How To Hoe

When our former neighbor, Leo, reached his nineties he really started spacing out. He lost track of everything and was always ringing our bell to ask if we knew where his tools were. In his heyday he could fix anything and made a point to help someone everyday. Near the end he had a pile of uncompleted projects and he was buying tools that he already had because he couldn’t remember where he put the the ones he had. There was a note from him stuck to the window near our door one morning that read, “I need some common sense.”

We used to plant vegetables in his garden and it was a joy to garden with him. He taught us how to hoe. I never really understood that simple tool but in his hands it was an ingenious instrument for weeding. No bending over to pull tiny weeds or ones that had grown bigger than our new plants in a few days times. The how is angled just right so it cuts the weeds or at least uproots them while dragging a small amount of earth over the blade and leaving it essentially right where it was. I always pictured a hoe as simply a tool to pull earth along so you could plant seeds in a trough or something but Leo used to sharpen his hoe so it cut like a knife.

He had a few hoes, one was a favorite and it was small. He looked everywhere for that hoe and was so desperate to find it that he good naturedly accused us of taking it. “Are you sure you don’t have my small hoe?” I took him in to our garage to look around and I spent a few hours looking for that thing in his yard. I can’t be sure but I think it was right in his garage. When I showed it to him he said, That’s not the one.”

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