I don't know how many years Publisher's Clearing House has been around, but I've been getting six to ten entry notifications from them every year since before time began.  I told one of my friends that I would be a millionaire today if I had invested the money I spent on stamps sending those entry forms back to them.

I don't do the lottery, scratch tickets or casinos or any kind of gambling, but PCH has my number.  I keep sticking stamps on their envelopes and mailing them back.

So I was surprised on Saturday when I was given a ticket at the OSU Gardening class I attended and my number was called.  Ann and I had enrolled, paid our fees and spent six hours learning how not to kill your plants.  Out of 200 people, they called my ticket.  I won a small vial of Bachelor Button seeds.  Whoopee.

I will plant them.  These are one of "Board" the approved flowers for Oklahoma.  Guaranteed to grow.  The last ones I saw in bloom were in Wilburton, Oklahoma back when I was a child.  My grandmother lived in a small four room house with a tiny yard that she had completely covered with flowers--so she didn't have to mow.  She had no grass at all.  Just Bachelor Buttons, Holly-hawks, Snapdragons, Tiger Lilies, and every other kind of flower that would reseed itself each year.

There is nothing as blue as a Bachelor Button.  And they are supposed to be impossible to kill.  We'll see.  I hope they grow.  I hope they bloom.  I hope they aren't some freak hybrid that is yellow.  I hope they are blue.

Strange how something can take you back to your childhood.  I haven't thought about Bachelor Buttons in fifty years or more.  And once I started thinking about my grandmother's yard, I started thinking about her hot rolls--I can almost smell the yeast as they rose before she put them in the oven.  And that thought sent my mind wandering to another.....Nobody bakes bread anymore except my friend Kathy   She used to bring me a pan of hot rolls when she would bake.  And I would eat the whole pan.  Well, Ken would eat some of them, but I certainly finished them off.  But Kathy lives in Pryor so I don't get them anymore.   Friends and memories are priceless.