Save the Joebells.
· by Roy Edlund
I love joebells.
There was a cluster of them growing in the yard near where we lived in South Nags Head, that I shot every morning. Yes, I talked with them, praised their beauty and resilience. They were my neighbors and we were friends.
One morning I was sitting in the morning air, on my deck, when an old rickety pickup truck toting a trailer full of lawn mowers and assorted landscape tools pulled up to the yard next door.
I sipped my coffee and surveilled like the neighborhood watch commander.
Anyway, this guy gets on his zero turn mower and gets to work cutting the grass in the front yard. And to my surprise, this guy just ran over the joebells in the front yard, scattering their remains unceremoniously to the wind, without a moments hesitation.
I jumped up from my chair and bolted down the stairs, (that's probably a literary dramatic license right there, as I don't move that quick) and it was probably funny to see.
Anyway, i quickly grabbed my shovel and went over to the cluster of joebells explaining the danger they were in.
We agreed it was an emergency and so I drove the shovel into the sand and dug up the main cluster.
I carried it to the safety of my yard and quickly went back for another clump, like a guy running into a burning building.
The guy on the mower advanced on the backyard and stopped in his tracks watching me walking with a cluster of joebells in my shovel.
He didn't say a word, he just looked at me like I was a crazy old man in a tiedye shirt.
I always imagined that's a story to start a movement, Save the Joebells. Love from here. ❤️
Prints of the photos in this post are available in the Beach Bum Gallery on paper, canvas and metal.