat Beelzebub, whether the demon himself or his minion, Pastinaca Sativa.  We keep the lights on in the tool-shed of the virtuous. In the face of Covid-19, we shrink not away. We do not allow it to push us into ennui. We declare: “no, never!” We stand tall and at the same time, improve our hapless selves with a beneficial hobby.

     And so, if you drive along a gravel road in Upstate New York, near the Vermont border, and see an old, very hot man alongside the road with clippers in one leather-gloved hand and a sickle in the other, wearing long sleeves, with white socks over his pants, sporting aviator goggles and a dashing Panama hat, do not be baffled or perturbed.

     It is just me.

     I am practicing a useful hobby. I am defeating that old Coronavirus ennui. I am improving myself and saving the world.