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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛИПЕНЬ - СЕРПЕНЬ 2 009 13 and canvas cots the kids took to Plast camp, our very first Wildwood beach umbrella, our son’s first tricycle with the bent wheel (I ran over it with a car), and some lace - up ski boots my husband and I used many m oons ago. Oh yes, let’s not forget the airline travel bag collection (I sometimes wonder how much I could get for a Pan Am bag on e - Bay or at a garage sale these days). And that pretty much takes care of the walls and the rafters. Most of the rest of the g arage space is taken up by gardening equipment because gardening is my husband’s number one hobby. It is a blessing that the collection of flower pots is stackable — if all those pots were put side by side, we’d have a flower pot ring that could encircle the planet. The collection grows every year. As people plant flowers at gravesites i n South Bound Brook, my husband takes the discarded pots and “recycles” them. To fill this multitude of pots, there are stacks and stacks of potting soil . . . “for we are the children of the black earth.” Two other items in our garage are worthy of mention — the most practical and the weirdest. Both were part of a pile or block of items my husband got at an auction. The practical item is a box of four dozen Tote men’s galoshes. We’ve given some of these to all male family members and friends. The mailman gets a pair every Christmas. The weird item is a carton of snail traps, made in China, and good only for trapping snails — somehow my husband has never gotten around to using them. The garage has one more interesting feature — it is equipped with an old stereo system, which adds to the ambience. The music helps the plants grow. If we had a cow, she would probably produce more milk. For years, I have wondered about why the garage is such a mess. My husband is a responsible man — he’s meticulous about his personal appear - ance, has excellent managerial skills and a great talent for business, so what gives? Then I remember my father - in - law. He lived in a city row house with no garage, but he had a cellar that looked exactly like our garage. And then I think of my own father, who lived in an apartment most of his life. He had no garage and no cellar, but I recall a closet that matched my husband’s garage and my father - in - law’s cellar perfect ly — always stuffed with absolutely useless junk. This musing led me to peek into my friends’ garages and sheds. I even took a look under some porches. And thus I made the following observation: The garages and sheds of my American neighbors are very clean, usually containing only a car and a garden hose. The garages of those of German ex - traction generally contain various domestic imple - ments but these are sorted and stored in meticulous order. An Asian friend has actually carped his garage, installing a pla stic pad for the car, which shares the space w ith the wife’s sewing machine. These contrasts brought me to a deep con - sideration of Sociology I & II. “Human societies or ethnic groups definitely develop characteristic pat - terns of behavior very much relat ed to their means of livelihood.” Agrarian societies cherish imple - ments and tools that aid them in tilling the soil. And because Ukraine has been an agrarian society for eons, I believe the Ukrainian male DNA carries a gene that reflects this. I call this the GAZDA gene (keep in mind that the word “gazda” means owner, master of the house, king of the cast le Ukrainian style). Centuries ago, the gene had a very specific function — making the male adaptable for a domesti - c ated and agrarian existence and ensuri ng self - reliance. Having been transferred from the pas toral setting of his ancestors to the urban setting of an industrialized country, however, the Ukrainian male retained the GAZDA gene, a hypothesis that is con - firmed by his need to have a special nook for hoard - ing anything and everything that provide s a feeling of domestic self - reliance and even im mor tality. My husband, my father, and my father - in - law all have or had the gene and were all biologic - ally programmed to gather and save, to store and ma intain all that is (or may one day be) necessary to ensure survival — just in case the Tat a rs return or we are confronted by some other Chorna Hodyna (Dark Hour). And the conclusion here is that I cannot make him clean the garage because the GAZDA gene is to o powerful to argue with. But I have drawn another conclusion from all this, one that somehow reminds me of a nursery rhyme . . . “rakes and pails and pumpkin seed trails . . . that’s what Ukie boys are made of.”
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