A Tribute to Oddballs

A Tribute To Oddballs

By Andy Meyer

9/21/2018

This morning I looked down from my second-floor bedroom window and was lucky enough to spy a ground fog on the lawn just before the sun rose and melted it away. It’s not often you get to observe such a sight. 

As I admired the natural wonder of a one-foot-high cloud, something caught my eye. A white object was floating above the ground fog. It hovered a bit like a hummingbird, but was completely motionless. It was more like a bubble floating in mid-air. I couldn’t imagine what it was, even as the fog drifted away from it and I could see it suspended above our garden.

I dashed downstairs and pressed my face against the window by the front door. I anxiously scanned the garden, hoping to spot what I’d just observed from the second floor. I held my breath. Was it still there? Yup. Pure white, hovering motionless about 3 feet over our vegetable garden – the size and shape of an egg. 

Carefully, I let myself out the front door and stalked the UFO, crossing the lawn in my bare feet, my gaze locked on the egg as if it would vanish were I to take my eyes off it even for an instant.  I was nearly to the garden fence when I figured it out.

It was a rose. A white rose on a long stem in the corner of our garden. I was dumbfounded, then amazed, and then filled with joy.

Granted, it was an unusually beautiful white rose, but what made it so astonishing was, well, until that very moment, I didn’t even know I had a rose plant in my garden. And its story is what filled me with joy.

You see, years before, as I was carving the garden out of a neglected spot in our yard, I had tossed out a bunch of weeds. There was one, however, that I decided to leave in for some inexplicable reason. It was unique. It had thorns. It was scraggly - part stalk, part vine. The leaves were small. It wasn’t like anything I intended to plant, but it had character. I liked this scrappy oddball. I let it stay.

I watered it along with the other plants, but while they bushed out, it remained scraggly. I mulched it like the others, but while they flowered, the weed just grew thorns. I fertilized it along with the other plants, but while they yielded vegetables, the weed shared nothing.

It was an oddball, but I liked it anyway. I kept it in my garden.

So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered this oddball was not only a rose, but a stunning one. When I’d least expected it, it had rewarded me with unmatched beauty. I had expected nothing, and ended up filled with joy.

I share this story with a wish for all who read it.  I hope that when you are putting up fences and deciding who to keep out and who to let in, you’ll make room for an oddball, especially a thorny one. I hope you’ll care for it without expecting anything in return. And if you do, I hope someday that oddball will reward you with joy.

EPILOGUE 4/18/23

OK, so I’ve never literally had a white rose in my garden, but the story’s true, very true. In fact, it’s happened over and over again throughout my life. Not with oddball plants. With oddball people. You know the oddballs I mean. 

It’s the destitute drunk nextdoor who went to prison as a result of how he fought with the prior owner of your house. You manage to stay on his good side and discover upon his death that you are one of three people named in his will which states, “and to my family I give exactly what they gave me, absolutely nothing.”  

It’s the childhood friend whose only communications are wordless, bot-like emails with links to YouTube conspiracy videos who, when you email him, “You’re like a brother to me,” replies laconically, “Noted. Agreed.”

It’s the old grouch who, when you phone him and ask if he has time to talk, grumbles, “Yeah. You’re the only liberal I like to hear from.”

It’s the friend who hates men and despises big corporations, but invites you to dinner from time to time even though you’re a man who works for the most profitable corporation in the world. 

Who are the oddballs in your life that you are most grateful for?