Chapter 15. Summer Nights
Our garden has been a retreat; a place of quiet, solitude and beauty; a haven for small critters, little green snakes, the dogs, the cats, the chickens. The garden had its own life force, at times demanding and then comforting. We shared it as often as possible through small dinner parties, an anniversary party during Covid with 15 people and a Klezmer band, a garden tour, an ice cream social for my 75th birthday, picnics, a Spring BBQ by the firepit for GB’s 75th birthday celebration, fundraisers, and weddings. We began our summer tradition early in our marriage when we began inviting anyone who wanted to join us from the Greek Festival. Already fortified with Ouzo, we’d proceed back to our little house on South Franklin Street and continue the festivities until early morning.
We loved sharing the garden with people. As the garden morphed from manicured to controlled chaos, parties became more eccentric. Valet was added for major events, lobsters were flown in, Celtic bands, country western bands, Fiddlers, porta potties installed on the driveway, tents erected, stages constructed. And never isolated from the guests, our dogs and cats joined the festivities. They meandered from guest to guest; table to table looking for scraps and pets. At one point we housed five cats, and I can verify that’s at least two cats too many. One of our more gregarious cats was a tuxedo named Murphy, who we called Kitty Boy. He showed up at our front door one day and never left.
One of our favorite parties was Southminster, our take on the Westminster Dog Show. For years, I had travelled with a group of women and one of our haunts was the New York dog show. Each summer for about five or six years, we’d invite 25 women and their 35+ dogs. GB was the only man permitted due to his significant role as porter. He set up the agility course of weave poles, wading pools and tennis balls. My mother served as Judge and was nearly fired when, during the first year, she selected our Newfie, Winter, as Best in Show due to Winter’s refusal to engage with anyone at the party. Winter sat in regal repose, watching the goings on with total disdain. It was either get rid of the Judge or sanction me. They kept the Judge. I was forever forbidden to enter any of my dogs.
At one point during one of the parties, Murphy decided to walk into the garden. Thirty-five dogs stopped cold. They stared at Kitty Boy as he slow-walked across the lawn. When any of the dogs made a pounce-like move, Murphy stopped and gave them the cat stare. (You know what that is. It’s the one when you’re driving down the street and a cat is crossing. You stop. The cat saunters to the other side then turns around and gives you that look, the one that reminds you that you are simply a loser human barely deserving of a thank you.) Murphy proceeded to roll over on his back. The dogs did nothing. They stood in absolute fear of this creature, just a cat, but maybe something far more fearsome. Kitty Boy was so powerful, so frightful, no dog in its right mind would dare make an untoward move.
And standing around the circle of dogs was the circle of women. The women and dogs stood in stunned silence. Then GB entered the rings of women and dogs and picked up Murphy, still on his back, still purring and glaring at the dogs.
The spell was broken. The party resumed. Chaos returned. The dogs ran in an out of the house, through the agility section, past the Judge who, by that time, had been bribed with Scotch and chose as Best in Show: The Standard Poodle. Why we asked? There were so many great Goldens and Labs? There were Frenchies and Shih Tzu, mutts, and German Shepherds! The Poodle, Judge Diamond, claimed was the only dog who didn’t join the circle of wolves eyeing Murphy. The Poodle was well behaved. And while we thought that decorum was the trait most prized by Judge Diamond, we learned the following year that having a Havanese in her lap while sipping her Scotch worked just as well.
In the early 1980’s, we built the emergency duck pond for two rescued domestic ducks, Maynard and Elwood. We threw a party to celebrate. I don’t remember if that was our first large party, but for years afterwards hundreds of people joined us in the garden to celebrate one thing or another. Seventy-five guests enjoyed my 40th birthday serenaded by a Celtic band and ate fresh lobster flown in that morning from Maine. We kept the tent and stage for a week and then celebrated my father’s 75th birthday with an additional 50 people. In 1989 I founded the Diana Price Fish Cancer Foundation, an organization designed to create memories for adult cancer patients and their families by engaging in activities they loved. We began our fundraising efforts in the garden with an event known as the Summer Stomp. My chief event volunteer, Betsy, and I visited with a local multi-millionaire philanthropist and were thrilled when he offered $500 to sponsor the Stomp. Three hundred people mingled in our garden, bid at the silent auction, enjoyed food donated by some amazingly generous restaurants and live fiddle music. A volunteer decorating committee worked with my parsimony and curated local weeds that made rather nice centerpieces.
