The Old Garden Cart

There was never anything fancy about the old garden cart. In fact, most would have retired it by now. Traded it in for an up-to-date model. But that wouldn't be an easy thing to do. You don't discard something just because it's worn-because it lost its shine-especially when it has served you well for forty some years. That's how it is with the old garden cart. Somehow and at some point it became more than a cart. It became a part of the family. And as family members grew old, so did that cart.

Back in its prime the garden cart served many purposes. Besides hauling weeds and shrubs and freshly picked vegetables and sand to refill a sandbox and leaves raked into piles and rocks dug out from the earth and fallen limbs whipped from trees, that garden cart hauled little children and kittens and a dog or two. Around and around a huge garden it would go-up and down a small hill-around a cluster of raspberry bushes and apple trees as giggles and laughter and barking and meowing drifted about an oversized yard. Sometimes a few of the older children would be the ones pulling the cart. Other times it would have been an adult. No matter who was doing the pulling, there were always calls to 'go faster' from those sitting in the cart and holding on as if they were at a carnival and going on a roller coaster ride.

There were quiet times spent in that cart as well. Sometimes one or two of those children would sit in it and play. They'd go nowhere. They'd simply play with kittens or read books or color. Sometimes the cart would be turned upside down and used as a secret cabin-a hideaway in the middle of the yard. Many a peanut butter and jelly sandwich were enjoyed in that cart as adventures unfolded and the cart turned in to whatever a little child imagined it to be.

Due to its constant use-the wear and tear-and uncontrollable weather conditions, the old garden cart has had many repairs and tweaks and overhauls and paint jobs. But its still going. It's still in use hauling weeds and freshly picked vegetables and sand to refill a sandbox-picking up leaves and fallen limbs whipped from trees. But now a sandbox is occupied by grandchildren. And the grandchildren are the ones being pulled about a garden, sitting in the old garden cart, laughing just like the generation before them had done-laughing as they ask to 'go faster', holding on as if they're at a carnival and going on a roller coaster ride.