Sometimes, it feels good to get down and dirty – literally down and dirty, where your body, mind and soul get to meet the elemental earth. That may sound kind of kooky, but it’s something with which farm workers, landscape people, and home gardeners are on intimate terms.
I did a little weeding today, and found myself on my hands and knees, using hand tools to cut and pull out stubborn weeds encroaching on a few shrubs, as well as around the perimeter of the mulching bed. When you’re down on all fours like that, you get dirt black. But, it’s with a satisfaction that comes from the knowledge that it’s from honest work done on honest soil put there by God’s own creation.
Some politicians, through their actions, have given the intrinsically good expression ‘down and dirty’ a bad name by changing its original, derivative meaning to one in which dirt is seen as a negative noun.
We can fix that: Instead of sending convicted politicians to serve time in prison, maybe the judge could dole out sentences in which offenders would be required to spend spring, summer, and fall out in the open working the soil, thereby helping to restore nature’s lost reputation.
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