A Garden in Attalla

The other day, walking through the early morning hours if Attalla, Alabama, a nice typical small southern town, I happened upon a ramshackle (a lot of the buildings here in the deep south can be described as ramshackle—a sad commentary) house with about an eighth of an acre of what appeared to be handplowed rich black dirt. Closer inspection revealed little neat rows of lovely green leaves that had just began to sprout. The uneven-ness of the rows told me that a lot of work was done to get that ground turned over, and the lack of any detritus told me that a lot of care went onto keeping it healthy and fertile.
It made me think of WhyHunger, and their mission. One of the items on their agenda is to teach those who can’t afford to buy food in great quantities the ability to grown their own, as these folks were doing. A country with as much fertile land as this one should be using that asset, not wasting it, or polluting it. It was a nice sight to see that early morning, and for some reason it made my day feel a lot more optimistic.