My father loves his garden. I never quite enjoyed it as much (at least not when I was 10 years old).  The gardening gene was, most definitely, not passed down to his youngest son.
    When I was a kid, my long list of chores often included working in the garden: tilling the ground, planting, watering, and picking green beans and onions in the tall, sticky jungle in our backyard. My father likes to tell the story of one particular hot August day when I was a youngster. We picked beans as the time dragged by slowly to an impatient kid. I asked, “Can’t you buy these in the store?” I don’t remember his reply.
    The following summer, we had a surplus of handpicked garden goodies. Much to my horror, dad sent me selling veggies door to door in and around our neighborhood. I was a bit embarrassed, but I got to keep the cash from each sale. That was motivation enough for me.
    I was fit for the job because I was a pro at sales. I often peddled goods from door to door when I was growing up. One summer, I sold greeting cards and holiday wrapping. I often sold raffle tickets and candy bars for school fundraisers back when kids did that on their own. Once, I even sold crudely made worms that I constructed from felt, cotton, string and little plastic googly eyes. So, I was a natural at selling broccoli and radishes to my neighbors, who, no doubt, dreaded seeing me show up on the opposite side of the door.
    My first job was a door-to-door salesman at age nine or 10. Mowing yards quickly followed. By the time I was 12, I was bringing in about 30 bucks a week.  In the mid-80s, that bought a whole lot of baseball cards, pro wrestling t-shirts, cassette tapes, and Big Macs®.   
    When my brother opened his bike shop in 1989, I was there sweeping, painting, taking out the trash and, occasionally, putting together or selling a mountain bike. I was only 14 years old at the time and, while I wasn’t particularly fond of working, I did enjoy the financial freedom that came with being able to buy my own tickets to see Tim Burton’s “Batman” on the big screen.
    Thankfully, the lessons I was learning about the work ethic and the feeling of accomplishment that comes with a paycheck outweighed my teenage desire to lay around at home and watch movies all day. (Not that my father would have let me do the latter, anyway.)   
    As I grew older, I moved out of the garden and the bike shop and into a wide variety of occupations. During my college years, I flipped burgers and asked “Do you want fries with that?” at McDonalds, bussed tables at the Olive Garden, and sold shoes and sporting goods equipment at the now defunct Athletic Attic.
    After college, I worked with theatre companies in Columbus, Ohio, and Norfolk, Virginia. In 2000, I returned home to share what I’d learned while away teaching theatre arts and writing to children at local schools, writing and rehearsing plays by night, and earning a master’s degree in my spare time.
    For over a decade now, I have focused on teaching English at the college level and I have written quite a bit. My father is also a professor, so I guess I did follow in his footsteps in one way. I still don’t garden much, though.
    I believe in hard work. I believe in the sense of accomplishment that comes from seeing a project from inception to completion, be it the growth of a tomato plant or the arc of a five week summer term. I believe that I am a better person today because my father pushed me to be the best little vegetable salesman and bike mechanic on the block. Who knows where I would be today if he hadn’t stuck that hoe in my hand over three decades ago and told me to suck it up and get to work?
    It’s a lesson I work to pass down to my seven-year-old son.  He assists me in writing children’s stories and is usually quite willing to help out around the house.  He’s already learning the value of a dollar and the sense of accomplishment that comes from hard work.  I guess he has both me and my dad to thank for that.