Most of us know sunflowers. In the Salinas Valley, they are a common sight in yards and fields up and down and across the land. Many among us remember rows of the tall, large yellow blooms were spaced among the row crops as wind breaks. In Greenfield, I have seen yards that were once filled with lawns now home to rows of sunflowers, corn, delphiniums and other tall flowering plants, which add variety and color.
Now, having established we all know what a sunflower is, how many know what a Moon Tree is? I had never heard of such a plant until informed there is one on the Mary Chapa Academy (MCA) campus in Greenfield. And it is a rare plant indeed that any school would consider a privilege to have. While at the present time that is all I can tell you about that particular tree, I can give a brief biography of Moon Trees.
The first Moon Trees came from 500 seeds from loblolly pine, sycamore, redwood, Douglas fir and sweetgum trees that were aboard the Apollo 14 spacecraft way back in 1971. Another 1,000 seeds went up again in 2022 on the space shuttle Artemis. In both cases, the seeds were germinated and seedlings were then distributed across the USA and a select number of foreign countries. I stopped by the administration building at MCA the other day and received verification, of sorts, by one of the staff who said there was indeed a Moon Tree on the campus but did not know when it was planted there.
There is a NASA website that lists known locations but no mention of Greenfield; the site is current and known trees can be added to the roster, so officials at MCA may wish to do that. Because school campuses are highly monitored these days, it is not possible to just mosey onto the grounds and view this rare tree, and my effort to get more information about the Moon Tree in Greenfield has yet been unsuccessful, but if I do learn more, I’ll pass it along.
***
“Never underestimate what a small band of dedicated people can accomplish.” There are variations of that adage but the meaning is all the same: the few can sway the many if fully committed to the task at hand. Back in the 1980s and ’90s, this sentiment was exemplified by 10 women who became known as the Irish Grapefruit Ladies. Not happy with the apartheid situation in South Africa, these 10 ladies decided to boycott grapefruit imported from Africa, and so they walked three miles everyday to stand in protest in front of one of Ireland’s largest chain grocery stores.
They created little stir among the general public because, according to Irish comedian David Nihill, the Irish are not really too fond of grapefruit and there are but a scant few Blacks in the country. But a Black South African man named Nimrod heard about the ladies and traveled to Ireland to walk and stand in solidarity; six months later the story was heard by Desmon Tutu, who on his way to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize met with the boycotters. Bishop Tutu’s actions came to the notice of the Rev. Jessie Jackson in America, who invited the Irish Grapefruit Ladies to speak at the United Nations, where they received the only standing ovation ever afforded external speakers.
Soon after a man in South Africa seeking reform heard of the Irish Grapefruit Ladies and went to visit them; this man’s name was Nelson Mandela. After all this publicity, the Irish government got the message and became the first modern nation to boycott South African products; action which spread until many nations followed suit until the racist practice was eradicated.
President Mandela had made way for these 10 Irish ladies to be present at his funeral, 10 dedicated people who made significant inroads to bringing down racial segregation. It was at the funeral that the Irish Grapefruit Ladies found out about their early supporter Nimrod; he had been cellmates with Nelson Mandela in Robben Island prison.
***
The Left’s knee-jerk reaction to the unconstitutional authoritarian actions Mr. Trump and his gang of incompetents have unleashed upon the nation and the world has been to compare it with 1930s and ’40s Germany under Nazi control. I disagree with that tactic.
America has a documented history of racial segregation and subjugation, of eugenics and mass incarcerations, of violence against its citizens that we do not have to import such evil. While equating ICE and other government agencies actions with the actions of WWII Germany may be accurate, it does not make us confront the truth that Nazis based their dehumanizing playbook on what had been occurring in America for hundreds of years with Blacks, Chinese, poor white laborers and any intellectuals, journalists and clergy who opposed the administration.
In the post-Civil War years, the south elected more than 2,000 Black officials; in a decade that part of Reconstruction was gone and Jim Crow laws took effect allowing government-backed armed gangs to intimidate and incarcerate, or kill, any Blacks who opposed the segregation imposed upon them. When young white people joined the Freedom Riders in the early 1960s, people cut from the same racist cloth fire bombed buses with passengers still inside, beat them in the streets and killed them in the swamps. We don’t have to look back across the Atlantic to 1940s Germany for examples of present day Trumpland, we need only read our history.
***
Tomorrow I will once again be a guide for Farm Day at SVF. This is an annual event sponsored by Monterey County Ag Instruction that showcases our agricultural world to local third graders. One of the reasons being a volunteer can be so rewarding; and they need volunteers every year. In fact, they need some for the March 5 Farm Day in Monterey (hint, hint).
Take care. Peace.
