Dallas and dirt

To be fair, those two things aren’t really linked, except in my headline.  The rain in Lawrence is making my yard smell…well…I guess I wrote it best in RAIN ROMP.  The whole world smells like dark, wet dirt. 

So I’m thinking about dirt while I pack my bags for Dallas, where I’ll be signing at a B&N in Plano at 3:00 on Sunday and a Borders in Allen at 7:00 on Sunday and at the American Girl store on Monday afternoon.

I’ve always been fond of dirt, since my dad plucked a potato from his garden in Ethiopia, rubbed most of the dirt off, and cut a slice for me with his pocket knife.  My siblings and I grew up spending most of our days outside in Maji, Ethiopia, where our parents took the attitude, “What’s a little dirt?” 

That attitude seems to have gotten passed on to our children and now grandchildren.  I have quite a collection of pictures that I’ve been sticking in my Power Point presentations to illustrate the power of lovely, compelling, to-be-celebrated…dirt.

To also be fair, it was my editor who alerted me to the fact that there’s such a thing as state dirt.   As Lanie and Aunt Hannah are digging for their first garden, Aunt Hannah asks, “Did you know that Massachusetts has a state soil to go with its state flower and state bird?”

Lanie thinks that she knows the state flower (mayflower) and state bird (black-capped chicadee) and even state reptile (garter snake).  “But a state soil?  ‘I didn’t even know soil had names,’ I said.”

Can you name the Massachusetts state soil?  Or the Texas state soil?  Or, for that matter, the Kansas state soil?

Ah…dirt.