A. Blinken

I brought Granny Wise her groceries the other day, and while I was up there a cop came up to ask why Granny hadn’t answered any of the letters about the change in her address. Granny told him she’d stopping picking up her mail in the late 1990s and hadn’t felt the pinch. The cop told Granny the address change was for her own good in case there was an emergency. Granny said she hadn’t accepted government help for an emergency since the 1980s. He told her it was required by Homeland Security that she have an official address and she said she stopped listening to Homeland Security in the 1970s. The sheriff’s officer handed her a piece of paper with an address on it, and she thanked him and wadded it up and stuck it in her sweater pocket. The cop turned to leave and noticed the flowers along the south wall of the house. He walked over to them. Back in 1972 three guys on leave from the Air Force got lost in the hills. It was just after Grandad Wise was drowned in the creek pulling boulders for dust pockets, and Granny was pretty distraught. The guys stayed around for a couple of days, cooking and chopping wood. They also got her high, and when they left, they tossed their stems and seeds to keep from getting "busted by the man." The next spring, of course, the little plants came up green and perky. Granny moved them beside the house where they’d get more sun, and just like the hollyhocks at the other end of the house, the pot reseeds itself every year. Granny doesn’t kill all the males, just thins them in late August, so the weed is seedy, but I’ve puffed many a corncob with Granny, and the high is pleasant and sleepy and the seeds exploding in the bowl are kind of festive. The weed has helped Granny through grief and rhumatiz. Now, the cop stood for a moment, struggling believe his eyes. Then, he turned and walked back to us. He looks at me, "that your marijuana?" I shake my head, "is that marijuana?" He looks at Granny, "ma’am did your grandson here plant those plants along your wall?" I’m her great-grandson as many of you cousins know. Granny said, "no, that’s a flower a friend of mine gave me years ago. I think it’s a kind of annual bamboo. See, they get real tall and pretty, and the birds love the seeds they drop." It was true; Granny snared quail in the yard when the weed dropped seeds. He shook his head. "Well, I got to call it in. The campaign against marijuana producers is going on right now, they’ll need to know." He went to his radio, but of course, the radio couldn’t get out from Granny’s canyon. To be helpful, I said, "what about your cell phone?" Granny chuckled, which almost tripped the grift. Finally, in his most cop-expert voice he says, "well, I can’t get out. There are seeds in it, so it isn’t sesimilla (he actually pronounces it sensimiLLa). All right, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. Grandson, you cut all this down and pile it up and burn it. I’m going to check in a couple of days, and if it isn’t gone, I’m going to charge you and your grandma with growing a whole lot of dope." "Yes, Sir," I say, "I’ll cut it and burn it." Then he left. Granny says after him, "he ain’t comin’ back." "No," I agree, "he’s a pretty good cop, as cops go."