I recently read that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, but that the second best time is right now. That seemed very wise to me, so I planted a slender live oak in the back yard although, given the glacial growth rate of these trees, I don’t expect to be around long enough to see it cast a significant shadow over the house.
I chose the perfect spot and began to dig; at about the third shovelful I hit something big enough, and hard enough, that the impact reverberated up the shovel and into my teeth. I knew at once that this was too hard to be a tree root and too big to be a concrete post from the fence that use to bisect the yard. I began excavating, gingerly, with the care of an archeologist, and found what appeared to be a good sized concrete box buried in the back yard.
I kept digging: As near as I could tell the box was too big to be a coffin but too small to be anything else and I wondered if perhaps I had solved the mystery of Jimmy Hoffa, although how he would have gotten into my suburban back yard was a mystery in itself. Next I decided that Dorothy, the 94-year old widow who sold us the house, had buried a vast fortune in a back yard vault, although if she had a vast fortune she probably would have lived in a better neighborhood.
As I pondered our neighbor, Mr. Franklin, drove by; Mr. Franklin has lived in the neighborhood for almost 60 years and he knows everythng about its history. When I told him of my mysterious vault he just smiled. “It’s not a coffin,” he said. “It’s a septic tank.”
Mr. Franklin explained that back in the 50’s most Fort Lauderdale houses had septic tanks and now, of course, it made perfect sense because I remembered that when I was a kid our house had a toxic, faulty septic tank that was the bane of my parents’ existence.
In theory a septic tank in South Florida’s sandy soil should be very efficient and drain easily, but that was not the reality in my parents’ home. The tank clogged up on a regular basis and even casual passers-by would notice a swatch of lush, vibrant green lawn exactly four feet wide by six feet long surrounded by our otherwise pale and pasty back lawn.
I remembered that on laundry days soapsuds from the washer would magically appear on the back lawn and that when the wind was out of the west you did not want to have any windows opened on that side of the house, which was tough in the days before air conditioning. And how could I forget that the gas would regularly build up in the tank and when the pressure got to be too much the lawn over the tank would heave and quake like the sea prior to an eruption that sounded like a Godzilla-sized fart.
My parents, ever resourceful, went to great lengths to put less stress on the septic system. If we were out, anywhere, we were instructed to “go” before we went back home and once at home we were earnestly advised to “hold it” as long as possible. I remember on many occasions when a guest would ask if they could use the bathroom my parents would say “No!” And several times, when a guest insisted, I distinctly remember my mother asking, “Is it a Number One or a Number Two?” Then, sighong Momn would say, “Well, as long as it’s only a number 1 you can use it.” Then, as the horrified guest would head to the bathroom my father would shout, “Don’t flush!”
Now, remembering, I laughed out loud and saw Mr. Franklin’s confused look. “What’s so funny about a septic tank?” he asked. “Are you going to have it removed?”
I shook my head. “I’ll just plant the tree a couple feet away. Maybe the extra fertilizer will make it grow faster.”