You win, Jim! Sent from Ellen's iPhone > On Mar 16, 2020, at 2:03 PM, Jim McKenney via pbs <pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > > So, Martin uncovers a hedgehog, Ellen disturbs a bumblebee, I sometimes encounter the small garden amphibians and reptiles. But the "you should have been wearing gloves" experience which I'll never forget because it might have ended my life came in the habitat of the traviat members of my own species: I was down in the inner city when it was dark . It was the height of the AIDS crisis. and I was passing through a neighborhood known for drug and prostitution activity. I was walking along a handsome hedge of some thorny, broad leaved evergreen. with little berries. I decided to collect some of the berries from the ground. I got down on all fours and began to palp the leaf litter on the ground. Suddenly I felt a prick. It was not a thorn, it was not a bumblebee, it was a discarded hypodermic syringe. Stunned, I stood up, asking myself how I could have been so stupid, This was forty years or so ago: back in those days, an AIDS diagnosis was a death sentence. I was confused, I didn't know what to do, As it turned out, I was also lucky. Jim McKenneyMontgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where Magnolia Caerhays Belle is blooming. > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…