The seed catalogues sit on the windowsill in the full sun as if they might sprout all on their own.

They won’t, of course, growing stuff is a lot of work. So we might as well have some fun once in a while; hence, the community garden’s first winter by the fireplace pot-luck dinner. Great turn out, unbelievable food, beeswax candles and logs of firewood. What do a bunch of gardeners talk about when they are together? You guessed it – their gardens. I know, hard to believe. “Roger, what are you planting new this year?” “Bush-plant acorn squash.” “Mark, what was your best crop this year?” “Okra.” “Okra?! I’ve gotta try some of that.” “Who wants to split a tray of leeks?”

If you have read this column this far, be it known there are plots in the Town of Montgomery’s community garden available for the 2019 gardening season. Please register with Tara Stickles, the Town Clerk, at 110 Bracken Road. $25 per season, plus two hours of community service to the garden, will get you a 20’ X 20’ garden plot with deer fencing and water. You do the rest. The garden is part of the town’s beautiful Benedict Farm Park, one mile west of the Village of Montgomery on 17K.

Speaking of the park, let me say that the gardeners are a diverse, yet inclusive group, who leave each other’s political beliefs alone, but express complete unanimity when it comes to re-opening the town parks, and re-instituting the original park hours of dawn till dusk, sunrise to sunset.

I bring this up, I hope, one last time, because it has come to my attention that various local political leaders, and their cadres, have caricaturized the organized and polite opposition to the closing of the parks from November to March, and the imposition of the illogical and capricious park hours, at the recent town board “work session” meeting as a “mob scene,” as the tyranny of the “mob.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. What do you think democracy in action looks like? If people see a bad policy and they want to change it and their reasoning is sound, they should be heard. And, the fact that there is no public comment during work sessions, is very unsettling. This policy too, should be reversed. The town supervisor thinks he is saving the taxpayers’ money by not allowing the public to speak during so called “work sessions” because so many experts are sitting at the table with the council and these experts and department heads are being paid. For economy, the meetings must be short and sweet. Does the town really need TWO lawyers sitting at the table? What? Public comment too expensive?!

The public, during past administrations, has always had the right to speak at town meetings, whether “work sessions,” or regular meetings. And I will say one more thing. My father attended hundreds of meetings during his life, town board meetings and planning board meetings. Many times I went with him. He honestly did not like doing it, and he hated to be put in an adversarial role. But he felt a duty. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, he and his best friend John Roebuck, went to New York City to sign up to fight in the war. They were told they could not sign up to serve, both were the oldest living sons on a farm. The oldest son must stay home and run the farm, produce food for the war effort. Dad and John vehemently objected to this restriction. No go.

The farm boys came back to their neighboring dairy farms. They worked. Both my father’s younger brothers served -- Uncle Bill in the Air Force, and Uncle Dave in the Navy. Now you see, here’s the thing. Twelve of my father’s best friends from Walden High School never came home from that war. They are dead and he was here, living. It affected him the rest of his life. He was alive and they were gone. Why was he different? It gave him an ethical and emotional basis for his political advocacy. These friends died for his right to speak out…at any meeting. It was his duty to them and his country, even with knots in his stomach, to speak up for what he thought was right.

So, if people want to go around talking about the community garden members who spoke out, and other bi-partisan opponents who spoke up against the wasteful, close-the-town-park policy, as “mob rule,” I think you should think again about what kind of society we want to live in, and what role government plays in it, because I, for one, don’t buy it.