In 1996 I was awarded FrancePress’s Prix d’Excellence for my guide to France published by Fielding Worldwide. I didn’t know about the award until my brother Jon told me. He’d learned from a patient who’d brought to his office a copy of the magazine in which the prize was announced.
Though few others noticed the award, it has nevertheless allowed me ever since to call myself—and better yet to have others call me—an award-winning travel writer.
But 1996 was a long time ago and that Fielding book had a short shelf life, so for a while there being referred to as an award-winning writer felt like I was trying to get mileage from winning honorary mention in a 9th-grade essay contest.
Imagine then my pride and relief when last year I received a second award for travel writing, making me not only a double award-winning writer but a recent award-winning writer.
I am therefore proud, relieved, and honored to crow about my new award for travel writing: the New Jersey Native Garden Award.
My first award referred to my work as “informative and entertaining,” which may seem to have more gravity than the “charming and delightful” of this second award. Nevertheless these new adjectives are a welcome addition to my resume.
This latest award refers to the Arbor Day piece that I posted on this page one year ago. In it I express the hope and pleasure of planting a sprig of silky dogwood last April. The certificate announcing the award was accompanied by a letter from Ginger Young, president of the West Trenton Garden Club, in which she wrote, “I hope the Silky Dogwood is doing well… Mine is about 4’ high now.”
Well, it turns out my sprig was gone before the award arrived.
I’m pretty sure the guy on the lawnmower seen over my shoulder in the photo below was to blame. He claimed he never saw it, which sounds like evidence to me.
That picture was taken yesterday, Arbor Day 2010. Like last year at this time I was in West Trenton, New Jersey visiting family and it was a beautiful spring day. This year I wanted to honor the day while also doing something to halt erosion of the lake on my brother’s property. So, having planted 10 junipers along water’s edge earlier in the week, I planted 10 more yesterday.
While shoveling holes I may or may not have cut the wire to that lamp post beside me in the picture. I can’t tell because no one seems to know where the switch is anymore.
I don’t expect to receive an award for this year’s Arbor Day piece, however I do expect the junipers, at least some of them, to last longer than the silky dogwood. And what does a juniper need with recognition as long as it has a place to grow.
(c) 2010, Gary Lee Kraut