Friends - Lantana

BBB’s Lantana photo - she is getting pro with the cameras and is into robotics….birds and flowers!

A Facebook friend from Alabama has been a fun friend to me here in Connecticut and shares the bounty of her birds , flowers and property wildlife - today she charmed me again! Lantana - verbena, some call it.

I become elated when I see Lantana - They put on a really special sprightly show - growing tons of the robust florets in many colors on one stem…I’d delight each time they came into view. Like candy on stems, and the name ‘Verbena” rhymed with my Mother’s Albina, and so, special to me.

One would find it just everywhere, in several varieties, but then it seemed to “go somewhere” in the rush of making grownup life. But then Maude Taylor moved in next door at our lovely new home - part of a new thing called condos - really well done ones and every convenience included. Half of us were young families with little ones, our men home from Viet Nam and all of us thrilled to be able to make our lives in pride and peace.

I had done Red Cross work, and Maude was a retired red cross admin, who moved next door to us in NC in 1970-72. Though my temp response work was nothing compared to her lifelong commitment, it was with Medivac at Fort Knox and my first close sight of war, and her appreciation of my life-altering experience of it was vital to my health at that point.

I called her my "In loco parentis" - a redcross term for one who does the job of local parent...I had my college and works in arts for years and first real red cross war work, but I was young and with an infant on each hip, and Mother deaf in CT and no TTD or caption phone for us, I was missing her.

My redcrosslady next door became a really special friend. We traded books, quilt patterns, food things and when I admired her beautiful lantana , she insisted I have some of it for my own place...YES!

The plant burst into life at my place, too, with a really impressive show nearly overnight! and I smile today, still , at how well it thrived! LIFE.

Thank you BBB for the wonderful memory!