The Fig Tree Story
I guess dad fancied himself to be a rancher or a farmer at one point. He had worked on a farm when he was a kid-bucking hay. He was big and very strong for his age. It was good for him and good for the farmer. He had no money to buy land, he had no inheritance to gain land, he had just this side of no hope to be able to realize that dream. But dreams are free and he kept it alive in the back of his mind and every once in a while the dream would just fall right out of his mouth and we kids would hear about it. So, since he didn't have a farm or a ranch but was a home owner with a little bit of a back yard, he planted a garden, raised chickens (until the neighbors complained too bitterly and with no animal rights they had to go) and planted whatever tree he could. One tree he eventually planted was a dwarf fig tree. He ordered it from one of those seed mail order catalogs. He dug the hole just right, nourished it just right and watered it just right. It grew. In its fourth year it wa...