Miss you guys!

Well, this was the first year in a long time that I've been unable to attend the Natural Urban Living Garden Show, put on by the Arlington Organic Garden Club. For the past 10 years our work would start in January, contacting vendors, attending other garden shows to help publicize ours, printing flyers, making posters, designing ads, and lots and lots of fretting: Are we going to have enough vendors this year? Will anyone show up? Will we have enough food? Did we make enough signs? Should we have publicized more?

After 10 years helping out (first, as the webmaster [webmistress??] and later as the club's president), I moved to St. Louis. Strangely, I still feel like a slacker for not helping out for this year's show. I'm 700 miles away so I have an excuse, but it still feels weird: I know how much work goes into one of those shows, and it's all done by volunteers. Most of all I miss the chance to spend the day with a lot of really great people.

After 10 years, it was hard not to meddle but I knew the show was in good hands, as it has been for the past 10 years (right, David?). And there's one thing that corporate life has taught me: everyone can be replaced. Throughout the years I've watched people at work leave for greener pastures, went through the "this place is gonna collapse without them" phase, only to find that life goes on and everyone survives just fine after all. The AOGC is no different: everybody kept doing what they're good at and the show went on, just as has in years past.

After a long day showing some friends the sights in St. Louis (but that's another post), I came home to find an email from Bob, one of our friends from the club. Attached were several pictures from the show, and by the time-stamp I see he sent them while the show was still taking place. The email ended with "Miss you guys." I know how much work goes into one of those shows (it's all volunteer, by the way), so the fact that he took time out from all that to send pictures to Doug and me really meant a lot.



This is Maggie -- a talented gardener and writer and a good friend of AOGC's -- and David, talented horticulturist, horologist, club president, and a good friend.



This is Bob -- talented photographer, gardener, woodworker, and an all-around neat guy.



This is the AOGC gang, talented gardeners and. . . umm. . . show-putter-onners.

I miss you guys!