Greg Grant

On more than one occasion, I’ve been chastised about my utilitarian wardrobe. As a lifelong gardener, I learned to always pick clothes the color of grass and dirt. After all, that’s what color they are going to be when I take them off.

I used to watch “Captain Kangaroo” as a kid, not to see the Captain, but to get to see Mr. Green Jeans. Mr. Green Jeans was played by Hugh Brannum. He was a musician of all things. His trademark garb on the Captain’s show was his overalls and later green jeans by the time I watched him. His obituary said “he charmed millions of children,” and I was certainly one of them. Each show he’d feature a different tidbit about plants, caring for the earth or a new animal addition to the farm. Whatever Mr. Green Jeans was serving, I ate it up.

Like my Granny Ruth, I was born to love plants and animals. After all, plants provide us food, fiber, energy, clean air and water, birds, butterflies, beauty, and in my case, a job and hobby. I’m convinced that gardeners and farmers live longer because they know they can’t die. There’s way too much work to be done keeping plants and animals alive and healthy to let our own lives slip away.

I’m not a parent, but I’ve convinced it’s healthy for young folks to nurture delicate living things. It’s so easy these days to get caught up in 1,001 ways of keeping themselves spoiled, overindulged and self absorbed. I find it hard to believe that young people now will run through a virtual field or forest but not take the time to go outside and experience the real thing. So many of them seem convinced that all plants are poisonous, all animals bite and everything outside is dirty. Good grief. In my opinion we’ve actually devolved from being hunters and gatherers. What kind of human can’t feed himself? I can’t even imagine not producing my own food. And what’s wrong with getting dirty? If mud and manure killed, I would have died years ago!

Kids need appropriate role models — preferably ones not trying to sell them something, lead them astray or get them hooked on the latest overpriced gadget.

Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo) once described Hugh Brannum (Mr. Green Jeans) as an “uncomplicated agrarian type who loved to putter in his own garden.” Though kids today would probably laugh at Mr. Green Jeans, I couldn’t have picked a better television role model.

Greg Grant is the Smith County horticulturist with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. You can follow him on Facebook at “Greg Grant Gardens.” He writes a monthly blog titled “Greg’s Ramblings” at arborgate.com and writes “In Greg’s Garden” for Texas Gardener magazine (texasgardener.com).