When I was about six years old I found a trumpet-shaped white flower with a purple center growing alongside the dirt road that ran next to our home. I picked it and when I sniffed it, the petals collapsed around my nose. I soon realized that the flower would stay on my nose without use of my hands as long as I kept inhaling and since I thought that was hilarious, I kept doing it over and over. Looking around as I stood there at the side of the dirt road, breathing in deeply to keep the flower stuck to my face, I saw hundreds of the same flowers. They were growing on vines that covered the other weeds and bushes; little bright white lights in a sea of green weeds. I picked a few and ran home to show them to my mother.
“It’s Morning Glory,” she said.
“Morning Lorrie?”
“Yes, Morning Glory,” she said.
I was amazed; a flower with my name, a Morning Lorrie! I had never heard of a flower called Lorrie before. Sure, we had geraniums, we had petunias – we even had a few marigolds – but I was the only Lorrie around. I told my mother that I thought that we should plant Morning Lorrie’s in our yard.
“Hmm….I don’t know about that,” she said, most people think Morning Glories are weeds.”
“I think they’re pretty. What Lorrie are they named for?”
“What?”
“What famous Lorrie are they named for?” I asked.
My mother started laughing. “No, not Morning Lorries. Morning Glories.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said, Morning Lorries.”
“No, not Lorries, Glories, with a ga sound.”
“Morning Glories?
“Yes, Morning Glories.”
Fall has come to Pennsylvania and my flower garden is almost spent. But last week my garden surprised me with one last hurrah – some volunteer pink Morning Glories appeared, daring to take on the fall weather. Although I haven’t planted Morning Glories in a few years, those that did grow a few years ago must have dropped some seeds that were still there, just waiting for their turn in the sun. Morning Lorries….they still make me smile and they still stick to my nose like a suction cup when I hold them to my nose and breathe in.
Volunteer Pink Morning Glory Lorrie
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