Dig a Hole!
Ed Colby
When my back went out the other day, like it occasionally does, I decided a hot soak might be good medicine. But when we arrived at the local mineral springs, that gal Marilyn and I were informed that, due to Covid, admittance was by reservation only.
Marilyn wasn’t having any of it. “Look at this poor old guy!” she exclaimed, pointing to her pathetic wreck of a sweetheart, hunched over and listing to starboard. “Look at him! He can barely walk. He needs a soak in your miracle waters!” The young woman behind the counter looked stunned. But clearly she had a heart, because she “oversold” us two tickets and, because the hour was late, only charged us for one.
As for Marilyn, that free spirit never met a rule that didn’t need to be tested, a rope that didn’t need to be ducked under, a gate that didn’t need to be crashed. She’s brazen, she’s pushy, she’s lucky. And she got us in.
About the time my back got all better, my left ear plugged up with wax, and I went nearly deaf. This was annoying in some ways but soothing in others. We live close by I-70, and the traffic roar abated nicely. But I had a hard time carrying on a conversation.
Wax can also be an effective intentional impediment to hearing. As Homer recounts in The Odyssey, on his return voyage from the Trojan War, Ulysses and his men sailed past the Isle of the Sirens, treacherous nymphs lovely beyond the power of men to resist. The sirens lured ships onto the rocks – and to their sailors’ doom — with their enchanting music. There the sirens devoured them and fashioned musical instruments from their bones.
Intrigued by the prospect of a close encounter with such mesmerizing yet deadly creatures, Ulysses instructed his crew to stop up their own ears with beeswax, so as to avoid temptation. But, wanting to hear the music himself – this divine music that drove men to madness — he had his men lash him tight to the mast, instructing them in advance to ignore his orders and his pleas when he inevitably fell under the sirens’ seductive spell. And in this way Ulysses and his men sailed close by the Isle of the Sirens.
It’s October as I write. I’m supposed to be wrapping things up for winter with my little darlings, but this last gasp of autumn beekeeping can be a flurry of activity. There’s always the colony that’s inexplicably overrun with mites, or too light on food stores to survive the winter. I keep filling shopping carts with sugar to make syrup to feed any hives not packed tight with honey.
For this column last month I interviewed fellow Colorado beekeeper Tom Theobald of Niwot, who knew more about two-queen honey bee colonies – and about pesticides — than anyone you’re likely to ever meet. What I did not report was that he had terminal brain cancer.
Two days ago, on November 10, Tom departed Earth, his family and faithful friend Miles by his side. Miles told me, “I was holdin’ his hand, and it was still warm, but then it went limp, and he was gone.”
Tom’s legacy is and forever will be his opposition to pollinator-killing pesticides. He was known throughout the beekeeping and scientific world for his knowledge of — and his warnings about — what he considered the most insidious of all insecticides – the systemic neonicontinoids. “We’re poisoning the Earth!” he’d thunder. Never subtle, he preached his message like John the Baptist come out of the wilderness. You were wise to get out of his way.
An ancient, white-bearded, gravelly-voiced mountain of a man, earthy, learned, often angry, he could out-talk the smartest and the best. He came straight at you. He knew he was right. Compromise was simply out of the question. And yet there was beneath all this a quiet dignity and the sweetest, gentlest soul. He made enemies along his lonely road – You bet he did! – and he was mocked and vilified by some he once called friends. But time and again he turned aside spite with brotherly love. Never once did I hear him utter an unkind word about a fellow beekeeper. He reserved his judgment for the chemical profiteers at Bayer and Syngenta.
He kept his mental acuity to the end. He told Miles, “If I didn’t know I had cancer, I’d feel just fine.” He occupied his final days podcasting the weekly columns he wrote for 27 years in The Fence Post, a farm newspaper. You can listen to these down-home masterpieces at notesfromthebeeyard.buzz.
Some months ago, Tom told me he didn’t fear death but rather embraced it. It was for him, as Miles explained to me later, the final, most glorious, adventure. At hospice the day before he passed, Miles asked him, “Is there anything I can do for you?”
Tom Theobald smiled faintly, winked, and whispered, “Dig a hole!”
Dig a hole! And he winked, I tell you! That we should all show such pluck when our time draws nigh!
He went painlessly and quickly. Praise all the saints! Now Godspeed, old friend. You made your mark. We’ll likely not meet anyone quite like you, ever again.
