If one lives in a small town in East Texas, one hears about the Azalea Trail. As it turns out, my husband’s small town in Louisiana also had an Azalea Trail. At an early age, living only one hundred miles apart we both learned to appreciate the same thing. We knew “The Azalea Trail” was a big deal in our small towns. This particular blossom trail lasted…it still does…about a month, running from about early March to early April. There were awards and the best gardens were featured in the paper.
When I was young and he was young, the Azalea Trails in our small towns were marked on maps in the newspaper with their must see blooms. In my case, on a Sunday afternoon drive, mom and dad would pile us kids in the back seat and daddy would dutifully follow mom’s directions.
“But we already have azaleas. Why are we going to look at these?” someone would protest. Yes, we had a brick planter box that lined the living room and dining room side of the house. It was filled with them.
“Go past the cemetery and make a right on Broadway,” my mother would tell Dad. “When you get to the park make a left.”
This wasn’t so bad. Passing Bergfeld Park reminded us to let mom and dad know that when we finished the sightseeing we could combine flowers with a stay at the park. As mom and dad enjoyed the view, the four of us were looking forward to coasting down the slides, pumping the swings as high as we could go, and getting as dizzy as we could stand it on the merry-go-round. We could have parked and walked several blocks of the trail, but my parents always opted to drive and sightsee, then stop at Bergfeld Park where us kids could then play out the energy that we had contained in the car.
Just after the park on College St. we would see them, big bushes of pink, fuchsia and white blossoms. One street led to another. We really didn’t need a map. All we had to do was follow the red, pink and white blankets of blossoms. They hugged the houses and trees and lined the walkways and sidewalks.
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With memories of our small towns, Rick and I were delighted that we inherited some beautiful azalea bushes when we moved into our present home some 25+ years ago. Over the years they grew and came to shroud the island garden in the center of our front yard. Easter pictures, prom pictures, family reunion pictures in March and early April always included the blooms as a background.
But then our drought of 2011 wiped out our huge blossoming light pink and fuchsia bushes. Thankfully the white ones remain, almost as a peace offering from Mother Nature. I’ll give you the white, but I must take the pink, she seems to say this spring.
Yesterday, out of the blue, I received a call from my husband. He had left the house for his afternoon walk in our nearby park.
“I’m sending you something and I think you’ll like it. Check your e-mail,” he told me.
This is what he sent me.
"Thought you might like this 
" his e-mail read. photo by rsullins--another keeper from his amazing smartphone
