an article about my uncle harvey was printed in the milwaukee journal sentinel august 13, 1995. it describes the oasis he created on his land following his accident better than I ever could …

so i transcribed what was written. enjoy!

[p.s. the above is a framed print of the original article, circa 1994]

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Stopping to smell (weed, fertilize and prune) the roses
written by Wisconsin story-teller Dennis McCann
[who i fully intend to reach out to for a follow-up]

Green Bay, Wis. –– In his wheelchair in his house in the country, Harvey Haugen spread his arms overhead and made an angel in the air, as we all have made angels in the snow.

It was what he did in the hospital during those long months eight years ago. That was after a Cadillac suddenly swerved where his motorcycle had been, bouncing Harvey overhead and then down hard on his tailbone, leaving him paralyzed from his chest down, his world newly shrunk to arm’s reach.

“When I was laying in bed,” he said, “this is how far I could reach for about five months – like an angel.“

“So I’m always trying to expand where I could go.”

It is that simple, his network of paths and gardens stretch for acres. He would not be confined.

• 

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Seed by seed, brick by brick,
he has created a whole
blooming world within his reach,
a living, growing, dynamic ––
and wheelchair-accessible environment
in which Haugen nurtures
countless varieties of plant life.

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His own, too. And, however unwillingly, those of deer that don’t know lilies from lunch.

“Look at this,” he said as we neared a hidden patch of brilliant orange and yellow. “The deer love these things, but for some reason they missed these. They’re slipping up.”

Or maybe he just grows so much now, even the deer can’t get it all.

“It really has gotten…” he had started to say earlier “…out of hand.”

[please note: if you read the full article above, i’ve intentionally omitted a character in this story. this is not a story for a villain but if it were, “she” would be one of them – along with the Cadillac driver, i suppose. i intend to leave them both unnamed.]

Haugen was a goer and a doer [two of my favorite words] before he was hurt. In high school in Green Bay he won seven varsity letter; he played softball, traveled widely, loved canoeing.

• 

• 

That may be what he misses most now. In the hospital, Haugen would shut his eyes and fantasize about paddling into Canada’s Old Woman Bay, remember where the rocks were and how beautiful it was in his old world.

The gardens started after his friends and family helped refit his house for a big man in a wheelchair. He had always liked gardens but his yard was just a postage stamp. When an adjoining 30 acres became available, he bought it with money he received from his settlement with the Cadillac’s driver.

Seed by seed, brick by brick. A path was begun from the house, then later was neatly bricked, so he could wheel himself to work. A bed was created, then another, then acres more. Paths were expanded, some in brick, others in hard-packed gravel on which Haugen could roll ever farther, into a patch of hardwoods, through a canopied glade, out onto the prairie where his flowers and vegetables prospered.

His tractor has been converted so he can ease off his chair and mount it from a ramp, but Haugen does much of his work right from his chair. He bought 100 8-foot cane poles and equips them with weed cutters, hoes and other tools. His paths run between and among the beds and so Haugen rolls between and among them as well, cutting and weeding and tending. In winter he uses a pole with a child’s plastic shovel on the end to clear the paths to his bird feeders.

• 

• 

“Sometimes if we get eight inches it takes me three days,” he said. “But it’s excellent, excellent exercise.”

He doesn’t do all of the work alone. His 84-year-old father, Henning, [aka Hen Dog] is the mower jockey, takes the bushels of extra vegetables to the local food bank when the garden grows too much and puts new paths in, too, when it is time for his son’s world to expand again.

“Gardening is like my job,” Harvey said. “I’m called medically retired –– I always say I’m taking care of a paraplegic; that’s a full-time job in itself –– but I always say gardening is my job.“

“It’s really rewarding. I love it. I almost consider working in the garden as my free time. I really get a kick out of starting something from seed.“

[we have that in common, harv. we really, really do.]