Chapter 2: An Attempt to Hide in Plain Sight

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” -- Greek proverb

     One of the side effects of doing this project is that whenever I'm out walking in the city I catch myself searching for, and evaluating, dirt. So it should come as no surprise that this pristine little area caught my eye:

     But the fact that it's pristine also told me that it's someone's job to keep it that way. The area is also very exposed and anything I plant there, no matter how small or pushed to the side it is, will stick out like weed that needs pulling.
     I walked passed this dirt oasis a few days in a row, annoyed that it could not be used, until one day I had an idea: What if I made the mint look like an important plant that had been purposely planted there? I would only need a few supplies:

     I used the longest sprig that I had and prepared it to look like a brand new sapling:

     With the mint "tree" ready and my supplies on hand I set out in the night to plant my mint.

     The next morning when I approached the dirt area I saw a man in a suit, a security guard, and a guy in a reflective vest standing around the newly planted mint shrugging their shoulders.  This wasn't quite the kind of attention I was hoping the mint to get, but the three men soon went on with their jobs and left the mint alone.

(Yep, just another tree...)

     It seemed that I had succeeded in my plan, and every night, and sometimes in broad daylight, I would walk my dog passed it and throw water onto it from a bottle.  I had asked my wife to water the plant one day while I was at work.  She later told me that a security guard started asking her what she knew about the plant.  She pretended to know nothing about it and said she just thought it looked thirsty.
     Then one rainy Monday, after a loud and boisterous weekend, I noticed that the mint looked to have been stepped on and kicked; the supporting rod was broken and the mint lay outside of the caution tape.  I was disappointed, but I noticed that the caution tape remained in place for the next couple of days.  So I planted another mint in its place.  It stayed there for a few days and then was removed, along with the caution tape.  This time the message was clear: we own this dirt, and you can't use it.
     I'm not sure why they didn't remove it right away.  Maybe they were hoping to catch the person who did it, or maybe they were just lazy about it.  I like to imagine that I gave someone the task of going through the history of recent tree permits, or some bureaucratic nonsense.   

     In the end, this slab of good soil ended up being as useless as a slab of cement.  So what did we learn here?  Beats me.

Thanks for reading,
GK