Sunflowers and chicken bones

For the dignity of my lineage and that of the government agency my progenitor proudly serves for, I have decided to blank out his visage. I don't know when the gigantor sunflower obsession began, but I'm sure it was sometime after those summers I used to visit, sat on that stoop and carelessly tossed sunflower seeds into the flower bed, after which, a lovely crop of sunflowers would rise up around mid-July.

Then one summer, I visited home and was greeted by the sight of these appallingly formidable blossoms like dandelion soldiers scolding down at me from every nook and cranny. To the side of the garage - overpowering the tulip bed, in front of the kitchen sink window - blocking the view, maybe even growing through a crack in the asphalt...

They are everything my father loves and hates about this country - big, excessive, pretentious, audacious. This picture reminds of that scene in this arthouse movie where an Italian immigrant desperately wants to move to America, showing pictures family sent home of them standing next to tomatoes the size of carriages and riding zucchinis like broncos. And of course, those rice farmers in Thailand and Laos will want to know... Just how do my father's sunflowers grow that big? Is it crisp northern air and thick clay soil? Genetically enhanced fertilizer only superpower countries have access to? No... He swears by the chicken bones. What I've forgotten to mention is that every once in a while, Canyon and I would be in the garden and come upon a what seemingly would be a ghastly discovery of skeletal remains, if we did not already know that my dad sneaks out after ever family bbq with the plate of chicken bones, and surreptitiously bury them underneath a weak looking plant, confident in having rescued the sapling from near death with a quick boost of homemade fertilizer. Unfortunately, this formula has worked neither on me nor my sister, although I'm sure my brother was fed ground chicken bone meal as a baby, who at 5'8" is 8" taller than both mom and dad.

As an ode to dad, we planted the sunflower bed of his dreams:

Let the barbeques begin!!