The Blackberry Couple

By Thomas James Martin
Published Suite101 - April 17, 2001

There is a comeuppance to those lost souls who simplistically try to classify us humans into only two types of people. The appropriate--perhaps even politically correct--rejoinder is that there are those who distinguish only two types of people and those who do not.

How then am I to explain the infamous Blackberry Confrontation that occurred a couple of years ago between my spouse, Joyce, and yours truly. My God, this battle brought out the personality differences inherent in two otherwise close people. Such differences finally drive a hopeless writer into the bright but intellectually shallow waters of simplistic classification.

Sadly, I must declare that there really are two types and only two types of people. Psychologists, I am truly sorry for all your wasted studies, but I have learned that attitudes toward blackberry vines fully explain every nuance of human behavior.

I grew up on a farm and though we mowed our lawn and cut our hedges like middle class folk everywhere, we usually just let fields and cow pastures go un-mowed for years. Thus, we had many blackberry brambles on the land from which we gathered buckets of berries every summer. Thus, when blackberries invaded the fence surrounding our home in Beaverton, Oregon, my attitude was a welcoming, "Let'em grow."

These same blackberry vines made Joyce (who has both an urban and a rural background) very nervous. Where I saw a magical bramble full of nesting birds and maybe a rabbit or two and, of course, delicious berries, she saw only a creeping menace threatening to take over the yard, our neighborhood, and possibly the world.

I won for two or three years while the vines were multiplying and climbing all over the fence. We scored a few berries every summer also which helped my case. There is nothing like a fresh blackberry cobbler to settle everyone's nerves.

Admittedly, the blackberries were beginning to take over. I would cut them back every year, but they would come back stronger, hardier, and denser every spring. Of course, I admired the tenacity with which they clung to our fence. Here is an example of the force and intelligence of Nature; I mused--silently to myself of course, as Joyce was fast losing patience with my philosophical ramblings about the encroaching of humankind on the wilderness.
I suppose she felt that the wilderness was encroaching on her.

Finally, unable to get near the fence without risking major hemorrhage and torn clothing, and what with my take on Thoreau beginning to wear on my spouse, we determined to get rid of the bramble. We even used the "H" word a time or two, but could not bring ourselves to institute a scorched earth policy using herbicides (the "H" word).

We tried various natural ways to get rid of the blackberries, but in the end, vines were simply too strong. To make the punishment fit the crime, Joyce decided that I would just have to dig them up. After an enormous expenditure of effort--and not a little bleeding-- I thought that we would never see another blackberry on the land. The fact that every summer I dig out yet more blackberry vines, attests to the fallacy of that logic!

So the blackberries are under control (somewhat) and our yard is now neat and orderly--a veritable testament to the heritage of the 18th century and its emphasis on the regulation of nature. "Not Nature, but Nature mechanized," said poet Alexander Pope. Like Pope and many gardeners, Joyce loves Nature but wants to keep it in perspective. After all, we humans must also live on the planet.

Now I can respect that opinion, but personally, I feel sure that we have insulted the intelligence and spirit of the Blackberry guardians, not to mention various earth divas and nature spirits. Surely we shall be cursed for the rest of our days. Everytime that I see a bramble I keep my distance lest fierce shoots impale and wrap me like a green mummy.

As for Joyce, I am sure that she will end her days food for berries.

Yet there is compensation. I do surely love the peaceful vines that now climb our fence. The clematis and Rose of Sharon are quite beautiful, but, ah, those blackberries; so tough and strong with an unyielding vigor to live; so beautiful when flowering streams of white, star-shaped blossoms.