With his hands and heart, man's gardens sprouted seeds of hope
By Betty DeRamus / The Detroit News
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
Copyright 2002 .
Just for today, forget about all those chief executives who left Kmart, ImClone, Worldcom, Enron and other troubled companies carrying suitcases crammed with cash.
Just for today, stop day-dreaming about what you'd like to do to all those foolish or self-centered folks who leave their kids alone in cars while getting film developed, returning packages or having their hair and nails done.
Just for today, think about a guy named Gerald Hairston, who was far from rich but understood the power of traditions and trees.
The 54-year-old Detroiter died last July, but I'm still not sure exactly how to describe what he did. Some people battle blight with cans of paint, hammers and shovels. Hairston helped rescue neighborhoods with patches of roses, plots of tomatoes and hope. Some people called Hairston a "visionary urban ecologist." Others labeled him a master gardener. To me, he was a man who worked simple miracles with his hands and heart.
Hairston's friends and family will celebrate his life from 4-8 p.m. on Aug. 3, on the grounds of Detroit's Genesis Lutheran Church at Mack Avenue and East Grand Boulevard.
The event will include a harvest dance created by community performing artist and choreographer Nobuko Miyamoto. Youth groups are already learning the steps. The Genesis Choir will sing, and local musicians will perform. However, I'm pretty sure the highlight will be the stories people stand up and tell about Hairston.
This was a man who used gardens as though they were weapons in the war to save neighborhoods.
He used gardens to lure frightened people out of their homes. He used them to show people what they could accomplish with bags of flower seeds and pride. He
even chased away drug customers by piling horse manure and fertilizer at drug dealers' doors.
A longtime volunteer for the Detroit Agricultural Network, an urban 4-H program, Hairston also created gardening projects that brought together Detroit seniors and kids. One generation taught another how to live in harmony with the land and each other.
He was especially proud of grass-roots activists such as east sider Lillian Clark. At one time, Clark and her friends didn't dare sit on front porches in their neighborhood swarming with pistol-carrying crack peddlers.
Then Clark and other seniors within a one-block area began planting green beans, corn, peas, tomatoes, celery, okra, lettuce, geraniums and more than 30 kinds of roses on a vacant lot.
Hairston, who organized the seniors, understood that flower beds on a block send a powerful message to drug dealers and muggers. They are a sign that people care about and watch over their communities.
"(Clark) bought one (lot) right next to her house, and the rest evolved," Hairston told me in 2000. "Different folks took a section of the garden. It was a means of drawing that community together. We call it the ripple in the pond effect."
Maybe that's the best way to describe Gerald Hairston.
He was that ripple in the pond, and the waves he made still surge, dance, shine and inspire.
Betty DeRamus writes for The Detroit News on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Call her at (313) 222-2620 or e-mail bderamus@detnews.com.