The Foundation outgrew the garden within a few years and moved to country clubs where we raised serious money. Later the event moved to hotels where we’d honor our benefactors and specifically the one who gifted us $3.5 million.
But our garden remained available for volunteer picnics, smaller events and weddings. Three weddings to be precise. The third was the most memorable. My friend Peggy’s daughter Marne, wanted to get married in our garden. Marne was a master gardener and affirmed that our garden was perfect for the wedding. She spent the summer planting, weeding, pruning, and creating sublime arrangements for our giant, cave-glazed ceramic pots. By the time of the wedding, the garden was resplendent with perfection. Each path, each plant, each bush was bathed, trimmed, and coifed. Tents were raised, rows of tables placed from north to south and embellished with green-on-green ombré centerpieces, all designed by Marne.
The smaller events held in the garden gave great joy and good returns. A small event raised funds to purchase weather equipment for The Urban Farm to restore the historical weather station for Denver. My trip to Rwanda produced the need for another fundraiser on behalf of Love with Actions, a Rwandan charity caring for children with developmental disabilities. I had met Gilbert when I was in Kigali and was overwhelmed by his passion for his mission. In past years, children with disabilities in Rwanda were left on the streets to fend for themselves or simply die. A disability was considered the result of a curse from a vengeful God. Gilbert saw a woman and her child in a park one day, stopped to see if he could help and changed the course of his life. We hosted about 50 guests. My co-host, Claire, and I cooked Rwandan recipes, Gilbert spoke and boom, we raised $50,000. It was all he needed to complete his rehab building.
Those summer nights, the laughter of so many people, many of whom have left our lives remain in my memories. Some were transactional, business completed and then we’d separate. Some of those friends have died. Some have moved away. Some, well, we lost touch. People float in and out of our lives. I’ve learned to treasure the ones who stayed.
And, last summer, for the first time since we moved here, there were no parties. There were no dinner guests. I had neither the will nor the strength to organize anything. I was exhausted by GB’s decline. The summer was unbearably hot. I wasn’t sleeping well and got up well into mid-morning. I was barely capable of weeding, pruning, or coifing the garden. In the Autumn, I hired people to rake the leaves, something I’ve always enjoyed doing with GB. Well, truth be told, I did very little. He did the heavy lifting. I spent maybe 10 minutes raking a pile. But this Autumn, I didn’t have the energy or the time. My beautiful garden had become a burden. There. I’ve said it. It became a burden.
When I think about leaving this house and this grand garden, I fear losing those memories of nights when hundreds of people were chattering, murmuring and laughing. Or I’ll lose the memory of the way the sunsetting light would bathe the trees in a warm glow. Or the way the trees look after a heavy rainstorm: leaves plumped with moisture, branches lowered, some nearly touching the earth.
The garden has given not only sublime memories, but peace and freedom rarely found in an urban habitat. For six months each year, we don’t see neighbor homes. We see only a perimeter of green. We’re a block from a busy street, but its noise becomes a peaceful din. This is the home where windows are wide open, inviting the scents from the garden to drift through the rooms. This is the garden that sits just outside our office, that surrounds us on the upper terrace, that envelopes us on the southern patio, that protects us at the firepit, that sprouted native prairie trees when we eliminated the pond and planted our Woodlands. This is the garden that has provided shelter for chickens, raccoons, skunk, herons, squirrels, birds, hawks, a turkey I was nursing back to health, dogs, cats, and a Conure who used to fly out the front door, around the house and back in. This is the garden that provided a trail for fox and coyote. This is the garden where my sister-in-law held a summer day camp for 15 toddlers, all of whom were lovingly protected by our first pair of Newfoundland Dogs. This is the garden where our grandson built a pully system from an old Cottonwood tree to the upper terrace. He attached a basket holding our cat, Sophie to it and then began to pull. Sophie tolerated it for so long, then jumped out and ran back to our grandson for another go.
This garden has been our joy.
Air. 
Leave a comment