Caterpillars

As caterpillar coming to prompt a memory, or spark some thoughts of magic, I immediately think about the soft and heavy-bodied green of the tomato plant, the horned worm and how as children we were recruited to pluck them from their hiding spots on the underside of warmed green stalks. I am reminded of that distinct smell rising from garden dirt and fuzzy plants and not the medicine of caterpillars holding the dream of all becoming.

At our house, every Monday morning, during summer months, we had what my mother called, “weeding day.” Mom started early before the garden grew too hot, at six o’clock! We only had two hoes and probably seven children of weeding age, so the first couple, happy to be up, got the tools and those were the ones with the easier job—guiding irrigation water down the heaved-humps in graduated rows.

And, those without pretty much knew they’d be a muddy mess, down on all fours, pulling the weeds by hand, throwing the caterpillars at whichever kid enjoyed using his trowel to hack them to bits, or carefully slice them in half.

One summer, my aunt, who was only few years older than me and my cousins closer in age, came to visit and were horrified with our treatment of these cute pets! Each fell in love with the caterpillars, which they made homes for in green, plastic strawberry baskets lined with white napkins and a couple of stolen tomato leaves for food. They named their bugs, Jose’, Bradley, and Gus, reclined in their clean cotton summer skirts and halters as they heckled us workers from the shade of back porch, kissing and fawning over, petting the soft flesh of their new friends.

And when it was time to go, the trunk of Grandpa’s cream-colored Cadillac meticulously loaded, they slid their tanned legs across the buttercream leather, held their strawberry-crated worms safely on their laps for the air-conditioned, thousand-mile ride back to Seattle.

Photo credit/creative commons