All throughout this sweltering Georgia summer, people across our state have bravely gone into their yards with dangerous implements—mowers, shears, weed whackers, and other weapons of lawn maintenance. Salvation South editor Chuck Reece did the same, until he learned this painful lesson.

Yellow jacket nest

Yellow jacket nest

Credit: Adobe Stock

 

TRANSCRIPT:

A few years ago, I waxed eloquent about backyard gardening. I would paraphrase Audrey Hepburn, who said, “To plant a garden is to dream of tomorrow,” and come up with something like, “To plant a garden is to dream of tomato sandwiches.”

But that was before I realized my particular backyard is not ideally oriented toward the sun. Those heirloom tomato seed packets all say “full sun.” Usually in capital letters. Frustrated by this, I walked into the largest raised bed in my backyard a few weeks ago—not with the hope of picking a Cherokee Purple, but with a Weed-Eater. Despite the best intentions of springtime, I had let the whole bed grow waist high with weeds.

Just that week, Salvation South, the magazine I edit, had published two poems about yard work from an Alabama writer whose work I adore. Caleb Johnson. In the first of those, he lyrically recounted an accidental snake slaughter, wrought by his “blindly swung Weed-Eater.” Caleb wrote that the snake died, and I quote, with “the violence of a two-stroke engine and green monofilament nylon spun twelve-thousand times a minute.”

As I whacked at my weeds, I thought of Caleb’s words and wondered if anyone anywhere had ever written so beautifully about the Weed-Eater’s fearsome power. Then I blindly swung my own Weed-Eater…into a nest of yellow jackets.

Out came the swarm. The little *CENSORED* stung both my ankles and my left hand. I dropped the instrument of death and ran inside within maybe fifteen seconds. I stood breathless at the kitchen sink and suddenly felt very dizzy. Stacy, my wife, was wisely searching the web for the possible effects of yellow-jacket venom.

“Says here,” she said, “if you’re allergic, your blood pressure will drop.” She told me to lie on the couch while she grabbed the blood-pressure cuff. Ninety-four over fifty-six. She called 911 and I rode to the hospital in an ambulance.

If I had more time, I’d share more details of my horror. Suffice it to say I am deathly — well, almost deathly — allergic to yellow-jacket venom.

Is someone up there telling me I have no business trying to grow heirloom tomatoes? Or is all this about college football and my decades of cheering for the Bulldogs of my alma mater, the University of Georgia, while happily insulting Georgia Tech, the North Avenue Trade School, and its *CENSORED* yellow jackets?

I do not know. What I know for sure is that if you walk into the weeds carrying “the violence of a two-stroke engine and green monofilament nylon spinning twelve-thousand times a minute,” be careful where you stick it.

Come see us anytime at SalvationSouth.com.

Salvation South editor Chuck Reece comments on Southern culture and values in a weekly segment that airs Fridays at 7:45 a.m. during Morning Edition and 4:44 p.m. during All Things Considered on GPB Radio. Salvation South Deluxe is a series of longer Salvation South episodes which tell deeper stories of the Southern experience through the unique voices that live it. You can also find them here at GPB.org/Salvation-South and wherever you get your podcasts.