Ladies and Gentlemen, the humble tumbleweed…

You can see her mother’s bones beneath her. And what did the Sons of the Pioneers sing about her?

See them tumbling down
Pledging their love to the ground
Lonely but free I’ll be found
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.

We used to pick up their albums at the meat counter, next to the Green Berets soundtrack albums, while contemplating short rib roasts and what was going down in Vietnam, which felt very close, given that US Airforce fighter pilots were scrambling Canadian pilots at the bottom of the valley, making the dogs howl, and helicopter pilots bound for Vietnam were training daily on the wind sheers of Puddin’head Mountain, above town. But enough of that. Look at her today!

And what did Joan Baez say? I think she was listening to the Sons of the Pioneers. Here she goes…

Feel like a lonesome tumbleweed
turning end over end.
Once I pulled all my roots free
I became a slave to the wind,
a slave to the wind.

Lonesome? Gadzooks, folks, but I think these people never actually sat down with a tumbleweed in its glory days, or, better yet, two of them side by side…

They’re neither lonely nor enslaved, I’d say. And what does Afroman say about that? Ah, yes…

Uh baby please don’t nagg go and give me the zigzag
and ma problems will blow away like a plastic bag
But I gotta keep
Smoking and smoking and smoking on
I keep choking and choking and choking on
I keep selling and selling and inhaling
Ma tumbleweed

I, um, think it’s clear what he’s been smoking. He might just try looking for love.

Cuz the winter is coming.

What better day to put out a few flowers?