Felder's Nov. 7th Column

Felder's column this week reminds me of someone I knew growing up. She lived - still does, actually - next to my parents and has a beautiful, beautiful yard, all of which - front and back - is one big garden. She was kind, too, passing along plants to the neighbors and other friends. But she had one uncontrolable impulse: pulling weeds! I would watch every time she wandered into our yard to speak to somebody. Mid-sentence her eye would catch a weed, a little patch of dead grass, something she thought shouldn't be there. She always tried to resist, but it usually wasn't 10 minutes before she would calmly say, as she bent to pick or pull whatever had been stealing an ever-increasing measure of her attention: "Excuse me. I just can't leave that be." I think, somehow, she must live on Felder's street, too. Click here for his most recent Clarion Ledger column.