He was a veteran of WW II, though not on our side I think. But not a very bad guy because they allowed him to come here after the war where he was a waiter at the Bergoff from which he retired. He was one of those toymaker Germans and not a storm trooper, and he grew sunflowers out of tall elegant white pots.
When he died I got possession of those pots, probably because it was easier than hauling them down to wherever one hauls big tall pots. In honor of him I grew sunflowers in them, and in the ensuing ten years they have self sown themselves all along that part of the balcony. Which is fine with me, everybody is welcome at the summer party which is Ken's garden. They don't seem to get in the way of the tomatoes and their stalks give those manic morning glories a stairway to heaven.
And then maybe three weeks ago I was sitting on the balcony reading my newspaper and caught a dark spot out of the corner of my eye which I first thought was a floater but closer focusing revealed that it was a bee, a honeybee, hovering right in front of the brown expanse of the big eye of the sunflower like one of those little pod ships trying to dock on the space station.
And dock she did and then she was rooting through the tall grass for nectar making a mess of the pollen.
This is a big deal. The dying off of honeybees has been all over the media and yet here in THE GREATEST CITY INNA WORLD, here is an amateur gardener who is providing succor to that very beast facing extinction. I know that there is, or was, an aviary on the roof of City Hall. If you are some visiting mucky muck of sufficient stature upon leaving our mayor, Lori Lightfoot (who will probably not get a second term, but whoever takes her place will be roundly hated in a few months as much as Lori is now), will gift you with a jar of City Hall honey. You can't buy it in a store.
That's where I think my honeybees come from because I can't think of any closer apiary.
Well I guess that is the end of my story. What have youse guys been up to?
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