Story Hour
Herman Grows Up
Written by Gene B. Williams
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Have you ever had a pet? I have. You know about some of them. There is Gordie the Social Tortie. There are Gus and Mabel and Kage and Joe and Sophie and Jabels. Way back I had a wolf named Coyotero, and a snake named Basil. There was Nicki and Martha. And … I had a lot of fish.
About the time I was raising fish, a different kind of pet came. His name was Herman. You would like Herman. Well, you would like all the others, too (except maybe Alfred, the tarantula – but that’s another story).
The first thing you must know is that Herman was green. I found him just when I wanted something green. You see, it was right about Christmas time, and in a Minnesota winter. Maybe you know about that. It was cold and gray and snowy and icy and slushy and … did I mention cold?
All of the green of Summer was gone.
All the color of Fall was gone.
The water was covered with ice, the lawns covered with snow, the streets … well, cars and trucks and busses made a sticky, splashy, icy, messy slush that could freeze your toes in a hurry. If you know this kind of weather, you know that you DO hurry. You pull in your coat, and pull down your hat. You turn your back into the wind so it doesn’t freeze your cheeks.
It was a day just like that when I met Herman.
I was walking home from school. At home was a warm tub where I could warm my fingernails and toenails and everything between. Where I was … was a florist. (That’s someone who sells flowers and plants and things.) It was a place to get warm. More important, it was a place where I could get a flower for my Mom. On such a cold, gray day, Mom would enjoy a bit of color!
Do you ever bring your Mom – or your Dad – an aunt, uncle, friend – something special just to do it? No special reason. No holiday or birthday. Just to DO it.
On this gray day, I wanted to do that for my Mom.
Sitting on another shelf was a tiny green plant. Actually, there were a dozen green plants, each in its own little compartment of an egg carton. It was a long time ago, but if I remember right, Mom’s flower cost me 50 cents, and that pitiful green thing cost me 19 cents, and for a quarter more he gave me a little plastic pot and a scoop of good soil.
I asked, “What kind of plant is it?” (Not that I cared, but Mom might ask.)
He looked at it a moment and said, “It’s … uh … green.”
That was good enough for me. So, I tucked Mom’s flower and the green plant under my coat to protect them from the cold and headed home.
Mom loved her flower. (See? I told you so. Sometimes the best presents are the ones that … just ARE.)
Of course she also looked at my green plant and asked what it was.
“Uh …” I answered, “it’s … green.”
Mom’s flower went into a vase on the dining room table to join us for supper later that evening. The green plant went with me to my bedroom … to help me study later that evening.
Well, let me tell you, the plant grew. Then it grew more. And more. AND MORE! By my birthday in January, the stem was beginning to grow what looked like bark. The plant was more than a foot tall and getting strong enough that I put a few Christmas lights on it. I called it my “birthday tree.”
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There are many kinds of schefflera. Some stay small. Some get to be over 100 feet tall! Many times they are planted with several in a single pot. |
Other kinds seem determined to not be a mere bush, but to become a tree. |
By then it was in a new pot, of course. By Spring he needed ever bigger pots. Bigger, and bigger, and BIGGER – each pot bigger than the one before. He was more than 3 feet tall. The tiny stem it once had was a trunk – the real thing! Then he was 4 feet tall. And 5 feet tall – and he still wasn’t done growing.
It wasn’t my birthday any more, so I began to call him Herman. (I think that was because of a TV show, The Munsters, and Herman Munster was very tall.) Herman seemed to like having a name. He also liked watching my fish – and I’m pretty sure they liked watching him. (I had a tank of fish right next to the pot where Herman was living at that time.)
Soon, though, he was out of room on my desk. He’d spread out, and his head (if you can call it that – and I did, so that’s what it was) was touching the ceiling. The bark on his trunk was getting thicker.
Our home had what we called a “sun room.” Three of the walls had tall windows to let the sun in. Mom loved to go in there to paint. She was about to have a … companion. Herman had grown so large that he needed yet another, and larger, pot. This was on the floor. As I just told you, being on a desk meant that his head was bumping the ceiling. Being on the floor … well, that meant he had some head-room at last. AND, although he could no longer watch the fish, he could watch Mom as she painted.
He loved to watch Mom do her painting. (I bet you would, too.) It made him very happy. It made him SO happy that before long his head was again bumping against the ceiling. (I guess he was trying to get a better look over her shoulder?) Herman got very tall, and also used the space to stretch out his … shoulders?
Well … I’m sorry to say that Herman was becoming a bit of a pest. We’d given him a very large sauerkraut crock for his … uh, feet? (Most people call them “roots.”) Herman wanted more room to grow upward. He wanted more room to grow outward. He wanted more room to grow downward. Mom would give him a haircut (most people call that “pruning”) but all that did was make him want to grow even more.
It was about this time that I moved from Minnesota to Arizona. Herman was far too large to bring along! And he still kept growing. At last, we decided to find him a new home.
One idea was to let him go live at the Art Institute of Minneapolis. Some of Herman’s cousins already lived there. And as you know, Herman loved art. Finally, it was decided that he would go live with a friend of my sister. He was going to move to a town called Bemidji – although most people call if Brrrrrr-midji because it gets a bit cold there. (And it has Brrrr-midji State REAL University! I know because I went there once and even got to play piggie … but that’s a whole ‘nother story, for a whole ‘nother time.) Herman wanted to be around art, but he’d heard about a big man in those Brrrr-midji woods named Paul Bunyan, who had a big blue ox for a pet named Babe. Herman thought … “If this guy Paul likes big things, maybe he would like a big green plant … like ME!”
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We talked about letting Herman go live with some cousins at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. No, those aren’t his cousins in the picture. His cousins lived inside the building, where it was warm, even in the winter. |
Finally, Herman moved to Brrrr-midji with Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. |
And that is the story of my pet, and good friend, Herman. He came to me right at this time of the year, so in a way, he was sort of a Christmas tree. Then Herman became my “birthday tree,” and later became a REAL tree.
What kinds of pets do YOU have?
Send us your stories, and maybe some photos or drawings.
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