Petunia Boy

You know you are offspring of the great Petunia Boy (PB) if you have trimmed arborvitaes at midnight with the aid of the a head lamp, planted 200 box woods a few hours before Prom, spent spring break laying sawed, or planting any of the 6,000 tulips bulbs buried on the Smart property. PB’s was once quoted as saying, “the only reason I had children is so that I could have Yard Slaves”. And he lived by this philosophy. Saturday morning at the Smart household started early and finished with headlamps, sweat, blood, and some tears—and PB loved every moment of it. PB comes from a long line of garden slave drivers including Gma Phyl (who still comes to our house and manages to pick trash bags full of weeds before everyone else even gets out of bed) and Gma Pyper who rumor has it managed to get rid of her back lawn to make more room for her flower beds. As a result of forced yard slave labor, one does not claim Petunia Boy as a parent unless they have some sort of interest in horticulture.

Because of this, it has always been my dream to go to Holland during the tulip season. When my recent work trip routed my through the Netherlands right during tulip season, I decided to take some time to see my favorite flowers. I only had a day and a half but I made the most of it. I signed up for a tour and as luck would have it I was the only person who didn’t qualify for a senior citizen discount. I did however meet some nice elderly peeps including a couple from Portland and a Brazilian woman that spoke no English and thought if she kept speaking to me in Portuguese I would eventually understand her. The flowers were seriously incredible! I took over one hundred pictures. There weren’t only tulips but lots of other flowers and they even had a lily exhibit with lilies the size of my head








I also was able to see the house where Anne Frank and her family lived for 2 years hidden until they were found and taken to concentration camps. This is the secret passageway that was normally hidden behind a bookcase.

Thanks to the volcanic ash, I was also able to see the Van Gough museum, take a jog along the Amster River, and visit the Bag and Purse Museum. A museum dedicated to history of purses and bags and yes it was as amazing as it sounds. It was next to the Rembrandt Museum and I only had time for one—don’t judge. It was the only time I felt a desire to steal something from a museum—they had the most incredible purses which I would have loved to add to my collection.