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LEARN HOW TO MAKE OUR TYPE LARGER

	Just a thought
	Betty Lammers

A Dutch treat
Published May/June 2001

Tulips

It has been a cold, long winter here in the Northeast and the emergence of spring is welcome. When the first crocus appears, the forsythia burst into profuse yellow and the tulips bloom, all seems well. Usually, that is. I’m thinking back to a particular spring day, early in my child-raising years, when...

My husband, Don’s aunt and uncle returned to Amsterdam after a three-month visit to America and they wanted to show their appreciation for his having been their tour guide to several places of interest in America. Knowing his fondness for gardening, they arranged to send a large variety of hybrid tulips.

While anticipation for the arrival of the prized package mounted, a lot of work was done. We built a tulip bed of red brick in a semi-circle extending outward from a fireplace chimney on the long side of our ranch house. In the fall, we planted the several dozen Holland bulbs we received, and looked forward to spring a little more anxiously that year.

In April, all the buds appeared and the cameras were loaded – one for slides and another for snapshots. As we admired them one night, Don decided, “Tomorrow they should be just perfect and we’ll send some pictures of them to Holland.”

When my sister, Marge, came to visit the next day, I proudly showed her our display and she was duly impressed. Later on, while my baby was napping, our three-year olds were playing in the hedged-in front yard. Marge and I were chatting over a cup of coffee, when I heard those awful words – “Mommy, I picked these just for you.” I looked up into the largest bunch of short-stemmed tulips a tiny fist could hold.

E-mail Betty Lammers at betty@homefrontmagazine.com.

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