The Texas Rose Rustlers

While I wait for the hat to arrive by UPS and for the Texas Rose Rustlers' annual Pearl Harbor Day rustle, I've been thinking about old roses, wondering what it is about them that keeps me -- and so many others -- interested. There's no denying that they are somehow a cut above other flowers. I have practically no memory, for instance, of the smell of the florist roses that sat on my desk all last week. And yet 28 years ago, when I was seven, I ran across a white rose bush in an abandoned lot, growing through the remains of an old boat house, and its fragrance still tantalizes me. What was that unroselike smell -- maple syrup?

Identifying that smell -- and that rose -- strikes me as an eminently worthwhile pursuit. I think this is because being around old roses is good for me. Old roses, by example, are full of instructions on how to live right. They stand for certain things I like to consider true. Such as:

1. There is more than one way to be beautiful.

2. Survival is a noble goal.

3. Good climates are in the eye of the beholder, not the tourism board.

4. If you are attacked by disease, abandonment or a bad chain of events, do not necessarily despair. There is always the chance you were bred to be tough.

5. Everyone should not smell the same.

Editor's note: Since this story was written, Pam Puryear has taken leave of the Texas Rose Rustlers, although she remains, according to Margaret Sharpe, a "life member." These days, Miz Puryear says she's feeling like a "heroine in a Faulkner novel" and involved in a new scavenging pursuit, the Pioneer Plant Society. "We're trying to collect old bulbs and shrubs -- just everything," she explains. "We go out with our little trowels and devastate the countryside.